Mulino dell’Abate and Santa Maria a Cerbaia
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Mulino dell’Abate
At the end of the road is Mulino dell’Abate, or The Abbot’s Mill, a holding of the Abbey of Passignano since the 11th century. The monastery, in great expansion during the course of the 12th century, gained the rights in 1175 and again in 1181 from the da Poppiano family to build new grain and cloth mills on the lands above Sambuca. The Abbey eventually won supremacy of the river Pesa, despite the opposition of the parish priests of San Pietro in Bossolo who had up until then controlled the river, by taking advantage of a period of severe financial hardship for the parish church. The Mulino dell’Abate was rebuilt in the 13th century over the ruins of an earlier building. The mill, enlarged several times during the course of the centuries, was still in use up to the middle of the 20th century.
Santa Maria a Cerbaia
The small Romanesque Church of Santa Maria was one the properties donated by Count Landolfo da Monterinaldi to his bride, Aldina degli Ubaldini, in 1043. In the 19th century it became the private oratory of the La Cappella estate. The gabled facade has been heavily restored, whereas the rear, with its narrow window now walled up, is original. The inside houses a Madonna and Child with Angels, a copy, itself antique, of a painting by the late 14th century painter Giovanni da Ponte. Above the altar is a 17th century wooden Crucifix and on the walls hangs a ceramic Via Crucis, by the contemporary sculptor Erminio Gualandis.
Leaving Badia behind the road continues straight ahead until it forks: the left leads to Santa Maria a Macerata, in the municipality of San Casciano, and the right eventually joins the Strada del Poggio Testalepre. A short way down this road, on the left and slightly off the path, is the Cappella dei Pesci; further still, is the house where Il Passignano was born.
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Return to San Casciano in Val di Pesa