In Search of Solitude: The Abbey of San Salvatore di Monte Corona

Surrounded by a thick forest, the Abbey of San Salvatore di Monte Corona welcomes visitors into its intimate and evocative atmosphere.

San Romualdo in un particolare della *Crocifissione con i santi* di Beato Angelico (Museo nazionale di San Marco, Firenze)

The Abbey of Monte Corona was probably founded by San Romualdo in the distant 1008 and its genesis is therefore linked to the Camaldolese order of which the monk and abbot was a promoter. San Romualdo reformed the Benedictine monastic institute in the face of his continuous search for solitude, necessary to practice devotion to God. Before going to Tuscany and starting the Camaldolese order, he spent seven years in Umbria, exploring uninhabited areas of the Apennine ridge and founding places of worship and meditation including the Abbey of Santa Maria di Sitria in the Monte Cucco Park and, indeed, the Abbey of San Salvatore di Monte Corona. Furthermore, around 1050, San Pier Damiani, who was the first biographer of San Romualdo, worked in the abbey, which today falls within the Municipality of Umbertide.

The upper church, in Romanesque style, was consecrated in 1105 and has three naves embellished with 14th-century frescoes of the Umbrian school. The apse, built in Gothic style, has a valuable ornate ciborium from the 8th century. Directly below, the crypt, called Santa Maria delle Grazie, multiplies the spaces of the upper church, presenting five naves and three apses, with cross vaults supported by Roman and medieval columns that suggest – like the characteristic polygonal bell tower visible on the outside – the presence of a pre-existing site intended for different uses.

Dettaglio delle colonne della cripta. Foto di Diego Baglieri

Chiesa superiore, foto di Diego Baglieri

Not far from the abbey and built as its ideal continuation, there is the sixteenth-century hermitage. If the abbey was the center of economic activities, the hermitage was the symbol of the spiritual life of the community, as well as the emblem of the philosophy of San Romualdo, focused on the search for solitude and mystical places in which to gather in prayer. The building, around which votive shrines bloom, is connected both to the abbey and to a chapel dedicated to San Savino by a road made of sandstone blocks built entirely by the monks, called the mattonata.

After a series of vicissitudes, the monastery resumed its religious function and is currently administered by the friars of the Monastic Family of Bethlehem, of the Assumption of the Virgin and of Saint Bruno. The hermitage is partly inaccessible, although it is possible to visit the oratory adorned with icons made by the monks and the external part, which teaches the secrets of monastic life in the different phases of the day.