VALLOMBROSA. – Abbey of St Mary of the Assumption of V., of the Vallombrosan Benedictine monks (v.). It is situated at about 1,000 m. above sea level in the municipality of Reggello, province of Florence, in the foothills of Pratomagno, on the slope of Monte di Secchiata in the Tuscan sub-Apennines.
St Ita, abbess of St Hilary in Alfano (St Ellero), granted a plot of land at the locality Acquabella to St John Gualbert, who retired there with some companions in 1030; only after the monks had reclaimed the site, planting woods of firs, beeches, etc., did the place take the name of V.
It began as an hermitage protected by palisades, with isolated wooden cells arranged around a small wooden church roofed with branches; but it soon grew so large that on 9 July 1051 Cardinal Umberto consecrated the
Recently the monks have recovered possession of part of the monastery. The central part of the abbey is formed by the cloister or main court, with four vaulted corridors; a door leads into the transept of the church, whose façade is the work of Abbot T. Davanzati, of 1644. Above the triumphal arch is the statue of the Blessed Virgin; in a niche between the two doors is the statue of St John Gualbert. The interior is a single nave with a ceiling of depressed arches; the decorative paintings are by G. Fabbrini (1750). In the presbytery eight columns support the dome, frescoed by the same painter in 1780. The stalls of the 15th century, coming from the abbey of St Pancras in Florence, are above those of Francesco da Poggibonsi. At the far end, above the altar, is the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, a work by Il Volterrano. In the transept is the little chapel of St John Gualberto, of 1697; on the altar is the reliquary arm containing the silver reliquary with enamels and precious stones, a work of F. Soliano of 1500; the chapel called dei Dieci Beati, erected in 1757, with an antechamber and choir, stands on the spot where in 1600 the tombs of the first ten blessed of the Order were discovered. From here come the large panel by Perugino (1500) now in the Uffizi in Florence, representing above the Assumption and below St Bernardino, St John Gualbert, St Michael the Archangel and St Anthony, as well as the two small panels with the portraits of the patron Abbot Milanesi and the monk Baldassarre. Pope Pius XII, by an apostolic letter of 18 November 1950, conferred the title and privileges of a minor basilica on the church of St Mary of the Assumption (AAS, 43 [1951], pp. 426–28).
To the north-east of the corridor of the main court is the abbot’s quarters. The great corridor of the monks’ dormitory was erected in 1609–10. The library was built by A. Parigi in 1584, but its manuscripts and books were removed at the time of the suppression. There is a large painting representing the donation made by Matilda of Canossa to St Bernard degli Uberti, executed by A. Mascagni in 1609. The fountain of St John Gualbert is a Baroque construction of 1629, as is the adjacent little chapel. The forest is the work of the monks and was tended by them until 1866, when it passed to state ownership and to the forestry administration which occupies part of the present monastery; it was celebrated by Ariosto and by Lamartine. The ancient guesthouse within the monastery has now been turned into a hotel. The hermitage of Islecelle, or Paradisino, on the hill to the left of the monastery, is the place occupied in the 11th century by some monks who took refuge there to live the eremitical life in small cells dug into the mountain. Now only an oratory remains, erected in the 17th century in memory of the Blessed Migliore da Valgiano of the 12th century. On the façade an inscription in cord records Milton’s stay there, mentioning V. in his Paradise Lost. From the oratory come the two panels with St Michael the Archangel and St John Gualbert, St John the Baptist and St Bernard degli Uberti, by Andrea del Sarto, now in the Uffizi Galleries in Florence.
The abbey archives, besides being at V., because of the residence of the abbots in various other monasteries, remained in part at those of St Michael of Passignano, Ripoli, St Mina in Florence, St Michael of Forcella in Pistoia, St Michael of Forlì, St Lawrence of Cutuboni, and in the 19th century also in Rome at St Praxedes, served by the same Vallombrosan monks, where however the Registrum was destroyed. Part is now in the State Archive in Florence (cf. Arch. stor. ital., 5th ser., 32 [1903]), part in the National Library and part in the Biblioteca Riccardiana.