The path to Italy’s past runs through its ancient monasteries
Across the Italian countryside, sacred religious spots are offering tranquility to a new generation of travelers.
David Gagrčić first set eyes on the Italian sanctuary of La Verna on a school trip in 1994. Raised in Croatia to an Italo-Croatian family, Gagrčić was just 14 years old at the time, but it was there at this friary nestled in the mountains of Tuscany that his life changed forever.
“It filled my heart,” he says. “The scent of the wood inside has always stayed with me. God spoke to me.”
Gagrčić felt a calling inspired by La Verna. He took vows as a Franciscan friar and spent a year in training at the sanctuary in 2001. After two decades of postings to friaries around Tuscany and a year in Jerusalem, he returned to the mountain as Brother David, a Franciscan friar and vicar of La Verna.
Founded by early followers of St. Francis in 1260, the sanctuary is one of hundreds of monasteries and friaries in Italy open to the public. These monasteries are often part of the cenobitic tradition based on the concept of “life in common.” But as these ancient Christian communities work to stay relevant in the modern world, their traditions are also evolving. The buildings and sites overseen by those like Gagrčić are now destinations themselves, welcoming travelers of all religious backgrounds seeking the serenity of Italy’s countryside and mountains, away from the bustling urban tourist hubs.
For almost 15 centuries, monasteries, friaries, and sanctuaries have welcomed visitors to worship, eat, stay the night, or simply enjoy the views. The practice dates back to the medieval period, when Italy was the home of countless hermits and groups of monaci (monks) and frati (brothers or friars) who sought God through community. Medieval monasteries regularly hosted overnight guests, providing a safe place to stay for all.
“St. Benedict said to welcome guests as Christ himself,” says Dom Maurizio Vivera, prior of the Sanctuary of the Sacro Speco (“holy cave”), a monastery grafted to the rock face in the central mountains of Lazio, where the saint lived as a hermit in the early sixth century. St. Benedict’s directive, Vivera adds, applies to everyone, including people who come to the monastery solely for the beauty. “He said that a hello isn’t enough—you have to give them everything you can. That became the cardinal point of the [Benedictine] order.”
Visitors looking for contemplation, art, and food can drive, hike, and, in the case of La Verna, even snowshoe toward an encounter with modern spirituality.
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Found in Tuscany’s National Park of the Casentinesi Forests, Mount Falterona, and Campigna, La Verna welcomes around 600,000 visitors each year, Gagrčić estimates, and is indelibly linked to St. Francis, who was gifted this mountain as a place of retreat by a noble in 1213. The saint would come to the area to roam the mountain, meditating in caves and on rocks. It is where, in 1224, he is said to have received the stigmata—the wounds of Christ’s Crucifixion marked on his hands, feet, and side. The centuries roll back on the seven-minute stroll from the parking area, as rippling mountains furred with a thick canopy of silver firs and beeches glisten in gold each fall. By the time visitors reach the monastery—which clings to the cliffside, the abyss falling beneath it—it’s as if they have arrived in the 13th century, when Francis’s followers started construction after his death.
Descending the cliff, down 89 precipitous steps, visitors will reach a liminal space of moss-slicked boulders, among the same that Francis communed with in the 1220s. He is said to have preferred one rock—cleaved down the middle, an echo of the heavens rending when Christ died on the Cross—to pray on. For Gagrčić, this area, not the monastery above, is La Verna’s true sanctuary.
“Many come in search of something spiritual in a generic sense—there are a lot of people looking for something,” he says.
At La Verna, says Gagrčić, “our mission is moving from the church to the guesthouse.” Once the monastery gates close for the evening, amid the hoots of owls and the songs of birds beloved by St. Francis, overnight guests can connect with their own version of the divine. The Casentinesi Forests are often dubbed the Sacred Forests because of their centuries-long monastic presence.
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Not all Italian monasteries allow overnighting. Not all have monks or friars either. The Sacra di San Michele floats above the clouds in the Piedmont Alps, an aerie over the Susa Valley 3,150 feet below. Its sinuous battlements melt into the mountain, as if wrapping the landscape in an embrace—an architectural symbol that echoes ancient depictions of the Madonna of Mercy sweeping her cloak around the faithful. The monastery was dissolved in 1622, but priests from the Rosminian order moved back in the 19th century to relight a spiritual spark, says Elisa Ravarino, a guide at the site. Today’s pilgrims are joined by travelers intrigued by the spectacular location and hikers who slog up from the valley on medieval footpaths.
As Dom Maurizio suggests, Benedictine monasteries are perhaps the most experienced at welcoming outsiders—each must have a foresteria (guesthouse). But there are some modern interpretations. At the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, in the famous dimpled hills south of Siena, guests can sleep in converted barns at the organic farm. “Our order’s motto is ‘Ora et Labora—Pray and Work,’ ” says Dom Andrea Santus. “We’ve produced wine, oil, and everything else uninterrupted for 700 years.”
The monastery is also famous for its art—a cloister is frescoed with scenes from the life of St. Benedict by Renaissance masters Luca Signorelli and Il Sodoma—as well as the Gregorian chants sung throughout the day. “The first time I came here I was astonished by the beauty, the richness of the art, and the presence of these men who lived in this very particular style,” says Father Andrea. “There are more than a thousand years of history in their rituals.”
That sense of spectacle and serenity initially overwhelmed Michele Busillo, a tour guide who arrived at Monte Oliveto Maggiore as an art history student. A lapsed Catholic, Busillo nonetheless found a special energy on the grounds. “For the first time, Sodoma’s paintings weren’t a picture on a page—I saw everything surrounded by the landscape in which he painted them,” he says. “You pass through a wood, cypresses, and when you emerge, your soul, spirit, whatever you believe in, becomes more relaxed. You can have a kind of reconciliation with your soul.”
While monasteries across Europe face a diminishing number of recruits, together these sanctuaries form an Italy-wide network of places of reflection and portals to the past. And whether it’s the art of Monte Oliveto Maggiore or the unspoiled forests of St. Francis, they offer a quieter, more spiritual experience than most visitors will find in Italy’s great city churches and cathedrals.
Find your monastery
If an evening of meditative reflection is needed, book an overnight stay at La Verna sanctuary and wander the grounds, set within the Casentinesi Forests. It is in these same woods that St. Francis communed with nature and founded the small church of Santa Maria degli Angeli eight centuries ago. Book your stay at laverna.it.
Should you need your spirituality with a side of stunning views and a dose of literary and cinematic history, look no further than the Sacra di San Michele. Towering over the Susa Valley, the abbey was the inspiration for Umberto Eco’s 1980 classic novel The Name of the Rose and the ensuing film adaptation starring Sean Connery. Hours vary seasonally but can be found along with entry tickets at sacradisanmichele.com.
