The Blog of VisitMontaione.com|All the news about Montaione and Tuscany

We have just published the new events calendar of Estate Montaione 2008. Like every year, the calendar is rich of festivals and events dedicated to the music (like the Classic music concerts in San Vivaldo, or the live music in the historical centre), shows, sport and above all to typical products of Montaione (like the handicrafts, wine and oil tasting carried out in the historical centre every Tuesday).
During these events, visited by many tourist that have chosen Montaione as place for their holidays in Tuscany, the shops of the historical centre will be open until late evening.

Between the many thing to visit in Tuscany, there is one in the territory of Montaione that is truly beautiful.
In fact, it worth a visit to the Monastery and Holy Mount of San Vivaldo, situated few chilometers away from Montaione, that represent an interesting place of the religious and artistic heritage of Tuscany and Italy dated back to the XV century.

Website: www.sanvivaldointoscana.com

One of the many visitors that every year come in Tuscany to visit San Vivaldo, Mr. Alberto Silvestro has decided to write us his feedback about the Holy Mount.

The first Holy Mount I met in my life was in 1992.. I was in S. Giulio d’Orta with some friends of mine. We took the opportunity to visit and admire that Holy Mount. Later I found that Vittorio Sgarbi had written a study about it, with a lot of wonderful photos, published by a famous editor in Parma. I didn’t see any more for a long time and afterwards I visited other Holy Mounts only reading books and catalogues. At last the seventh May of this year I read a guide-book of Italian Touring Club about beautiful villages and little cities of Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio and Abruzzo.. So I planned a visit to San Miniato, including a trip to Montaione and San Vivaldo’s monastery, leaving from Fucecchio.
When we arrived to San. Vivaldo, suddenly we saw many little chapels. No one was there. We walked a little to find the monastery. Before we arrived we heard voices coming from the first chapel. We went in and found twelve persons and a speaker, who was Antonello, a Franciscan tertiary who lived many years in Brazil. We joined those people and then visited all the chapels open. I think that’s useless to describe here what is in the chapels. I’ll say only that there are many sculptures in painted terracotta, made by artists in della Robbia style who worked there at the beginning of ‘500. The sculptures illustrate many episodes of Christ’s Passion. People are realistically represented and their faces express the intensity of feelings tried. Their dresses are inspired to those of Italian Renaissance.
At that time many faithful people aspired to accomplish a voyage to Jerusalem to know the places where Jesus had taught peace and love, had been persecuted, arrested, condemned, tortured and hanged. But few people could find money and manner to arrive in Palestine. Franciscan Friars with these chapels intended to give countrymen a possibility to reach at any rate Jerusalem and to reinforce their piety. I think this is the only Holy Mount in realized in Central Italy. But San Vivaldo hasn’t the purpose of reinforcing catholic people’s faith against attractions from Lutheran and other heretic people. During my visit I noted how few tourists were in that place.
I think that many tourist publications don’t mention San Vivaldo. It’s a pity because Holy Mount and the monastery deserve attention and admiration. Instead, in Internet it’s possible to find many information about it.. Perhaps it would be useful to contact tourist agencies in order that tourist programs concerning San Gimignano, Volterra, San Miniato, etc. include also a visit to Montaione and San Vivaldo.

Thanking Mr. Alberto Silvestro, we publish under his authorization, some information about his works.

Bibliography of ALBERTO SILVESTRO
Plase visit the following website

(1) questo rimanda alla pagina web che parla di Cupra:
http://www.olivierilillo.it/cuprapicena/cuprapicena.htm

(2)questo rimanda alla pagina web che parla di Nardis:
http://www.olivierilillo.it/silvestro/nardis.htm

(3) questo rimanda alla pagina web che porta al tuo indice di tutti gli articoli:
http://www.olivierilillo.it/silvestro/indice-silv.htm

Between the many events and festival carried out in Montaione during all the year long, there is one in particular, that when is on saturday or sunday, it’s organized a huge festival that interests all the town. This is the Festival of San Regolo, the Holy patron of Montaione, carried out the 3rd and 4th may in the historical centre of Montaione.
Don’t miss the video of Festival of Saint regolo on VisitMontaione.tv

After the great success registered by VisitMontaione.com because of the many visitors that has surfed the portal looking for a place to stay during their holiday in Tuscany, and probably driven by Easter Holidays, in April, VisitMontaione.com has exceeded all expectations.
In Fact, as you can see from the statistics, last month of April, VisitMontaione.com has passed 14.000 visitors with over 52.000 page views, increasing respectively of 21,22% and 24,33% compared with the previous month.
This success, is probably due to the special offers for spring holidays prepared by Montaione’s accommodations, but in particularly is due to the good work in positioning VisitMontaione.com on search engines like Google.
With this numbers, VisitMontaione.com is without doubt the official tourist board for those who want to spend their holidays in Montaione, far from the stress of the big cities, but at the same time near to the most important cities of art of Tuscany, that form Montaione you can get in less than 1 hour by car.
Montaione also offer opportunities to enjoy your holidays thank to many festivals and events carried out during all the summer. In the territory you can also play Golf or just make a short tirp with your Mountain bike or on foot.
Take advantage to the many accommodations in Montaione and find out the best deal for your holidays in Tuscany.