The Hermitage of Cerbaiolo

The Hermitage of Cerbaiolo is a diamond of spirituality in Valtiberina on the Path of Saint Francis. The stones of its buildings blend with the rock of the hill on which it stands near Pieve Santo Stefano.

“Those who have seen La Verna and not Cerbaiolo, have seen the mother and not the son” is a local saying. Like La Verna, this place of listening and prayer is also marked by the passage of Saint Francis. The building was born as a monastery in the 8th century. Here, at the behest of the Poor of Assisi, from 1216 the former hermitage of the Benedictines became the home of the Franciscan friars.

In the same year Antonio from Padua arrived in Cerbaiolo. Tradition tells that the future saint slept in a cave near the hermitage, on a boulder above which the shape of his body remained imprinted. The church and chapel are named after him.

The great poet Giosuè Carducci fell in love with this oasis of mysticism. It was the summer of 1867 and the Tuscan rhymer spent a long holiday in Pieve Santo Stefano. The Hermitage of Cerbaiolo is like a “giant who wakes up late and hurries to hunt and interrogate the morning” in the verses of the ode To the Friends of the Tiber Valley.

A temple of Franciscan simplicity that, overlooking the slope of its mountain, shines with the beauty of nature which surrounds it.

Towards the end of World War II, the German army destroyed the Hermitage of Cerbaiolo. Sister Clare, a nun who died in 2010 belonging to the Little Company of Saint Elizabeth, cared for its reconstruction.

The ascetic elegance of the Eremo combines with a breathtaking view on Montedoglio Lake. A place to marvel at the splendor of Creation and find yourself in the silence of Franciscan meditation. Between the rock and the sky.