October 4, ...1301

The divine Dante

Imagine to be seven centuries ago, at the beginning of Autumn, among the high wooded hills between Umbria and Marche, in center Italy.

You are arriving from Rome (250 Km distant), riding your horse in a regal procession. With you is Carl of Valois, brother of Philip the Beautiful, king of France, and you are entering in a nice fortified castle over Metauro Valley: Castello della Pieve (Pieve Castle).



The Pope Bonifacio VIII asked Carl to try to make peace (but it wasn't this the real goal) between the two major parties of Florence (200 km distant): the Blacks and the Whites.

In those years Whites came into power and among them there was the great italian poet Dante Alighieri, who was elected Priore (it was an important public office) of Florence between June and August of 1300.

He was one of those who decided the exile of the Blacks leaders, and the place of this exile was just Castello della Pieve.

Here - on October 4, 1311 - Carl of Valois and the Blacks decided the destiny of Florence (expel Whites and give power to Blacks) and, above all, the exile of Dante Alighieri.
On November Blacks took the power in Florence, and in January the divine poet was condemned to exile first and then to death. He never saw his loved native town and he'll die in Ravenna on 1321.

This happened in Castello della Pieve. Here you can arrive walking with us and have a suggestive "medieval" accomodation.

Metola Tower

It isn't a tower... it's mere sky

When I was a child, dreaming to live in a castle on the top of a mountain, there was always a high, big, white tower... like this:

It's Metola Castle.
No one knows when it was built; the early information is from XI century. It's ruined many time ago, and just only the tower survived. Recently well restored, with a small drawbridge also, we can only imagine the life and the people who lived there.



Last but not least, here was born - in 1287 - the blessed Margherita della Metola. She was blind... she haas never seen the sky around her... But she has known the real Sky...

  

When the time has the stroke of eternity...

...and the space seems to have the breath of infinity.

probably you are in one of the most suggestive hermitages of Umbria: "Speco of Narni".

Walking on St. Francis' Way, signed by the franciscan simbol "TAU",



you come in a pretty and pleasant olive-yard, at the foot of a steep hill.

Climbing it in about 20 minutes, you can arrive at the Convent, perched on the rock over the Ternana Valley



It's nice, but it isn't the most suggestive part of the hermitage (but inside you can visit a little chapel of XI century). Going up, above the convent, you can arrive at the real "speco" (it's a latin word, that means cleft), where St. Francis has leaved the mark of his contemplation

If you don't know St. Francis and his places, you cannot understand this territory; everywhere you walk, you are walking under his shadow.









When Christmas met the crib

There is a place...

...in Italy, between Umbria and Lazio, called Greccio, where "Christmas" was born.

Walking from north, up to a large green saddle,



among cows

and horses

(I'm sorry! I haven't seen any donkey...),

and then going down through the wood

you can arrive in a place perched on the face over the Reatina Valley,



 where St. Francis came many times
(here is his bed)



 and where above all, in the Christmas of 1223, remembering the night of Betlem,



 he invented the crib... the Christmas that we know.

Here you can see the old dormitory



and the church also.



This is Greccio... another suggestion for walk in Italy.