BADIA A CONEO

Just beyond Colle Alta, we arrive at the fork in Le Grazie, here take the provincial road No. 27 in the direction of Casole d'Elsa, after just over a kilometer, turn right on a small road bounded by two cypresses indicating Badia a Conèo. It continues for a couple of miles until on the left you come to the splendid church of Badia a Conèo. It was one of the oldest Vallombrosan monasteries, part of Colle plebanate of the Diocese of Volterra, the Abbey of Santa Maria Assunta in Conèo joined the vallombrosan congregation between 1073 and 1076, in the sixteenth century it was probably the commendam of Alessandro Farnese (the future Pope Paul III). It was one of the many abbeys gives in commendam to relatives of the Popes, when in 1592 the Abbey goods were given to the new bishophric cathedral of Colle, and the church of Conèo was declared baptismal. Of the Badia, today remain the church of Santa Maria, in romanic-senese style, consecrated in 1123. The plan of the church is a Latin cross, with a single aisle and ending with a transept and a dome on plumes with outside octagonal tiburio. The facade has an arches partition in Volterra style, in the presbytery are three apses of which only the central one shows the bending outside. The inside, not open, is divided by a transverse arch resting on half hanging columns with capitals decorated with abstract motifs and human heads. 

On the back of the Abbey is a stretch of paved road that connects the Abbey with the medieval houses of Conèo. Not far from the Abbey, in the valley of Conio, on the left, just below the Abbey is an aqueduct dating back to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany period. 

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San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, Staggia Senese, Casole d'Elsa