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The Convent and Church of St. Francis
“…. At the beginning of the 1300’s, with the spreading of the
Minor Order of the Franciscans, a convent of these monks also
arrived in Pienza. The Monastery of St. Francis was certainly the
most important religious and cultural institution in old Corsignano,
at least until the radical transformation of the city, which
occurred from 1459, by Pope Pius II (Enea Silvio Piccolomini), who
was born here in 1405. On his first visit to Corsignano as Pope,
Piccolomini celebrated a solemn mass at St. Francis, it evidently
being the most important church of the hamlet. |
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The only precise information that we have about the life of the
Monastery, comes from the 1500’s and are details by the
caretaker-priest Domenico Gabrielli who tells about the violence
with which the undisciplined soldiers treated the convent and the
church during the Sienese War.
The poor brother tells that in 1555, the soldiers “wrecked the
cantina and upturned the wine, rampaging, burning clothing as well
as the timbers”, and he also informs us that following this they
“remained without utensils and furniture but recommenced bit by bit,
with the diligence of the brothers and the compassion of their
benefactors, to recover”. In 1634, St Francis hosted the Provincial
Congregation with solemnity, and it was an occasion for “preaching,
Latin prayers and beautiful music”. A few years later, by a Papal
Bull, the ‘little convent’ was suppressed,
the Franciscans were forced to leave. But the population were not
pleased and many of the people became enraged, and were successful
in returning the brothers to St. Francis in 1658. “There was a
celebration throughout the city, with the sounds of the bells and
fireworks everywhere”.
The monks remained until 1788, the year in which the Bishop Giuseppe
Pannilini, suppressed the convent making it an ‘Ecclesiastical
Academy’ boarding school for the altar boys from the diocese of
Pienza and Chiusi. As such the institution had a brief life being
substituted by a Bishop’s Seminary in 1792 (this remained until
1956)…….”
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