San Vivaldo the Jerusalem of Tuscany
The Sacred Mount of San Vivaldo in Tuscany is one of the sacred mountains spread in northern Italy, which were built between 1500 and 1600, dates back to the period between 1185 and 1280, when the area was in possession of the Friars of the Cross of Normandy is controversial between Castelfiorentino and San Miniato. When the Franciscans entered the ancient church of Camporena, the place was already a place of worship linked to the figure of Vivaldo Stricchi, the holy hermit whose veneration spread when its body was found in miraculous circumstances in the chestnut cable that he had Used as a dwelling in life.
In 1325, on the place where he was dead, a chapel was built in his name, then a chapel, up to the 1355 building of the church that can still be admired today.
On May 1, 1500, following the establishment of the Franciscan Friars Minor, a series of churches and chapels began to be constructed that reproduced the topography and the holy places of Jerusalem. Hence the name "Jerusalem of Tuscany".
The idea of the Sacred Mount is the merit of the Franciscan friars, who at that time used to make many pilgrimages in holy land, and in particular to Fr. Thomas from Florence and Cherubino Conzi, who first built the convent and then about 25 chapels, Assisted in the enterprise, even by the locals who carried the stones needed to build from the bottom of the river Egola. The purpose of the chapel was to offer the people the opportunity to make a pilgrimage without going to Jerusalem that in that period fell under the rule of the Turks and without excessive money. There is in fact a Pope Leo X (of the Medici family) bubble, the recognition of the chapels and the granting of indulgence to those who would go to pray.
Fr. Thomas from Florence, he relied on his work solely on his experience due to many travels to the east, to Crete and to the Holy Land, besides being in contact with Friar Bernardino Caimi, who in those years designed the Sacred Mount Of Varallo Sesia in Piedmont.
Tommaso chose the place with extreme accuracy, adopting the astronomical orientation of Jerusalem and not the local one: he had identified a valley of the Boscus, which resembled the valley of Giosafat, to the east of the Convent, and to the south a relief was ideal to represent the Mount Of the Olives, to the north, a natural shelf could represent the skies of the temple, and a little further there, a hill, came to form the Mount of Calvary.