Abbazia di Sant'Antimo (PiP)

It is proven, that the Abbazia di Sant'Antimo existed since Carolingian times. Legends (of course) know, that it was Charlemagne himself, who founded the abbey when he had left Rome, following the Via Francigena northward. The earliest document relating to the abbey is a land grant of Charlemagne´s son Louis the Pious from 813.

One year after the 1117 earthquake the erection of the church of today started. At that time the powerful abbey was one of the largest landowners in the area. As sovereigns and imperial officials at the same time, they also levied taxes.

The decline began with Siena's awakening striving for power, which conquered Montalcino in 1212. In the following decades, the property of the monastery shrank to a fifth. The church was never completed in the years that followed, as the complex construction probably exceeded the abbey's financial possibilities. A sign of decay is the unfinished facade.

New religious ideas gained influence. The then new orders of the Franciscans and Dominicans, whose monasteries were not built in the cities, gained strength. The Benedictine wish to be able to follow the rule ora et labora in seclusion was pushed into the background.

In 1462 Pope Pius II suppressed the abbey, annexed whatever was left - and handed it over to the Bishop of Montalcino-Pienza, who was his nephew.
1992 the abbey became an active monastery again with the arrival of a new congregation of Canons Regular of the Premonstratensian Order.
The architecture seems influenced by churches in Burgundy. It looks a bit like a sibling of the church at Vignory in Champagne.

There are many sculpted capitals along the nave. Here in the center depicting "Daniel in the lions' den", is best known, as it is attributed the the "Master of Cabvestany", whose artistic style is very dynamic and creative. The faces have almond eyes, a sharp nose, great ears, and a triangular shape. The fingers of the hands are long.

The "Maître de Cabestany" ("Master of Cabestany") is known under this name since the 1930s when a tympanum and other carvings were found in Cabestany (near Perpignan). The carving had been used as "building materials" inside a wall of the local cemetery.

Research started and so far more than 120 carvings of these origins, all carved within the second half of the 12th century, are known. The carvings are spread over an area between Tuscany in Italy, Southern France - and Catalonia in Spain. This led to the theory, that the "Maître de Cabestany" may not be a single master-carver, but a studio, where carvers learned this style.