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| Fiastra Abbey | |
In 1142 Guarniero II, Duke of Spoleto and marquis of
the Ancona March,gave the Cistercian Monks a wide piece of land
between the rivers Chienti and Fiastra. The Monks came from the
Chiaravalle Abbey in Milan.
The soon they arrived on the site, 29 November of the same year,
they started to build the convent employng materials coming from
the ruins of the ancient Roman town of Urbs Salvia which had been destroyed by Alarico between the
years 408 and 410. At the same time they proceeded with the
reclamation of the land occupied mostly by large woods and
marshes and inhabited by wolves, bears and deer.
The church, devoted to
Santa Maria di Chiaravalle di Fiastra, is an imposing building
following the strict Cistercian shapes. It is an example of the style of transaction from the Romanesque to the Gothic: it has three
aisles divided in eight spans with round arches resting on
columns with romanesque capitals which the monks themselves
sculputured.
Next to the church are the monastery, also built according to the Cistercian schemes,
and the cloister rebuilt in the sixteenth century.
The Abbey enjoyed a great period of prosperity for three century
long. They arranged the land in six farms named grance, they
promoted the economic, social and religious development of a wide
area till they arrived to have 33 churches and monasteries
dependent on the abbey.
Its history is documented in details in the collection of the
3194 parchments named Carte Fiastrensi which is now kept in the
State Archives in Rome.
In 1422 the abbey was sacked by Braccio da
Montone who destroyed the church roof and the high bell-tower and
killed many monks. After this event the Pope gave the Abbey in
commendam to eight Cardinals; in 1581 it passed into the hands of
the Society of Jesus and finally in 1773 the whole property was
sold to the noble Bandini family.
By will of the latest heir of the family the abbey was given to
the present agrarian Foundation bearing the same name.
In order to preserve and increase the potentialities of the whole
property the Giustiniani-Bandini Foundation and the
administration of the Marches Region established the Nature
Reserve of the Abbey of Fiastra whose national importance was
formely recognized by the Italian government on the 10 Decembre
1985 and therefore placed under protection of the WWF in february
1987.
In the Abbadia di Fiastra Nature Reserve
three different landscapes with growing enviromental
potentialities are recognizable: the agrarian landscape which
even if does not have a strict enviromental value, in relation to
the quality of urban life constitutes a richness of primary
importance; the water-courses (the stream Entogge and the river
Fiastra) with their typical fauna and riparian flora; the wood
which stretching for more than 100 ectars forms the heart of the
area.
The wood reached our days almost uninjuried, thank to the care
that its possessors bore to it: first the monks who needed it as
a solitary and quiet place (Romitorio as it was callled) where to
retire in prayer for long periods and saved this wonderful forest
from cutting the tree, then the Bandini family and the region of
the Marches who recognized its great naturalistic value and
decleared it a protected natural area.
Under a scientific aspect the Reserve acquires a great importance
in consideration also of its extension, it represents the latest
example of the kind of forest which covered the hilly territory
of the Marches until 1700. In particular La Selva is a wood
formed mainly by turkey-oaks: you can also find maples, flowering
ashes, different varieties of oaks etc. Interesting are the
hornbeam, a rare species in the Marches, the hellebore and the
saffron.
On the edges of the tracks and roads crossing the wood there are
the helm-oak, the box, and various coniferae which were planted
in the course of the past centuries.
The fauna, though lesser than in the past, assumes a
particular importance for the presence of some animals typical of
the territory such as the roe-deer which was reintroduced in
1957.
In the area there are also among the mammalia the beech-marten,
the badger, the weasel, while among the birds there are the
sparrow, the owl, the green-woodpecker, the tree-creeper, the
hoopoe and many other small birds typical of the sylvan
enviroment.
