S. Giorgio della Spelonca - 01 |
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S. Giorgio della Spelonca (“St George of the Cave”) was founded in 1187 when Paganello Porcari, a person of influence in Lucca, gave to Friar Johannes Honestus (“John the Honest”) the ground for the building of the hermitage and a small church attached to it.
Spelonca is the Italian word for a cave or cavern.
This hermitage possibly gained additional historical significance in medieval times for, like Lecceto, it gained a reputation (incorretly, also like Lecceto) from the myth written from about 1320 onwards that St Augustine had visited there, if not actually lived there for a period of months.
Photo (below): Main image: the large natural cavern. Small image (at left): A exterior staircase hewn into rock nearby.
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There is no difficulty concerning the exact location of this hermitage. Only a short distance from Lucca, along the road which leads to Pisa, is the village of S Maria del Giudice, picturesquely situated at the foot of a chain of hills, and on top of one of the hills overlooking the village there can still be seen the remains of the hermitage. Because of the number of hermitage that existed in the area of Mount Pisano (Monti Pisani), it was referred to as “the hermits’ mountain” (in Latin, Mons Heremita). Even one of the best-known humanist writers of the day, Francesco Petrarch (1304 - 1374), wrote of St Augustine's visiting Mount Pisano.
Friar John is also mentioned in an Augustinian historical tract written in the year 1330 at the latest by the Augustinian friar known only as the “Anonymous Florentine.” This tract was entitled Initium sine processes ordinis heremitarum sancti Augustini (“The Beginning and Development of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine”).
It describes John as “a Prior of the hermits of St Augustine” and “founder of a community at Spelunca,” also adding that he founded a great number of other hermitages.
John of Spelonca was also mentioned again four years later in his Treatise on the Origin and Development of the Hermit Friars and its True and Real Title, published in 1334 by Henry of Friemar O.S.A..
The earliest extant document concerning the hermitage comes from the year 1198. In it Bishop Guido of Lucca commits the administration of the place to John, and to his fellow hermit.
At an early time (the earliest extant document is of 22nd March 1223), S. Giorgio della Spelonca participated in the fast growing union movement among the Tuscan Hermits, which, in the Little Union of 1244, finally led to the formation of the congregation known under the name Fratres heremitae ordinis S. Augustini de Tuscia (“The Brothers Hermits of Saint Augustine in Tuscany”).
(Continued on the next page.)
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