S. Giorgio della Spelonca - 02 |
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With the establishment of the Order of the Augustinian Hermits in its modern form by the action of the Grand Union in 1256, a new apostolate was assigned to the Order: the friars were to move to the cities, to preach and to hear sacramental confessions.
As a result, S. Giorgio della Spelonca shared the fate of many of these hermitages which, being in out-of-the-way places, were in the course of time either completely given up by the Augustinian Order or else simply became granges (“outposts”) of the large monastery – in this case the convent of S. Agostino in Lucca.
Photo (below): Left: sanctuary end of the chapel's interior. Right: Exterior view.
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According to the historian Thomas Herrera O.S.A., who published his Alphabetum Augustinianum (“Augustinian Alphabet”) at Madrid in 1644, the date of 25th February 1444 is the last occasion on which Spelonca is mentioned in the Registers of the Prior Generals of the Order (today this volume of the Registers is no longer extant). Even so, it still existed as a grange of the Augustinians at S. Agostino in the nearby provincial town of Lucca in 1693.
What would the hermits have constructed at S. Giorgio della Spelonca on the top of Mount Pisano? The area would have attracted them not only because of its solitude on the top of a mountain but also because of its sizeable caves, parts of which were spacious and would easily have been made habitable, or at least served admirably as storehouses.
At the site of the hermitage, there still exists a staircase carved out of rock, a circular indentation in rock that could serve as a washing place, the quadrangular mouth of a reservoir, and places carved in the rock where posts probably were placed. There is also evidence of the bases of other buildings that were located on the right side of the cave.
The chapel, no larger than a classroom, is free-standing in the open. It is of medieval origin, but the renovation of its façade (and possibly more of the building) goes back only to 1800 and, as stated hereunder, it was repaired early in the twentieth century.
There is no archeological evidence which indicates that the hermitage of S Giorgio della Spelonca ever had a community of more than a few members simultaneously; by comparison, the better-known Augustinian hermitage at Rosia would at times have been two or three times more populous, and Lecceto even larger again.
(Continued on the next page.)
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