In 1324, San Bernardo Tolomei, founder of the Olivetan Benedictine Congregation, established a hermitage near Castelmuzio on land donated by the Sienese noblewoman Uguccia de Ragnoni. Transformed into a full monastery by monks in 1334 and completed with the consecration of its church in 1517, Sant'Anna in Camprena stands in the municipality of Pienza. Suppressed in 1784 and later used as a summer residence for the Pienza seminary, the site is now run as an agritourism facility and parish by the Diocese of Montepulciano-Chiusi-Pienza. In 1996, director Anthony Minghella filmed scenes for The English Patient inside the complex.
What to see
The church features a light-plastered gable facade fronted by a square brick porch on four pillars and flanked on the left by a 15th-century square bell tower with round-arched belfry windows. Inside, the single-nave Latin cross structure spans three groin-vaulted bays containing thirteen 17th-century paintings depicting Scenes from the Life of San Bernardo Tolomei. The choir retains 16th-century wooden stalls and a pipe organ built in 1788 by Filippo Tronci for the church of San Francesco in Fiesole, purchased and brought here in 1914 by Bishop Giacomo Bellucci.
The refectory holds the complex's most important artistic cycle: a series of frescoes executed between July 1503 and mid-1504 by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Il Sodoma. The entrance wall displays Saint Benedict Enthroned, the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, and the Madonna and Child with Saint Anne and Two Olivetan Monks, bordered by Corinthian pilasters and grisaille work depicting busts of saints and grotesques. The end wall features a tripartite Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes. Outside stand the 1501 cloister with its Renaissance wellhead, a walled garden with a circular fountain, and a separate stone-walled cemetery containing a Neo-Gothic chapel.
Visiting
The main church functions as an active parish, while the surrounding monastic quarters operate as a diocese-managed farmstay. Visitors to the complex can walk through the barrel-vaulted walkways of the rectangular cloister to view the refectory frescoes, which underwent a major preservation restoration in 1970.
Our editors' tip
Compare the refectory fresco of the Madonna and Child with Saint Anne and Olivetan Monks to the painting in the church: on the left transept's baroque altar, you will find a 17th-century canvas copy created specifically to mirror Il Sodoma's original work.