Vallombrosa Abbey

Vallombrosa is a Benedictine abbey in the comune of Reggello (Tuscany, Italy), about 30 km south-east of Florence, in the Apennines, surrounded by forests of beech and firs.

Today the monastery is open to tourists and its "Antica Farmacia" sells local produce such as herbal teas and liqueurs made following antique recipes.

In particular in this sermon, he cited the need for knights, who could "restore the Christians to their former freedom".1 Largely because of his poetic reference to the "autumnal leaves that strow the brooks, in Vallombrosa" in Paradise Lost, John Milton is supposed to have visited the monastery and, according to a plaque erected during the Fascist era, actually stayed there.

Partly thanks to the influence of the pioneering American ecologist and author of the 1864 Man and Nature, George Perkins Marsh, the Istituto Superiore Forestale Nazionale was founded in the secularized monastery in 1867.

The wooden choir to the right of the main altar was fashioned by Francesco da Poggibonsi (1444–1446); the reliquary has the arm of the saint who founded the Vallombrosan order by Paolo Sogliano (1500).

It houses works of art such as the 15th-16th century Altoviti Set with embroidered fabric, the great altarpiece by Domenico Ghirlandaio and workshop (Madonna with Child and Four Saints), a selection of paintings, and the scagliolas by the 18th-century abbot Enrico Hugford (brother of the painter Ignazio).