Preface:
“This is as far as the car will make it”
Priority 7 was calling from up the road, the drivers door of our rental car still open. I could feel the cool airconditioned air being replaced by the hot humid air rushing up the mountain just to annoy me.
I bundled clumsily out of the car into the heat to see him standing knee deep in a rut that carved through the mud road, probably made in winter, but now baked as hard as concrete by the relentless sun.
I hate the heat.
I began plastering myself with children’s SPF50 sun cream which smelt of sweet coconut while the others were checking their lenses and tripods The local mosquitos relished in this new mobile coconut snack, cheered on at 120dB by a whole mountainside of screaming cicadas. My eyes followed the rural road towards a mass of thorns, as big as a church, with a small portion of spire poking out the top gasping for air. “I thought this was supposed to be URBAN exploration” I complained.
History:
San Giorgio di Montecavaloro was a well-populated and very ancient municipality, made up of three distinct parishes, and scattered in some villages, or farmhouses, which together numbered over a thousand individuals; equipped with fortresses and castles, and equipped with a town hall, and with fierce militias, not to mention the natural defence, the bad road, and her eminent and isolated position. Its fertile and well-cultivated lands sufficiently nourished that agricultural population, while the copious flocks, fed in its extensive pastures, made it richer than any other land in these mountainous regions.
Historical image:
However, it’s never been peaceful. The villages were under almost constant invasion and infighting from 1300-1796. Once those overbearing lords of the three fighting villages were finally exterminated , the countryside breathed a quiet and peaceful life, and the countryside gradually repopulated with herdsmen and farmers. After removing any future danger of invasion and war, the peoples returned to holding themselves together, uniting that of Montecavaloro with the other neighbour of Castelnovo to form a single Massaria
Image taken 1973
The explorer who contemplates the area today, sees only one church on the top of the hill, two small hamlets, and a few civil houses scattered among the farmhouses on a vast land, planted with trees and cultivated in the part high, dingy, deserted, and barren below. Its population, reduced to 250 souls, lives on agricultural products and on a limited trade.
There has been a church of some sort here from the 9th century, but what we see today started in the early 1800s. in the year 1819 a very deserving parish priest D. Gìoan ni Ugolini, who was also an expert agronomist, and a skilled mechanic.
Having seen the squalor of the temple, and having entertained the thought of rebuilding it, he sounded out the expense and compared it with the subsidies he was able to collect from the common people. Then he calculated the sacrifices and the expenditure which he would have to assume, and without further ado he set about the work, starting October 1824.
After the church was completed after 3 years it was also provided with new paintings for the altars, linens, furnishings, and furnishings, the tireless parish priest had the rectory rehabilitated and expanded at his own expense, and the bell tower (already built with his pyramidal spire in the second half of the last century) had the municipality erect a new cemetery, and then applied tirelessly and very patiently to tilling the lands, planting trees and vines, and making extensive artificial meadows, so that the incomes of that benefit are now tripled of what they were. I’ll blame him for the thorns then.
Image taken 31st May 1992
I’m not sure when it was abandoned exactly. I’ve got a photo of it above, in-use in 1992, but not sure what state it was inside. I’ve also seen photos from 9 years ago in 2014 and it was in near similar condition to what it is today.
Leaving the cool shade of the silent church, I emerged into the blinding light and the screams of the cicadas. I paced heavily back down the hill cursing all the way, stopping only to realise the beauty of the view. “Get the air-con back on, now!”
“This is as far as the car will make it”
Priority 7 was calling from up the road, the drivers door of our rental car still open. I could feel the cool airconditioned air being replaced by the hot humid air rushing up the mountain just to annoy me.
I bundled clumsily out of the car into the heat to see him standing knee deep in a rut that carved through the mud road, probably made in winter, but now baked as hard as concrete by the relentless sun.
I hate the heat.
I began plastering myself with children’s SPF50 sun cream which smelt of sweet coconut while the others were checking their lenses and tripods The local mosquitos relished in this new mobile coconut snack, cheered on at 120dB by a whole mountainside of screaming cicadas. My eyes followed the rural road towards a mass of thorns, as big as a church, with a small portion of spire poking out the top gasping for air. “I thought this was supposed to be URBAN exploration” I complained.
History:
San Giorgio di Montecavaloro was a well-populated and very ancient municipality, made up of three distinct parishes, and scattered in some villages, or farmhouses, which together numbered over a thousand individuals; equipped with fortresses and castles, and equipped with a town hall, and with fierce militias, not to mention the natural defence, the bad road, and her eminent and isolated position. Its fertile and well-cultivated lands sufficiently nourished that agricultural population, while the copious flocks, fed in its extensive pastures, made it richer than any other land in these mountainous regions.
Historical image:
However, it’s never been peaceful. The villages were under almost constant invasion and infighting from 1300-1796. Once those overbearing lords of the three fighting villages were finally exterminated , the countryside breathed a quiet and peaceful life, and the countryside gradually repopulated with herdsmen and farmers. After removing any future danger of invasion and war, the peoples returned to holding themselves together, uniting that of Montecavaloro with the other neighbour of Castelnovo to form a single Massaria
Image taken 1973
The explorer who contemplates the area today, sees only one church on the top of the hill, two small hamlets, and a few civil houses scattered among the farmhouses on a vast land, planted with trees and cultivated in the part high, dingy, deserted, and barren below. Its population, reduced to 250 souls, lives on agricultural products and on a limited trade.
There has been a church of some sort here from the 9th century, but what we see today started in the early 1800s. in the year 1819 a very deserving parish priest D. Gìoan ni Ugolini, who was also an expert agronomist, and a skilled mechanic.
Having seen the squalor of the temple, and having entertained the thought of rebuilding it, he sounded out the expense and compared it with the subsidies he was able to collect from the common people. Then he calculated the sacrifices and the expenditure which he would have to assume, and without further ado he set about the work, starting October 1824.
After the church was completed after 3 years it was also provided with new paintings for the altars, linens, furnishings, and furnishings, the tireless parish priest had the rectory rehabilitated and expanded at his own expense, and the bell tower (already built with his pyramidal spire in the second half of the last century) had the municipality erect a new cemetery, and then applied tirelessly and very patiently to tilling the lands, planting trees and vines, and making extensive artificial meadows, so that the incomes of that benefit are now tripled of what they were. I’ll blame him for the thorns then.
Image taken 31st May 1992
I’m not sure when it was abandoned exactly. I’ve got a photo of it above, in-use in 1992, but not sure what state it was inside. I’ve also seen photos from 9 years ago in 2014 and it was in near similar condition to what it is today.
Leaving the cool shade of the silent church, I emerged into the blinding light and the screams of the cicadas. I paced heavily back down the hill cursing all the way, stopping only to realise the beauty of the view. “Get the air-con back on, now!”
