The abbey of Badia a Passignano

What you see on the tour

• The church of San Michele Arcangelo, rebuilt from the late 1500s and frescoed by Alessandro Allori and by Domenico Cresti, the local painter known as Il Passignano. San Giovanni Gualberto, founder of the Vallombrosan order, is buried here.
• The chapter house and the cloister.
• The refectory, with the Last Supper painted in 1476 by Domenico Ghirlandaio and his brother Davide: the first of his Last Suppers, four years before the one at Ognissanti in Florence.
• The old kitchen and the Italian garden.

This is a monastery before it is a monument. Dress as you would for any church and keep your voice down.

Why it looks like a castle

• Late 800s. The first records: a deed drawn up here in 884, and a community of monks under an abbot by 903.
• Around 1050. The monastery joins the reform of Giovanni Gualberto and becomes one of the main houses of his new Vallombrosan order.
• 1073. Giovanni Gualberto dies here on 12 July.
• 1400s. The square circuit of walls and corner towers goes up. In 1476 the Ghirlandaio brothers paint the refectory.
• 1587–88. A young Galileo Galilei teaches mathematics to the novices.
• 1866. The Italian state dissolves the community. The complex is sold and turned into a private villa, which is when it gained its neo-Gothic battlements.
• 1986. The Vallombrosan monks return. They still live here.

If you cannot get on a tour

The inside stays closed, but the best view of the abbey is from outside anyway. Walk the first few minutes of trail 460 down Via Poggio al Vento and turn round: walls, towers and cypresses above the vineyards.

Make a day of it

• Walk. Trail 460 is a 6.6 km loop from the car park that passes the Cappella dei Pesci. All four trails.
• Eat. Three places in the village itself, more in the hills. Where to eat.
• Taste. Antinori ages its Badia a Passignano Chianti Classico in the cellars under the abbey, and three family estates pour nearby. Wineries.
• Plan. Ready-made itineraries for a morning, a day or a weekend.