Badia di San Salvatore

A group of Cassinesi monks who belonged to the Benedictine order founded the Abbey of San Salvatore in Vaiano between the IX and the X centuries. Yet, its presence was documented only since 1057. Instead, the high bell tower, that recalls the most prestigious Romanesque constructions in Tuscany with its two-colour process of "alberese" marble and green marble, dates to 1258.

The abbey was immediately interested by the exile of the Vallombrosani monks of Giovanni Gualberto from the Benedictine congregation.
In 1073, the friars of the monastery, led by the Blessed Rodolfo, had already adhered to the new movement that depended upon the monastery of Vallombrosa founded in 1039. Yet, the scholars are certain that the abbey was built before the new order was born because its church with one nave and two aisles that at the time were closed by three apses has an unusual architecture in comparison to the ones built by the Vallombrosiani monks from the XI century on.
In the XII century, the abbey was a socio-economic structure of great importance and it had already collected many goods and properties. Among the activities the monks started there were the mills and the fulling-mills, some factories where the stones were cut. Some accommodation facilities for pilgrims rose around the monastery that, in the meantime, had extended to host two general assemblies of the order.
From the XIV century on, the abbey underwent a major reorganization because of its commendam. Nevertheless, it was thanks to Carlo de' Medici, one of its commendators who ruled the abbey between 1460 and 1492, that the reconstruction of the cloister in the Renaissance style was carried out. His successor was Giovanni de' Medici who sat on the Papal throne with the name of Leo X. In the XVI century, the Abbey was ceded in life tenancy to Agnolo Firenzuola, a nobleman from Prato.
In the same century, important works were carried out in the church of the monastery that was consecrated again in 1595. More works lasted until the Baroque period exploiting the high revenues of the abbey. Nevertheless, its story was suddenly interrupted in 1808 after the publication of the Napoleonic laws that suppressed all the religious orders.
Lastly, the Second World War, too, left its signs on the complex after the works realized on it from 1872 to 1939 thanks to which the neo-Romanesque structure was re-established.