Abbazia San Pietro in Valle, Residenza Storica, Umbria

THE STORY OF THE ABBEY SAN PIETRO IN VALLE

Tradition attributes the founding of the Abbey to Faroaldo II Duke of Spoleto in the 8th century.

The legend tells the story of two hermits named John and Lazarus, who arrived, among about 300 others from Syria, in the territories surrounding Spoleto, and descended Mount Solenne to the Suppegna Valley. Here they built a hermitage which became a place of worship for the local people. Later on, Faroaldo II, having received in a dream a vision of St. Peter who ordered him to build a church in his honour, whilst hunting in the Valnerina (=Valley of the river Nera), spotted the place where the little oratory built by John and Lazarus had been erected, and decided it was the ideal place to build the church dedicated to St. Peter and the Monastery, which adopted the Benedictine rule. Here Faroaldo took monastic vows and died in 728. The Lombard church has since then been the Mausoleum of the Lombard dukes, as his cruel son Trasimondo also became a monk, after being exiled by king Liutprandus, and retired to the Abbey where he died in 765.

His successor Hilderigo Dagileopa did likewise after a short term as governor, taking monastic vows in 740, and leaving his name in the frontal altar.

We learn from ancient documents that the Abbey covered a large area in the Valnerina and the abbey exercised rights over many churches in the surrounding countryside and possessed an extensive territorial patrimony composed of villas, villages, castles, many of which strategically controlled the roads communicating with Terni, Spoleto, the Sabina and the Marche region; other properties reached as far as Rome. In the course of the XIV century, following serious disorders and abuse, Boniface VIII acted on full powers against the corrupt monks and abbots and assigned the Abbey to the Lateran Chapter. However, being unable to adequately look after the administration and spiritual needs of the Abbey, the Lateranense Chapter returned it to the Pope, who, at first, entrusted it to the Cybo family and subsequently to the Ancajani who were abbeys and curators at various times. In 1861 with the unification of Italy, the State expropriated all Church possessions and enabled the general partners to redeem the property.

So in 1890 Decio Ancajani bought the Abbey which passed into private hands. In 1917 the last descendant of the Ancajani family, Serafina Gianavei, surrendered the Abbey to the parish priest, and sold the convent to Ermete Costanzi who immediately began the restoration and consolidation of the structures that appeared to be damaged or in danger of falling down.

The work was contemporary to the restoration of the church under the care of the superintendent of Fine Arts, Professor Achille Bertini Colosso, and it was Mussolini who inaugurated the restored Church and Abbey of S. Pietro in Valle on November 14th 1931.

During WW2, the Abbey was used as a refuge by many people from the surrounding villages from the hardships caused by the retreating Germans and the strafings of allied aircrafts.

With the passion that ties us to the Abbey, in 1994 Dr. Pierluigi Costanzi began a new and more profound renovation which combined with consolidation, gave life to the present hotel accommodation which is in the position to offer a unique form of tourism, one that is sensitive to art, to history, to the transcendental, in a structure that has emerged untouched by time, for an unique and suggestive holiday.