Abbey
of Santa Maria Assunta

Located a few kilometers from Colle in the direction of Casole d’Elsa, on the Via Francigena is the splendid church of Badia a Conèo. Little is known about the original abbey, perhaps a Benedictine monastery founded at the beginning of the 11th century which became part of the Vallombrosan congregation a century later. In fact, it seems that the Vallombrosan order, after 1100 promoted the construction of a new abbey church then consecrated in 1124 by the bishop of Volterra. At the dawn of the thirteenth century, the abbot of the monastery ceded the jurisdiction of the villas of Conèo and Mugnano to the Municipality of Colle. In the first half of the fourteenth century the abbey was under the lords of Picchena, while a century later it was given in commendation. In the eighteenth century the entire complex (Church of Santa Maria Assunta, the houses of the monastery and the surrounding lands passed to the Colligiana family of the Apolloni who made changes to the structure following the late Baroque style. In the 1920s, the church underwent a philological restoration which brought it back to its original appearance. Of the ancient Badia, today remains the church with a single nave with a vaulted apsidal transept and a dome on the cross. The façade has four blind arches (originally there were 5) which rest on semi-columns following the typical scheme of the Pisan and Volterra Romanesque. Particular are the capitals with anthropomorphic faces on leaves with curved points and shelves carved with zoomorphic figures. Not far from the Badia there is an interesting aqueduct from the Grand Ducal era.