La Badia delle Pratole

The Abbey of the Meadows, high up at the end of the Solano valley that cuts deep into the Pratomagno Massif above Cetica (or Cedica as its known locally - maybe deriving from the Italian for coppice - ceduo).

Also known as  the 'spedale di S. Romolo alle Pratora' (S. Romolus in Pratis) records go back to 1262. At nearly 914m alt. the Badia stood at the base of the steep switchback mule path that rises up to cross the Pratomagno saddle at the Varco di Gastra at 1393m.

A spedale or ospedale was a place that offered shelter and food to pilgrims and travellers. The Badia also became a kind of poor house.

It is a magical place in January sun although there is not much to see but an amazingly flat field in the midst of such steep slopes and two ancient cherry trees and heaps of masonry festooned in old man's beard.

And a chestnut wood that is still being worked as a proper chestnut grove with regular pruning to produce bigger chestnuts for locally milled chestnut flour - the winter staple of the pre-industrial Apennines.

The end of the abbey came on the 11th of December 1634 when a massive snowfall caused the roof of the church and the other buildings to collapse. Despite efforts to restore the community it was abandoned by the Church and its spiritual privileges were transferred by Pope Innocent the Tenth in 1664 because it was 'in loco deserto, alpestri, horrido, et nimis frigoris asperitate subpositum, temporum iniuria dirutum' ('in a deserted place, alpine, rough, and subject to the extreme harshness of cold, demolished by the injury of the times').

It seemed appropriate I should stumble across a deer's skull, marble white in the glittering snow and the  paw print of what I would like to think was a wolf with the two front claws accentuated and the clear 'X' between the paw pads.

The high peak that dominates the valley to the south is called Poggio Cocollo Orsaio (The Mount of the Bear's Cuddle  - or more likely 'grip').

In the rubble that collapsed so long ago I could see see the remains of massive beams. They say around here that 'la castagna dura per sempre' - chestnut wood lasts forever.

It's a 9km round trip walk with 600 feet of ascent on icy roads. I saw one forestry worker and three white-tailed deer. The silence was epic. And the abbey was carefully positioned to take full advantage of of the fleeting warmth of the sun.

I thought of 'The Name of the Rose', Sean Connery,  and the way these places that seem remote now and were remoter still were all connected through the Church hierarchy and network that linked them eventually to Rome.

(Information gleaned from this page on the history of Cetica http://www.cetica.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13&Itemid=155).