More unique than rare Badia a Coltibuono still preserves its original structure: in 1051 the monk Giovanni Gualberto received as a gift from powerful local feudal lords the church of San Lorenzo in Coltibuono with the order to build an annexed residence for the clergy and a hospice for pilgrims. A community of Benedictine monks took possession of it and immediately enjoyed high esteem thanks to the reforming and polemical spirit towards the rampant corruption of the clergy and that soon assumed a prominent religious, political, social and economic role
