Rosia – Romanesque Parish Church, Trails and Landscape

Rosia combines Romanesque art, historic trails and an impressive landscape around the Torrente Rosia. If, during your trip through Tuscany, you are looking for more than just a single attraction and want to experience a range of cultural and scenic highlights, the town offers several clearly distinct points of interest. Particularly appealing is the combination of local history, hiking trails, bridge construction and geology.

Romanesque Art in the Centre of Rosia

The Romanesque Pieve di San Giovanni Battista stands in the centre of Rosia. Inside, on the right side altar, there is a painting by Guidoccio Cozzarelli. It depicts the Madonna enthroned with the Child between Saint Sebastian and Saint Anthony the Great. Thus, alongside its Romanesque architecture, the church also contains a specific art-historical detail that makes the visit more than a mere exterior viewing. The bell tower also deserves a closer look. Its levels are articulated by single-, double-, triple- and quadruple-part openings.

The Sentiero 114 Begins at the Pieve

The marked Sentiero 114 is the hiking trail from Rosia to Tonni. Its starting point is at the Romanesque Pieve di San Giovanni Battista in the centre of Rosia. Initially, the trail runs along Via della Parrocchia and Via di Mezzo. This means that your orientation is based not only on the destination, Tonni, but also on the specific start of the route in the town centre. Another historic route continues from the Ponte della Pia. A woodland path follows the remains of an old road called “Manliana” and leads to the Eremo di Santa Lucia. This path offers a separate way to combine the landscape with historic routes, without equating it with the route of the Sentiero 114. The Ponte della Pia itself, in its present form, probably dates back to work carried out around the 13th century. At that time, it was an important crossing on the ancient Via Massetana between Siena and Massa Marittima. According to tradition, its name is associated with Pia de’ Tolomei, a Sienese noblewoman mentioned by Dante Alighieri in the fifth canto of the Purgatorio. The bridge can be crossed, although it has no railing; caution is required.

Waterfall, Fracture System and the Merse Plain

Below the Ponte della Pia, near a small waterfall, lies the geosite of the Torrente Rosia and the fracture system. Here, a fracture system refers to a system of breaks in the rock mass. The associated educational trail illustrates how these fractures can influence the course of a stream. A seven-metre-high waterfall also forms within the fracture system. The Malignano Archaeological Area lies at the end of a narrow gorge carved by the Torrente Rosia between the hills of the Montagnola. There, the landscape opens onto the plain crossed by the Merse River. At the archaeological site, 18 chamber and shaft tombs from a necropolis that has not yet been fully excavated have been uncovered. The tombs are carved into limestone and give the landscape another historical dimension. If you would then like to compare other destinations, the pages for Carpineto and Stigliano lead to additional places within the Tuscan offering.

For the overarching travel overview: Sovicille.