Monasteri contesi nella Tuscia Longobarda: il caso di San Pietro ad Asso, Montalcino (Siena)

The excavation of San Pietro d'Asso (July 2010) discovered an eighth- to fourteenth century settlement with a monastery and an incomplete hilltop castle. This site is located about 15 km from the church of San Pietro di Pava at San Giovanni d'Asso, an ongoing excavation of the University of Siena. San Pietro ad Asso is a project that sheds additional light on the regional survey of ecclesiastical life in this remote area along the via Cassia and the nearby abbey of Sant'Antimo. Lying in a territory disputed by the bishops of Arezzo and Siena, the monastery of San Pietro d'Asso rose up to the point of supporting an attendant castle which was never completed indicating the decline of the site soon after. The Abbey of Sant'Antimo perhaps has rendered the small devotional or pilgrimage churches of the Asso Valley redundant. An analysis of documents and related survey work in the region, excavation in two areas, magnetometry, the archaeology of building and a handful of small finds were used to devise a hypothetical model of settlement for San Pietro d'Asso.