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The Village of Talla in Tuscany Italy

The village of Talla is located at the foot of the Castellaccia, an ancient fortified place containing the house said to have been the birthplace of Guido d’Arezzo (997-1050), the Benedictine monk who perfected musical notation.

The Talla district covers the south spurs of the Pratomagno and features deep valleys and majestic forests that once had Etruscan and Roman settlements.

The characteristic villages of Capraia (whose Church of Santa Maria preserves a beautiful Della Robbia terra-cotta), Pontenano, Santo Bagnena and Faltona hold particular naturalistic and environmental interest, with paths leading up the ridge of the Pratomagno through silences broken only by animal noises and the gurgling of rushing water.

At the foot of the Pratomagno, shielded from view by lovely chestnut groves and forests of white fir, the surprising Benedictine Abbey of Santa Trinità, or Fonte Benedetta, has endured the ravages of time.

Built before the year 1000 in the days of Otto I of Saxony by the monks Pietro and Eriprando on an old Roman road connecting the Arno Valley and Casentino, it is closely tied to the spread of monastic and anchoretic life in Italy and all across Europe at the transition to the second millennium.

What remains of the church shows the Romanesque plan in the shape of a Latin cross and a semicircular apse with architectural motives inspired by Cluny. Here the visitor is reminded of the inexorable progression of time, relentless in erasing what remains of the once glorious monastic complex that had even given its name to the mountain towering above it. This fascinating excursion allows one to appreciate the meadows and panoramas of the Pratomagno.

Two bridges thrown across mountain streams, Ponte di Sasso on the Capraia and Ponte di Annibale on the Ginesso, retrace old Etruscan and Roman routes.

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