Eremo di Lecceto

The Lecceto Hermitage is the most famous of the Augustinian hermitages and is located about eight km west of Porta San Marco in Siena. The hermitage-fortress, with a beautiful stone tower, is located in a very picturesque position on the edge of beautiful holm oak woods in an area called Grillanda, about 300 metres above sea level. Being only a mile away from San Leonardo al Lago, many historians have confused them over time.

The Lecceto Hermitage has a beautiful tower and, in addition to a distinctive portico and a remarkable bell tower, includes two cloisters: one from the 13th and one from the 15th century.. What is surprising, however, is the fact that such a famous hermitage has neither an official founder nor an official year of birth.

The hermitage community was the first to follow the new rule of St Augustine thanks to the approval of Prior Bartolomeo da Venezia. The monastery was always inhabited by Augustinian fathers from the first half of the 1200s until the end of the 1800s, the time of the Napoleonic suppression. In 1972, a female community of Augustinian nuns moved there after leaving the city of Siena. Their lives were completely woven with prayer, a prayer of meekness and compassion for man.