A magical place, the very essence of spirituality, where time seems to stand still.  This could be the perfect venue for your wedding.

In the heart of the hills, embedded in the rock, is a place full of history and magic.

Advancing through the woods of the "Throat of the Crow", curve after curve, you will be catapulted into an enchanted and uncontaminated location, a timeless place away from the hustle and bustle of modern life.

A long driveway lined with oak and maple trees will take you to the main garden of the Hermitage of the White Friars. The complex is located in the shade of a large rock wall that stands behind it, and in which are preserved the ancient caves where monks lived a life of meditation and prayer.

History

Hermitage of the White Friars - 1000 years of history

The first traces of the Hermitage Caves, located in the valley of the crow (gola del corvo), between Cupramontana and Poggio Cupro (in the Marche region), date back to the eleventh century. In this solitude, the monks led a life of penance and prayer in the caves, from which the monastery took its name. The first known document dates back to an act of the notary Garrusi bearing a gift of the wall where the first caves were dug from that Giuntolo from Poggio Cupro hermit John Maris, this was on 1 November 1294.

In 1520 Paolo Giustiniani started the reform of the monastic order of the Camaldolese of Monte Corona by adopting only the hermit’s way of life.

In those years, the hermitage of white friars gave hospitality to Ludovico and Raffaele Tenaglia, who later took part in the creation of the Order of the Capuchins.

The last buildings were constructed in 1790 by the monk and architect Apollonius Trucchi.

A series of events such as as the Napoleonic occupation and thereafter in 1866 a decree of the nascent kingdom of Italy, together with other laws devastating for Italian unification, abolished certain religious corporations, including the Hermitage, and had the effect of giving rise to a form of looting, as a result of which a large number of literary and artistic works were lost.

When the monks were able to return after 1874 there was no trace of the rich library: The same fate befell the altar of the school of Della Robbia. Now part of the artistic and cultural hermitage of the White Friars is kept in the municipal library of Cupramontana, in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the art gallery in Jesi and in private collections.

The monastery has hosted a number of outstanding personalities from the monastic world, such as the blessed John Maris, Matthew Sabbatini, blessed Paul Giustiniani, Ludovico and Raffaele Tenaglia, the blessed Anthony Recanati, blessed Jerome of Sessa (doctor of Pope Leo X), Justinian from Bergamo and other hermits on the way to sainthood. The hermitage, of which the people of Cupramontana are proud of, has also been a source of inspiration for writers and poets, such as Luigi Bartolini, C. Corradi and F. Bonci.

An intensive phase of restructuration began in the year 2000, starting with surveys and accompanied by a series of projects that have focused their attention not only on the buildings, but also the protected woodlands, the aquatic engineering, etc. Today the central part has reached an advanced stage; the front part of the long wing and the corresponding part of the ground floor are completed. The ancient caves are accessible and functional, and the chapel, with its wonderful restoration of the frescoes, has hosted events of a religious nature – such as baptisms. The cloister was restored to its former splendor, and the roads, and all services – water, heating, electricity and telephone, are fully functioning.

What remains as it is, not to be renovated or altered, but only to be preserved, is the wood, this primordial structure that surrounds the monastery in a protective embrace, symbolising the fascination of the whole that constitutes the hermitage. As soon as you arrive in the garden in front of the monastery, after about a mile on a small antique walkway, bordered by the ditch of the crow in a setting of trees, one gets the feeling of being in "another world", in complete silence broken only by the rustling of leaves, the singing of birds and the flow of water. That 's what makes the Hermitage a special environment and it is for this reason that the visitors return. A detailed history of the events of the Hermitage can be read in volume.