Treatment of external cotto of the Abbey of S. Maria di Rosano

This month, with the column dedicated to the most beautiful work of the month, we are in our Tuscany but, with an ideal time machine, we travel in the past to take you outside and inside the walls of the abbey of Santa Maria a Rosano.

The occasion is the treatment of the external cotto of this monastery, made by the artisan company Lai Giovanni, specialized in the recovery, among others, of surfaces such as porcelain tiles, stone and indeed internal and external cotto floors.

Before, however, to see how the artisans of this enterprise have worked, we take a leap into the past to rediscover the history of this historic structure. 

The monastery of Santa Maria a Rosano

Located in the municipality of Rignano sull’Arno, in the province of Florence, the monastery of Santa Maria a Rosano is a female abbey of the Order of Saint Benedict and has received, over time, several visits from Cardinal Ratzinger before he became Pope.

This abbey, founded in 780, became in 1040 an allodial property of the Guidi Counts, but they lost the patronage in 1204, after the structure was destroyed in 1143 by the Florentines, just in the battle against the house that owned it.

Particularity of this abbey is the presence of the crypt, which distinguishes it from similar structures found in the Upper Valdarno and Casentino. Modernized in 1696, after the renovation occurred in 1502, it preserves the “Cross painted with stories of the Passion” of the Master of Rosano, in whose cavities relics similar to those that the crusaders brought back from the Holy Land have been found.

Other works, finally, that are inside this abbey are an “Annunciation” by Jacopo di Cione, dating back to around 1365, and the Annunciation with Saints Lorenzo, Benedetto, Giovan Battista and Nicola” by Giovanni da Ponte of 1434.

The treatment of external cotto

The Tuscan cotto was laid with glue in the floor of the external cloister of the Benedictine Abbey of Santa Maria a Rosano and then stuccoed and polished.

For its treatment, the team of artisans of the company Lai Giovanni, after drying, washed the cotto with a diluted solution of DELICACID, the buffered acid detergent specific for this type of surface, and with a single brush equipped with BROWN DISC.

At this point the team of the talented craftsmen of Lai Giovanni waited for the cotto to be perfectly dry to apply two coats of the WET OUT oil-waxy impregnation, which protects and highlights the characteristics of the material, avoiding creating superficial films.

Thanks to the extraordinary work of this artisan enterprise, which operates throughout Tuscany, the cotto of this abbey that smells of history has thus managed to recover its splendor.