San Quirico D’Orcia, Cappella della Madonna
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Vald’O, San Quirico d’Orcia. A literary Winery on the Via Francigena bringing up works of independent art

Under the assumption that the printed paper has its own role in the publishing market, Antonio Cipriani and Valentina Montisci founded a bookshop focused entirely on independent publishing houses

Vald’O, San Quirico d’Orcia – A love for the territory 

Vald’O, a literary winery, is situated in Via Dante Alighieri 81 in San Quirico D’Orcia. It was founded in 2018 as an editorial office of cultural projects which focus on the Magnifica Terra. Antonio Cipriani was born in Tivoli and is the founder of this project with his wife Valentina Montisci.

«We left Milan to Val d’Orcia three years ago. A paper publication was born and we started thinking about a friendly space that could house our Open Editorial Office. We conceived a method that would converse with this land and capture the cultural aspects. So the idea to open the doors on the Via Francigena was born, with a literary café. A Literary Winery». 

«We are a bookshop, a meeting place of poetical, artistic, theatrical events, where to spend an evening tasting the local products. We have got books and magazines from all over the world, but just wines and food from the area. Nothing industrial, but only direct relationships with winemakers and farmers».

«A good and well-printed book is beyond compare. No reading could be so satisfying as on paper». Under the assumption that printed paper has its own role in the publishing market Antonio Cipriani, former chief editor of  l’Unità, and Valentina Montisci founded a bookshop totally focused on independent publishing houses.

From bookstore to newsstand: the Edicola 518 space

«We think that one of the problems bookshops face is that all are subject to the same market logic. We do not love standardization, we just think that making the thought an action can be revolutionary. Or at least consistent with our way of seeing the world. Based on three Latin words: lentius, profundius, suavius. In this context the research of products within independent publishing is interesting. And we like to bring up these works of art in our cultural outpost, without too much support by marketing».

Since October 2014, Antonio Cipriani has been part of the Collettivo Emergenze, a tour driven by the love for the territory and by the belief in the power of communication of the printed paper. Emergenze, founded by Cipriani with a group of artists and journalists, is an independent ad-free magazine, widespread throughout Italy. 

Its success led the group to reinvent the mechanisms of the editorial distribution through the development of Edicola 518. This represented a four-square-meter bookshop created on the remains of a Perugia historical newspaper shop. With this kiosk, located in front of the city’s patron Ercolano Church, the artists of Emergenze closed the loop of their editorial production, by projecting, realizing, printing and distributing their magazine directly.

Vald’O, San Quirico d’Orcia: magazines, wine and events

At Vald’O, San Quirico d’Orcia, a selection of Italian and foreign magazines is on sale. «The work on International magazines is fruit of our relationship with Edicola 518. We have had the opportunity to select very good ones over the years. And we have included them in our Literary Winery. We like to have travel, art and photography magazines. We live in a small town of  2,700 inhabitants, but some come from afar and are impressed with our choices».

Here we organize literary and wine-food events. «We try to organize an event in our spaces once a week, by alternating book presentations with authors, reading aloud, wine presentations, farm dinners. wW have organized poetry and theatre nights. Sometimes we carry out events on the street, in the pedestrian area in front of Vald’O or the municipal theatre». 

Vald’O, San Quirico d’Orcia is a space that is well integrated in the context of San Quirico town. «A place where typical shops, artisans, the butcher’s, the carpenter’s and the bookshop are still there». The furniture and the interior reflect the surrounding reality. «We furnish the Literary Winery with the blacksmith’s and carpenter’s works, with art and traditional objects that we retrace from our present and the past we recreate with our daily action».

De Roma usque ad mare – The Val d’Orcia

In the Abbey of San Salvatore al Monte Amiata, a holy Benedectine complex is preserved. It gives its name to the town of Abbadia San Salvatore in Tuscany, in the province of Siena and dates back to 876 A.D.

The Via Francigena is first mentioned in the Actum Clusio, an emphyteusis contract of a land. The Via is the portion of a network of routes, also called Romee, that from Western Europe lead soutward, up to the Holy Land, «Father Ostriberto, provost of the monastery in S.Salvatore al Montamiata, gives Gisalprando, son of late Guadifrido, through an emphyteusis contract, a monastic property in Callemala, from the land of the curtis dominicalis in the forest Campulongu, which borders the Via Francigena».

The Orcia vallery and its origins

In the 10th century, Sigeric was the first to describe the pilgrimage route crossing Italy. In 990 A.D. the British archbishop of Canterbury goes to Rome to receive the pallium from Pope John XVI, symbol of the dignity of the Archbishop. Sigeric the Serious — name of the Prelate in Anglo-Saxon countries — recorded the return journey in detail. In his travel journal, he lists the eighty stops he did between the religious capital of the Holy Roman Empire and the port of embarkation to England, near the town and port of Calais. He describes the itinerary of the Via Francigena de Roma usque ad mare.

From the Papal residence, after passing Lazio, the route of Sigerico arrives until Tuscany and, before getting to Siena, known in that age as Seocine, passes through the Orcia Valley. The latter extends among the provinces of Siena and Grosseto and is crossed by river Orcia, after which it’s named. This area, Unesco’s world heritage since 2004, has hilly landscapes and medieval villages. 

At Vald’O, San Quirico d'Orcia, a selection of Italian and foreign magazines is on sale
At Vald’O, San Quirico d’Orcia, a selection of Italian and foreign magazines is on sale

Val d’Orcia, UNESCO World Heritage

UNESCO has included this area for the state of conservation of the panorama, as a result of human interventions of transformation during the Renaissance.  It influenced many artists of the later periods. Among the criteria listed by the organization: ‘Val d’Orcia is an outstanding example of the way the Renaissance period reshaped the panorama in order to reflect the ideals of good government and to create an aesthetically pleasing image’.

The Sant’Anna Monastery in Camprena, former Olivetan monastic complex of the XV century located in the homonymous town in Val d’Orcia, is the venue chosen by Antony Minghella to make a film about Hungarian Count  László Almásy’s refuge. A ruined house in the Tuscany countryside is the recovery place of the protagonist in the 1992 novel by the Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient. 

The former place of worship, with its bell tower of the XV century, today a farmhouse run by the Montepulciano-Chiusi-Pienza diocese, is the background to the segments of the 1997 film by the British director-winner of nine Oscar awards, two Golden Globes and six BAFTAs. It is often highlighted among the ochre hills of the surrounding valley covered by vineyards, rural residences and chestnut trees.

San Quirico d’Orcia between streets and nature

The cypress, declared a monument tree by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, is the typical plant of the zone and the whole region. The black poplars in San Quirico d’Orcia — XII submansio of the route of Sigerico – are two groups of trees which stand isolated on a hill, devoid of other tall trees and overlooking from the South a stretch of Via Cassia. The cypresses of the first set create a rhomboidal wood. The evergreen of the second set, on the other hand, are along a white road that leads to a farm and form two semicircles. The clerical, in his travel journal, calls it Sce Quiric. 

San Quirico d’Orcia, forty-six kilometres from Siena, is a town of Etruscan origin with 2,700 inhabitants and is situated on a hill at an altitude of 424 metres above sea level. It is an example of typical Medieval urban structure. The city wall of the XV century is mostly intact and fourteen towers are still existing, some of which are incorporated in other structures nowadays. Via Dante Alighieri, the ancient Via Francigena, cuts the town in two. All the town monuments overlook this street: among them, we find the Collegiate Church of the XII century with its Romanesque exterior and its Baroque interior, the Chigi Zondarari building, a stone building of the XVII century located beside the Christian Church and today seat of the municipality. 

Vald’0, San Quirico d’Orcia

Via Dante Alighieri, 81  – San Quirico d’Orcia, Italy

A Literary Vineria with international hyperlocal books and magazines, wine and Km O food.

Giulia Cangianiello

Vald’O, San Quirico d’Orcia

The writer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article.

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