Bagni San Filippo
Interesting facts
- The Balena Bianca, the largest travertine formation, is roughly 15 metres tall and 30 metres wide, and keeps growing as mineral water flows over it.
- The travertine forms when carbon dioxide escapes from the emerging hot water, so the dissolved calcium settles as white carbonate on every surface it touches.
- The springs lie at the edge of the geothermal field of Monte Amiata, an ancient volcano, which supplies the heat and the carbon dioxide-rich water.
- According to tradition, Philip Benizi hid on Monte Amiata for about three months after a cardinal proposed him as pope during the deadlocked conclave of 1268 to 1271.
- The miracle of the healing spring first appears in Servite writings of the late 15th century, which likened Philip striking the rock to Moses in the desert.
- Around 1401 the Servite friar Blessed Giovanni Benincasa is said to have spent much of his life in a cave here before moving to Monticchiello.
- A small Servite hermitage grew up beside the grotto; it was suppressed by Pope Innocent X in 1652, and an attempt to revive it in 1703 failed.
- The village church displays 18th-century busts of two saints named Philip side by side: Philip Benizi and Philip Neri.
- The village honours its patron, Saint Philip Benizi, with a festival every year on 22 and 23 August.
Why it is worth it
On the wooded slopes of Monte Amiata in southern Tuscany, hot sulphurous water pours down a stream bed and has coated everything it touches in brilliant white. At Bagni San Filippo, springs rich in calcium carbonate have built up terraces, basins, small cascades and frozen-looking curtains of travertine along the Fosso Bianco, the White Brook, which runs about 2 km through the forest before joining the Formone river. The largest of these formations is a massive white rock nicknamed the Balena Bianca, the White Whale, for its shape, with warm water spilling over its rounded flanks.
The springs carry sulphate, calcium and magnesium, and their temperatures vary widely: the source feeding the Fosso Bianco runs at about 48 °C, while others are far cooler, so that the pools change temperature from one to the next depending on how far they lie from the hot outlets. The village that grew up around the water is tiny, home to fewer than a hundred residents, and belongs to the municipality of Castiglione d'Orcia, on the edge of the Val d'Orcia.
The baths have a long history. They are mentioned in the eighth century in connection with the Lombard king Ratchis, and over the centuries they attracted Pope Pius II, Lorenzo de' Medici and Cosimo I de' Medici. The place takes its name from Philip Benizi, prior general of the Servite order. According to tradition, in 1269, during the long papal conclave at Viterbo, he learned that he might be proposed as pope and fled to Monte Amiata to hide; later Servite legends tell that he struck a rock with his staff and drew out a healing spring. A small oratory carved into a block of travertine, the Grotta di San Filippo, keeps a black wooden bust of the saint, and the village church holds an eighteenth-century stucco statue of him.
Getting there
Bagni San Filippo lies in the municipality of Castiglione d'Orcia, in the province of Siena, close to the old Via Cassia road. The city of Siena is about 53 km to the north. The nearest airport is Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi – Umbria International Airport (PEG), about 69 km away.
Plan your visit
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Nearby places
- Bagno Vignoni 12.8 km · hot-spring
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From the encyclopaedia
Bagni San Filippo is an area in the municipality of Castiglione d'Orcia in the Province of Siena, Italy, not far from Monte Amiata. It is a small hot spring containing calcium carbonate deposits, which form white concretions and waterfalls. The name derives from that of St Philip Benizi, who was a prior of the Servite order, and who lived as a hermit here in the thirteenth century. The grotto is open to visitors.
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