The Chapels
The chapels of the Holy Mount of San Vivaldo are dated back to the 16th century and still preserve at their internal statuary groups in terracotta that represent different episode of life and Passion of Jesus Christ.
The building of the chapels was under direction of Fra Tommaso da Firenze, who spent many years in San Vivaldo till his dead in Florence in 1534. Before the year 1500 Fra Tommaso has been in the Near East, in Creta and in the Holy Land where Franciscans were established since the time of San Francisco, and where we known Fra Bernardino Caimi, the Franciscan author in 1493 of the Holy Mount of Varallo Sesia in Piedmont.At first, the huge work accomplished in 16 years, was made by 25 chapels, that from year to year someone went lost because of an humid ground and subjected to landslides, while others had been added later like the Annunciation's chapel, the escape in Egypt and the Samaritan.
The statuary groups in terracotta inside the chapels, were built by many anonymous artisans - whose workshop were diffused in that time in Tuscany as follower of Della Robbia's family - but with a different professional skill that is possible to remark by some details on the staues.
During centuries, chapels were leaved to local families to have care and for maintenance, but other went lost caused by a state of neglect and a ground subjected to landslides.
Today chapels are under the supervision of "Monuments and Fine Arts Office of Florence" who had cared of last restoration in 1971 and in 1976.