Agostiniane di Lecceto

The Eremo di Lecceto is located about ten kilometers from Siena, in the middle of a holm oak forest. In the 12th century, hermits settled in the caves of this wood, then a hideout for bandits, and consecrated their small church in 1228. They followed the Rule of Saint Augustine and were at the origin of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine, founded by the Holy See in 1244 and 1256. In the 14th and 15th centuries, Lecceto experienced its golden age: Saint Catherine of Siena frequented the place, and one of the brothers, the Englishman William Flete, was for several years her spiritual director.

Emptied by the Napoleonic suppressions, the hermitage was purchased in 1816 by the seminary of Siena. On December 30, 1972, the Augustinian nuns of the Santa Maria degli Angeli monastery left the city to settle there. They chant the entire liturgy seven times a day in a church open to all, and offer monastic hospitality to those who wish to share a time of silence and prayer with them.