The Co-cathedral of the SS. Salvatore in Montalcino

From the 16th century to our day

After the Counter-Reformation, the bishop of Pistoia Francesco Bossi was invited to verify that its precepts, established in the Council of Trent, were being applied. According to his report, Montalcino was impoverished and backward compared to Pienza, since its rents and profits flowed for the most part towards Siena. The country and city churches alike were in decline, thus they lacked the structural premises for being able to apply the new indications from the Holy See. For these reasons the bishop emphasized the necessity to restore its ancient prestige: to differentiate the cathedral from the other churches in the diocese, recover its dominant position, find the funds to establish a seminary, and restore the “sedes episcopalis” built at the behest of Pius II and almost never used as the bishop’s residence.
In the seventeenth century the city was enriched with new buildings like the theater, built after the birth of the Accademia degli Astrusi in the footsteps of the Accademia degli Intronati in Siena, and the new church of the Madonna del Soccorso, a center of town devotion raised after the victory over the Spanish siege.
In the course of the eighteenth century Montalcino witnessed the passage of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from Medici rule to that of the Hapsburg-Lorraine dynasty. The suppression of the religious orders implemented by Grand Duke Leopold (1765-1790) affected the convents of the Franciscans, Augustinians and the Oblates of Saint Catherine. Thanks also to funds obtained in this way, Leopold set up a seminary in Montalcino where even young men of humble origins who did not have a vocation to the priesthood could be educated. The bishop of Montalcino Giuseppe Bernardino Pecci of Siena worked to organize the school’s structure and guarantee a high profile for it, summoning only teachers with a university degree to teach there. As late as the 1970s, the seminary was the only high school in Montalcino.
The nineteenth century saw the economic and building rebirth of the town, first and foremost with the rebuilding of the Cathedral (1817-1834), designed by the renowned Sienese architect Agostino Fantastici. In the second half of the century, this process was completed by the arrival of the railroad and other major public works promoted by the newly-established Kingdom of Italy (the aqueduct to bring water in from the springs on Mount Amiata, and steam generators to drive the mill and provide electricity) and social and cultural institutions like the mutual relief society; last but certainly not least is the invention of the formula for Brunello wine by Biondi Santi, which would make Montalcino famous the world over.
The last “independent” bishop of the diocese of Montalcino was Monsignor Ireneo Chelucci. After his death, in 1970 a process of integration with neighboring dioceses was set in motion which culminated in 1986 in the birth of the archdiocese of Siena – Colle di Val d’Elsa – Montalcino. The church of the Santissimo Salvatore took the title of co-cathedral at that time.