Complesso Monumentale di San Michele in Bosco
Hilltop monastic complex whose Renaissance refectory once held a Medici-faced fresco of a legendary papal feast.
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About this audio guide
This guide to the Complesso Monumentale di San Michele in Bosco in Bologna centers on the monastery's old refectory, where in 1539 the monks hired a young Giorgio Vasari to paint the legend of Saint Gregory the Great feeding beggars at his own table until an uninvited stranger joined them. It follows how Vasari, only twenty-eight, gave the saint the face of a recently deceased Medici pope while the monks ate their plain suppers beneath it, and how Napoleon's army later stripped dozens of works from this hilltop complex. Stand in that refectory and picture the feast that once looked down on it.
This audio guide was created using AI.