The knight Galgano Guidotti after a libertine youth, gave up his titles and possessions to hermitage in the Sienese countryside , in a place now called Cappella di San Galgano Montesiepi ; in the nearby plain, a Cistercian abbey was built twenty years after his death in 1201 to honor him. It was long prosperous .
A sword, which would be his, and he would have sunk into a rock at the time of conversion, is still visible in the middle of the chapel of his hermitage built around this relic. This symbol (from the violence of war to peace religion) is used as representation of the cross (by the guard and handle of the sword) remaining visible emerging from the rock.