Hermitage of St Marzio
A pleasant place where mysticism and nature come together and a little hermitage with harmonious architecture set among the vegetation.The light touch of the hand of man has contributed to a pleasant and comfortable stay with several tables, benches, a large brazier for barbecues and two fountains from which gushes a spring water that has little to envy to that of the nearby sources of Rocchetta .A lovely wooden bridge crosses a small stream that flows from the spring St. Marzio.The hermitage, initially, was built by followers of St. Francis who settled there in 1219 and where, in 1224, stayed the same St. Francis.It takes its name from Mars, a tertiary Franciscan hermit who, fascinated by these men, lived with them several years without entering in the order, until an unpredictable event,set the fire that destroyed Gualdo Tadino in 1237 and it changed the 'existence.The brothers, in fact, after this, in 1241, decided to leave that place and moved within the city (now reconstructed in part) to evangelize and help the population.Marzio, while praising the choice, he decided not to follow them and the age of 31 he began his intense life as a hermit, dedicating himself to prayer and penance "clad in a rough tunic walking barefoot among the rocks, snow and ice."
He stayed in the hermitage for 60 years together with some fellow (now in the meantime the head of this new community) building a new church and home.