St. Galgano Guidotti Sword in the Stone
Tuscany's Excalibur - The Real Thing?
Rory Carroll reported in , Sunday, September 16, 2001, that the sword of St. Galgano
Guidotti, a noble from Chiusdano, near Siena, said to have been plunged
into a rock around 1180 by the medieval Tuscan knight when he became a
hermit, has been authenticated, bolstering Italy's version of the
Excalibur legend. For centuries the
sword was assumed to be a fake; but research revealed last week by Luigi
Garlaschelli, of the University of Pavia, has dated its metal to the
twelfth century. Only the hilt,
wooden grip and a few inches of the 3ft blade poke from the hill
Montesiepi, a hill near Chiusdano, which still draws pilgrims and tour
to the ruins of the chapel built around it. Ground-penetrating
radar has also revealed that beneath the sword there is a cavity, 2m by
1m, which is thought to be a burial recess, possibly containing the
knight's body. Carbon-dating also
confirmed that two mummified hands at Montesiepi were also from the
twelfth century. Legend has it that anyone who tried to remove the sword
had their arms ripped out.
One may wonder if this event predated or post-dated the stories of Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone.
