The Monastery of St. Jerome
This fascinating building, with its characteristic white limestone facing, stands on a narrow ledge halfway up Mount Ansciano on the opposite side to the other hermitage situated on the slopes of Mount Foce dedicated to St. Ambrose. The Monastery of St. Jerome was founded in 1358 after three citizens of Gubbio belonging to the confraternity “Compagnia dei Battuti o Disciplinati”, and who wanted to become hermits, petitioned the Bishop to grant them the place known as “ St. Augustine’s Wood on Mount Goregge where there was a small oratory dedicated to St. Jerome.” From 1436 it was placed under the jurisdiction of the Superiors of the Friars Minor of the Province of Assisi. During the 19th century it was twice suppressed and even passed into private hands. In 1935, it was purchased by the Friars Minor of St. Clare’s in Assisi to whom it still belongs. Abandoned for a long time, it was finally assigned to the Capodarco Community in Umbria who undertook restoration work and rendered it accessible to people with disabilities. In 2000, the Poor Clare nuns from the enclosed convent of the Holy Trinity in Corso Garibaldi were transferred to the Monastery. Since then Franciscan spirituality and its values of Peace, Prayer and Mystical Meditation are once more to be found here . The church is also a Marian shrine where the Madonna of Fatima is venerated together with the beautiful crucifix by Innocenzo da Petralia (1637) who also made the one venerated in the Monastery of San Damiano in Assisi.