Here, in the early thirteen hundreds, Franciscan Vivaldo Stricchi retired to private life from S.Gimignano, found dead in the hollow of a chestnut tree that served him as a dwelling. In the same place a hermitage later rose. Between the Fourteen hundreds and the Five hundreds, Franciscan friars took possession and transformed in a convent.
 
The peculiarity of the San Vivaldo convent lies in the existence of a number of chapels distributed around the church, in which scenes from the life of Jesus are depicted. Originally the chapels were thirty, currently only eighteen are left. In the Middle ages the phenomenon of pilgrimages into the Holy Land acquired exceptional proportions, because people wanted to see first hand the places where Christ had preached, was crucified and was reborn, but the journey was difficult and dangerous since Palestine at the time was controlled by the Turks.
 
Therefore they tried to transfer the journey to the Holy Land in the west materially rebuilding the sacred places of Palestine: the "Sacred Mount" in San Vivaldo is precisely one of these places. San Vivaldo’s «Jerusalem» today is object of study for many archaeologists, lectors of art and town planning and architecture of the Christian sanctuaries in Jerusalem. Currently there is a study being done there to reconstruct the events that led to the disappearance of the twelve chapels.

Montaione Municipality