The calcareous nature of the mountain shaped its harsh morphology, characterized by a number of ravines and natural cavities opening up under the shadow of majestic maples, ashes, elms, and beeches. Some particularly suggestive places were chosen by Saints and by the monks for their prayers. The environmental frame is completed by a typical Tuscan territory clearly influenced by the activity of man who shaped a landscape made of woods alternating with pastures and cultivated lands, parishes, hermitages, monasteries, the symbols of the whole region.