Question for our Italy based forumite
 

Have any of our forumite's in or visitng Italy seen this?;

http://www.italiantourism.com/news03.html

How about our historians any comments on it?

I searchd the forum and found nothing on it so if it has been discussed in the
past, I apoligize.

I've seen it many years ago. Tuscany is a jewel... :)

Firstly we must to put apart the spiritual aspect of the matter.
Catholic Church hasn't taken an offical position about the possibility this blade is effectively the one of Saint Galgano.

The blade has been extensively studied under every aspect, but I've found italian language references only.

I'll translate and put together the main passages (sorry for my english) :

Evidences of the presence of the sword are given by a number of different sources from very ancient periods.
The sword perfectly matches a type Xa style sword of the XII century a.D.
From 1915 to date the history have been reconstructed using even witnesses still alive at the time of the research. Till to 1924 the sword was still inserted in a fissure of the rock BUT it was removable and it was protected by an iron grating. In this year the grating was removed and the sword was fixed inserting melted lead in the fissure. During the '60 a moron broke the blade in a vandalic act. The broken part were re-fixed inplace with gray concrete later
replaced by another with a color matching the rock. I saw it in this situation and it was "touchable". Later in 1991 another vandalism, again broken blade,
again fixed with concrete, but this time a plexiglas was put on it to have a
better protection then faith in the people, obviously growing in foolishness...
The blade has been removed and the two pieces put together to examinate the matching of the two parts. Perfect matching.
Atomic absorption spectroscopy of little pieces of the blade reveals presence of cadmium, copper nichel and lead (this last possibly from the '20...),
in quantity that are considered matching a medieval metal content of such elements and to leave few room to the possibility of the use of a later metal.
Researches are still in progress.

The sword as is now :

THANKS!! I was wondering if it was for real. I have to admit I can understand the temptation to try and draw the sword form the stone! :D

In some way a sort of miracle effectively occurred.
If the sword was removable as seem it was and as there are evidences of
its presence there for many centuries even if the abbey was abandoned, the fact that noone have stole it is, "pe sè" a miracle... :D