It is the oldest monastery in Italy, along with the monastery of Santa Scolastica. Founded in 529 by San Benedetto da Norcia, it has undergone a succession of destructions, looting, earthquakes, and subsequent reconstructions... #tuttitaly
The Abbey of Montecassino is a Benedictine monastery located on the top of Montecassino in Lazio. Founded in 529 by Saint Benedict of Nursia, it is the second oldest monastery in Italy after Santa Scolastica. It is 516 meters above sea level and has undergone destruction, looting, earthquakes, and subsequent reconstructions.
During the Middle Ages, the Abbey of Montecassino was an important cultural center thanks to its abbots, libraries, archives, and schools of writing and illumination. It preserved and transcribed numerous works from antiquity, from the earliest documents in the vernacular language to the famous Cassinese illuminated manuscripts and incunabula.
One of its most illustrious abbots was Desiderius, the future Pope Victor III, who, in the 11th century, completely rebuilt the abbey and adorned the church with precious frescoes and mosaics. Most of the decorations, both in the church and the new monastery areas, consisted of paintings, many of which have been lost over time.
The Abbey of Montecassino was destroyed by the earthquake of 1349 and subsequently rebuilt in 1366.
In the 17th century, it took on the typical appearance of Neapolitan Baroque thanks to the pictorial decorations by Sebastiano Conca and other artists such as Luca Giordano, Francesco Solimena, and Francesco de Mura.
Three cloisters surround the abbey. The entrance or Southern abbey, located in the area where the temple dedicated to Apollo stood, was adapted by Saint Benedict into an oratory dedicated to Saint Martin.
In the garden's center is a bronze sculpture depicting the Death of Saint Benedict. In the Bramante cloister, also known as Sant'Anna, built-in 1595 in Renaissance style, there is an octagonal cistern and two statues of Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica. The Benefactors, or Northern Abbey, built in 1513, is characterized by two rows of statues depicting popes and sovereigns patronizing the sanctuary over the centuries.
The Abbey of Montecassino is a place of great historical and artistic importance, which testifies to the cultural and spiritual richness of the Benedictine tradition in Italy.
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