ALBERICO (AUBRY), blessed. — Second abbot of Cîteaux. We know nothing of his birth or of his intellectual and moral formation before he entered the monastery. He first appears in the Benedictine abbey of Molesme as prior. After vain attempts to reform observance of the rule of s. Benedetto in all its original purity and austerity, A. transferred, together with the abbot s. Roberto and some of the more zealous monks, to Cîteaux near Dijon, where he played a principal role in the foundation of the monastery, which became the cradle of the Cistercian Order (v.).
ALBERGATI, NICCOLÒ, blessed — Mitre of the blessed — Bologna, Treasury of the Metropolitan Cathedral.
After the return of s. Roberto to Molesme, he succeeded him as abbot (1099–1109). In 1100 he obtained from Pope Pasquale II approval of the new monastic Order, for which he also issued the first constitutions and which he consecrated to the Virgin. He saw the reform of monastic life in the return to the primitive spirit of the rule of s. Benedetto: he especially inculcated simplicity of conduct in daily life, the poverty of the individual monk, manual labor, the practice of hospitality, and the «opus Dei».
After almost ten years of government under a very strict discipline, he died a holy death on 26 January 1109. A. was regarded as a saint in the Cistercian Order from time immemorial. His name is found in the oldest catalogues of the saints and blesseds of the same Order. By decree of 3 January 1701, the S. Congregation of Rites approved the office in honor of A. and permitted the Cistercians to celebrate his feast, which in 1738 was fixed for 26 January.
L. Janauschek, Originium Cistere, I (vol. unico), Vienna 1877; U. Berlière, Les origines de Cléaux et l'Ordre bénédictin au XIIIe siècle, in Rev. d'hist. eccl., 1 (1900), pp. 448–71; 2 (1901), pp. 253–90; Ph. Guignard, Les monuments primitifs de l'abbaye de Molesmes, I, Parigi 1907; J.-Bertold Mahn, L'Ordre Cistercien et son gouvernement des origines au milieu du XIIIe siècle (1898-1963), Parigi 1945, passim. Lucchesio Spätling