ALBERICO, monk of MONTECASSINO. — Born at Settefrati in Campania in 1101 (?), died around 1140. At the age of ten, during an illness that for nine days seemed to have deprived him of life, he had a vision in which St. Peter and two angels (Emmanuel and Eloy) led him through hell, purgatory, and paradise, the latter divided into seven heavens. Around 1115 he was received by Abbot Gerardo (1111–23) at Montecassino, where, having been ordained a priest (1124), he lived so holily that no one dared to doubt the reality of his vision.
The first version of this work, written at the command of Abbot Senioretto (1127–37), must be attributed, according to the explicit testimony of Pietro Diacono (Chronicon Casinense, IV, 66; PL 173, 888 ff.), to the monk Guido, who was also the author of several verses « de fortuna eiusdem (visionis) » (Liber de viris illustr. Casinensibus, chap. 41; PL 173, 1044 ff.). A. then composed a new version of it together with Pietro Diacono (1127), in 50 chapters of good Latin prose (Cod. membr. no. 239, archive of Montecassino). It is preceded by a prologue by the aforementioned Guido and by a letter from A. himself deploring the spread in Italy of accounts of the vision that did not conform to the original. The vision of A., which is not lacking in a certain artistic elaboration, is commonly regarded by critics (Ozanam, Rajna, D’Ancona, D’Ovidio, Zingarelli) as one of the most notable sources from which Dante drew inspiration, along with other legends then widely circulated, in shaping the material of his poem.
Our A. must not be confused with the deacon Alberico, also a monk of Montecassino, who died in 1088. The confusion among the Bollandists and other authors is due to the fact that the deacon Alberico wrote, among other things, two rhythmic compositions: De poenis inferni and De gaudio paradisi, and, according to Pietro Diacono (De ortu et obitu iustorum Casinensium, chap. 49; PL 173, 1105), had an apparition of the deceased monk Guaiferio. That this deacon Alberico was also born at Settefrati and was identical with the cardinal of the title of SS. Quattro Coronati, as is commonly held, is more than problematical according to F. Novati, Storia letter. d’Italia, Le origini, Milan 1926, p. 414 ff.
The Vision of A. was first published by F. Cancellieri (Rome 1814, text and vernacular translation), who transcribed it from a manuscript in the Alessandrina Library of Rome, compared with codex 257, from the 13th century, in the archive of Montecassino. This codex, the sole original, was first published by A. Amelli in Bibliotheca Casinensis, Flavillegium, V, 1 (1894), pp. 191–206, and was reproduced by C. De Vivo and A. Mirra.