BADIA DI S. BENEDETTO. – Its origin is Pomposa (v.), when, having become uninhabitable because of the conditions created there by the commendatory administration and malaria, the monks decided to move to the city. There, as early as 1476, Sixtus IV had granted the Congregation of S. Giustina the priory of S. Marco, formerly belonging to the canons of S. Frediano of Lucca; and this title of prior of S. Marco was joined to that of abbot of Pomposa when, in 1492, this distinguished abbey too was entrusted to the care of the same congregation. But once the abandonment of Pomposa had been decided upon, plans were made to erect a new monastery, whose foundation stone was laid on 3 July 1496, with their own hands, by Duke Ercole I and the bishop of Adria, Niccolò M. d’Este.
The monks were expelled from the monastery, which had been converted into a hospital for the wounded, on 23 March 1797. The decree of suppression followed the next year; the church was then converted into a warehouse and, later, into a hospital as well. The bones of Ariosto, which had long been buried there, were transferred to the Municipal Library in 1801 by order of General Miollis.
In 1812 the church was restored to worship and made a parish church, while the monastery remained under military administration; only in 1912 was part of it granted to the Salesians, who opened there the college named after S. Carlo, the saint who had resided there in 1580. Already rich in works of art, it has three magnificent cloisters, damaged during the last war. The library and archive, formerly belonging to Pomposa, were partly dispersed; more than 2,000 parchments, however, came into the possession of the monks of Montecassino. The church, recently restored under the direction of Mons. Benedetto Pavani, was almost entirely destroyed by aerial bombardment. – Vedi tavv. LXXVII-LXXVIII.