MONTE CASSINO. - Abbey in southern Lazio, founded around 529 by St. Benedict of Nursia, on the ancient acropolis that stood on the mountain, of which imposing circuit walls still remain today. After demolishing the buildings of pagan worship, St. Benedict, on the altar of Apollo, erected a chapel in honor of St. John the Baptist and transformed the temple of that same god into an oratory dedicated to St. Martin. According to St. Gregory, the proportions of the new monastery were vast; and therefore more in keeping with the Saint's new monastic ideal, who, having abandoned the cenobitic life of the Eastern type already established at Subiaco, instituted a more integral one to be practiced in a single and capacious monastery sufficient unto itself materially and spiritually, as appears from the Rule. At his death (547) the work was continued by his successors, of whom very little is known. St. Gregory the Great alludes to the prestige attained by M. in so short a time, and a confirmation of this can be seen even in the mere names that have come down to us of certain educated monks of that time: Mark the poet, author of verses in praise of St. Benedict, Sebastian, who wrote a life of St. Jerome, and the abbot Simplicius. This first development was violently cut short, little more than thirty years after the founder's death, by the destruction of the monastery at the hands of the Lombards of Zotto. The monks — all of whom escaped the massacre, as St. Benedict had foretold — with their abbot Bonitus took refuge in Rome, and Pope Pelagius II assigned them a dwelling near the Lateran.
On the mountain there dwelt meanwhile only a few solitaries, when Petronax of Brescia, around 717, went there driven by the desire for solitude and urged on by Pope Gregory II. The rebirth of the abbey and of the regular life, to which the monks of S. Vincenzo al Volturno and the strong personality of St. Willibald contributed in some way, was also favored by Pope Zachary, who recognized the community of Petronax as the heir of that of the 6th century, restored to M. the autograph of the Rule of St. Benedict and the weight of bread and wine, and donated several precious manuscripts of Holy Scripture. In 748 he himself wished to consecrate the church erected over the tomb of St. Benedict. The Beneventan duke Gisulf made a gift of lands near the abbey and constituted the first nucleus of the vast Cassinese patrimony, which later expanded until it reached over one hundred thousand hectares, with two outlets to the sea, ports, warehouses at Amalfi and Salerno, a small fleet of ten ships to trade with Ancona, Ravenna, Dalmatia and Apulia, and with mines in Sardinia. Among the many vocations worthy of mention are those of the two abdicating kings, Carloman of the Franks and Rachis of the Lombards; the number of monks increased so much that already in 748 some departed for Germany at the request of the duke of Bavaria Uto, others for Brescia in 759, and still others for France at the request of Charlemagne to abbot Theobald (778-97). A few decades after the restoration M. had become a center of monastic life to which flocked, among others, founders of monasteries from various parts of Europe: Sturm of Fulda, Pirmin of Reichenau, Ludger of Werden, Anselm of Nonantola, Adalard of Corvey. Its importance increased further in the time of Charlemagne, who regarded the abbey as an advanced outpost of his policy in southern Italy; for this reason he granted it immunity and received it into the imperial defenzio. Greater luster, however, came to it from its school, developed and perfected by Paul the Deacon; there were taught not only the sciences of the trivium and quadrivium, but also the Greek language, and a large part was given to writing, to the illumination of codices, and there gradually took shape the script known under the name of "Beneventan" or "Cassinese," of which M. was from that time the most important center. To this intellectual activity corresponded the activity in building and the arts.
After the first examples of churches already built under Abbot Potone (771-78), a notable activity was that of Gisulf (797-817), to whom are due the enlargement and the richer decoration of the church of M., besides the construction of the basilica and of the monastery of the Savior at the foot of the mount, for which he made use of the work of the monk-architect Carioaldus. In these and other contemporary buildings erected in Cassinese dependencies, and also in the church of S. Vincenzo al Volturno, scholars have noted specific characteristics of a true Cassinese school, whose influence extended even beyond the Alps, as far as Germigny-les-Près and the island of Reichenau on Lake Constance. This period of quiet and artistic activity also favored the growth of the monastery's literary school, attended for a time also by Neapolitan clerics. Ilderic, author of a valuable Latin grammar, the poets Theophanes, Bassacius and Bertarius, who also composed treatises on various disciplines and sermons, continue the intellectual activity of Paul the Deacon. To this time belong also the Chronica s. Benedicti Casinensis.
Bassacius and Bertarius were also abbots. Bassacius, together with the Volturnese abbot James, also directed an embassy to the Emperor to invoke help against the devastations of the Saracens, but his successor Bertarius labored even more, meeting several times with the emperor Louis II and proposing a defensive league against the invader among the principalities of the Mezzogiorno. At the same time Bertarius organized the monastery's patrimony and gave it a definitive arrangement for that time, while fortifying the strategic points. Nevertheless, so much activity did not suffice to prevent the Saracens from destroying M. in 883, and Bertarius himself and many monks were killed. No better fortune befell the monks who escaped that massacre, in the small monastery of Teano, burned in 896: there went up in ashes, along with many codices and diplomas, also the autograph of the Rule, of which only a small part was preserved until the French devastation in 1799. There followed a relaxation of discipline, accentuated even more in 914 when the monks, through the intrigues of the princes of Capua, moved there. The return to M. took place in 949 through the merit of Abbot Aligernus, who in his long government gave new life and prestige to the monastery. Together with regular observance he reestablished and reorganized the patrimony, which he set on the path to greater production with contracts and grants of land to colonists and with the impulse given to commerce among the abbey's dependencies. Toward the end of the century, new foundations of monasteries came about through the work of the Cassinese: at Zara, in Poland and in Hungary: five monasteries arose in Tuscany, among them that of Florence. No wonder that saints and great monastic reformers flocked to M.: William of Dijon, founder of Fruttuaria, John of Gorze, Nilus of Grottaferrata, Odilo of Cluny, Adalbert of Prague. Intellectual activity too had regained vigor with the return of the monks to M., as attested by the Historia Langobardorum of Erchempert, the sermons and lives of the saints of Lawrence, and also the perfecting of the "Beneventan" script that spread as far as Dalmatia: nor should the illuminated codices be forgotten, including those of the Capuan period, which already prelude the ornamental perfection of the Desiderian period. And the flowering of the Cassinese scriptorium, which not even the crisis provoked at the death of Aligernus in 986 by the violent intrusion of the unworthy abbot Manso had sufficed to arrest, was ever more intensified despite the struggles of the 11th century. Contested between pope and emperor, necessarily bound to the policy of the princes of Capua, watched with suspicion and greed by the neighboring lords, the great abbey nevertheless succeeded in preserving its independence. Thus it suffered at first the wrath of the emperor Henry II for the alliance concluded with the Byzantines by Abbot Atenulf (1011-22), then the intrigues against Abbot Theobald (1022-38), elected in the presence of the Emperor and of pope Benedict VIII and therefore loyal to the Empire, on the part of the prince of Capua, eager to bind the powerful monastery again to his principality; and afterward it had to defend its position and its patrimony from the abuses of the Normans, chiefly through the work of the Bavarian abbot Richerius (1038-57).
The Investiture Controversy finds on the abbatial seat Desiderius (1057-87), under whom M. becomes a true artistic and cultural center, while with the papacy it collaborates in the defense of the rights of the Church. Desiderius renewed the buildings of the monastery, which he made one of the most beautiful in all the West. The church, renewed with the collaboration of Byzantine artists, was consecrated with great solemnity by Alexander II in 1071. The work of Desiderius was continued by his successor Oderisius (1087-1103), who is to be remembered also for the help given to the First Crusade. Long is the series of illustrious men of the abbey in this period: Frederick of the house of Lorraine; Alfanus, later archbishop of Salerno; Constantine the African; Guaiferius the poet; Alberic of Settefrati and the other Alberic (v.), later cardinal, John of Gaeta, later Gelasius II (v.); Peter of Teano, perhaps compiler of the collection of Lombard laws; Leo of Ostia, author of the chronicle of the monastery, later continued by Peter the Deacon, who also composed hagiographic and historical writings; Amatus (v.), historian of the Normans and poet. Many in this age were the cardinals, legates and bishops who came out of M., and within the span of sixty years the three popes: Stephen IX, Victor III, Gelasius II, while other popes sought refuge or tranquility there amid their adversities: Nicholas II, Alexander II, Gregory VII, Urban II, Paschal II, Callistus II. In the Investiture Controversy the monks and abbots of M. upheld the cause of the Church and of the papacy. Forced to take sides for one or the other of the major contenders, pope, emperor and Norman king, M. often saw its patrimony damaged by the various soldiery: during the schism of Anacletus (1130), the struggles between Roger II and the Germans (1136), and then between Roger and pope Innocent II (1146) and even more during the struggle of William the Bad against pope Adrian IV, when the abbey, having become a fortress, saw the monks expelled (1156). Abbot Rainald of Collemezzo (1137-66) took advantage of a brief period of tranquility to restore the monastic life to vigor, so much so that a few years later the king of Sardinia Barisone asked the abbot for twelve monks for the monastery of S. Nicola de Gurgo, praying that there be among them some suited to fill important offices in his Kingdom and to be appointed bishops and ambassadors to the imperial or the Roman Curia. Abbot Roffred of Isola (1188-1210), a strenuous defender of the monastic patrimony, but animated by an excessive warlike spirit, allowed himself to be drawn into the struggle for the succession of the Kingdom, taking sides first for Tancred and then for Henry VI, for which he suffered exile and was the cause of a harsh siege for the monastery. From Innocent III, who stayed some days at M. in 1208, he received the charge of protecting the rights of the Kingdom against the Germans, and in his last years the reform of the abbey of S. Paolo in Rome was entrusted to him. Among the illustrious visits of the century was that of St. Bernard of Clairvaux who, together with the emperor Lothair III, attended the election of Abbot Guibaldus (1137) and on that occasion gave a discourse to the community.
After suffering two sieges in 1229 and a not-short abbatial vacancy, M. was reduced to a fortress in 1239 by Frederick II, while almost all the monks took the road of exile. Only at the death of Manfred (1266) could the abbot Bernardo Aiglerio, author of an Expositio of the Rule, already nominated by Urban IV in 1263, take possession of it. Even before him, the abbey had been distinguished by the learning of Pietro d'Atina, who later became chancellor of the Church and composed the Glossae ad Decretum Gratiani, of Pandolfo da S. Stefano, Riccardo, Bernardo da Castrocielo, Alessandro, author of an Exameron in Latin verse, and above all Erasmus, of whom some theological treatises and a few sermons survive. Some decades after Bernardo came the two jurists Nicola di Frattura, later abbot of S. Vincenzo al Volturno and then professor at Naples, and Riccardo di S. Angelo, both authors of commentaries on the Rule of St. Benedict. The stay of the Celestines, introduced at M. by Celestine V, was short-lived, but in 1322 John XXII raised the abbey to an episcopate: the abbot, theoretically still elected by the monks, became bishop of the diocese, and the monks formed its cathedral Chapter. In fact, however, the bishops were always elected by the pope; indeed they were not even monks and lived far from the abbey, facilitating the abuses and revolts of the vassals, greatest of all that of Jacopo da Pignataro who, having installed himself as master in the monastery, squandered its patrimony and drove out the monks, thus completing the destructive work of the Hungarians shortly before. The ruin was total, materially as well, with the earthquake of 1349, which left very little of the work of Desiderius and his successors.
M. rose again through the work of Urban V, a Benedictine, who, having taken the episcopal dignity from the abbots, left the diocese, reserving to himself for several years the title and office of abbot. All the Benedictine monasteries contributed to the rebuilding of the structures with a special tithe, and monks from Catania and Palermo joined the Cassinese community, so that in a short time the regular life returned to honor. Andrea da Faenza (1369-73) reopened the series of monk-abbots, and the situation seemed to improve. But wars still plagued the abbey. After the last years of Pietro de Tartaris (1374-95), greatly deserving of M.'s artistic rebirth, new difficulties beset the abbots and two of them ended in imprisonment, Enrico (1396-1413) and Pirro (1414-42) Tomacelli; the abbey remained for four years with only twelve monks, King Ladislaus having expelled all the others. Yet even amid so many troubles, in 1440 five monks set out from M. for Montserrat at the request of Alfonso, king of Aragon. Hardly had the storm of the Carafa family passed, having installed itself at M. as in its own fief through the work of Abbot Antonio Carafa, when in 1454 the commendam completed the disorder, and it was fortunate that it did not last more than half a century. The commendatory abbots were: Cardinal Chamberlain Ludovico (1454-65), Paul II (1465-71); Giovanni d'Aragona (1471-85); Giovanni de' Medici (1486-1504). New violence and expulsions of the monks occurred in the war of King Ferrante against Innocent VIII, and more serious ones during the struggle between the French and the Spaniards fought out precisely within the monastery. Until Pope Julius II, having suppressed the commendam, united the abbey to the Congregation of S. Giustina of Padua with a bull of 1504 that also changed the name of the Congregation, which from that moment was called Cassinese.
Then began for M. a period of peace and of recollection, and in the three following centuries disturbances were rare. With the regular life, re-established according to the statutes of the Congregation, studies and building and artistic activity developed. In the latter, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Ignazio Squarcialupi distinguished himself above all, and, a few decades later, Angelo de Faggis, known as il Sangrino: it is chiefly to the latter that the appearance taken on in that century by the Cassinese buildings, and preserved until the destruction of 1944, is due. Il Sangrino, noted for his learning, took part in the Council of Trent; an elegant Latinist, he also held important offices from the popes of the time. Along with him other Cassinese men of letters are to be remembered: Onorato Fascitelli, Leonardo Sforza degli Oddi, Giovanni Battista Mormile, Benedetto dell'Uva. In the same century flourished the jurists Gregorio da Viterbo and Benedetto Canofilo, the theologians Benedetto da S. Germano and Crisostomo di S. Gemignano, who also received an invitation to take part in the Council of Trent; the chroniclers and archivists of the monastery Placido Petrucci and Onorato de' Medici. M. was one of the places of study for the young men of the Cassinese Congregation. Besides the many pilgrims, in this century there ascended to M. St. Ignatius of Loyola, who stayed there several days with Pietro Ortiz, St. Philip Neri, and Torquato Tasso. The abbot Domenico Quesada (1650-53) began the rebuilding of the church on a design by Cosimo Fansago; the dome had already been raised by the architect Orazio Torriani in 1613; from as early as 1545 the crypt had been made beneath the church, later decorated with paintings by Marco di Siena. Artists of the Neapolitan school decorated the church, consecrated by Pope Benedict XIII in 1727, among them Luca Giordano, Francesco Solimena, De Matteis, De Mura, Sebastiano Conca. But the most illustrious artist at M. during the Renaissance was Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, author of the monument to Pietro de' Medici; mention should also be made of the two brothers da Bassano, who composed a large painting in the monks' refectory with St. Benedict distributing the Rule; Belisario Corenzio frescoed the dome.
To the seventeenth century in part, and to the following one, belong:
Erasmo Gattola, noted for his works on the history of the abbey; the brothers G. Battista and Placido Federici for the tradition of erudite studies, and Casimiro Correale.
Plunderings and devastations M. suffered in 1799 from the soldiers of the French general Championnet, and only with the help of Pius VII were the damages in part repaired, but shortly afterwards (1806) King Joseph Bonaparte suppressed the abbey, put its property up for sale, declared it an "establishment", making the abbot its director and the monks its custodians, in lay dress. Nor did the Bourbon restoration put an end to its troubles: adherence to the idea of Italian unity cost M. suspicions and threats on the part of the Neapolitan government, which first prohibited the publication of a periodical of national character, L'Ateneo italiano, and then ordered the closure of the printing press. The unification of Italy found at M. an intellectual activity still fervent, especially through the merit of Luigi Tosti, author of many historical works. Ottavio Fraja Frangipane and Sebastiano Kalefati also distinguished themselves by their studies. Tosti strove with all his might to prevent the suppression of M. in 1866, but the law was published all the same two years later. It was managed, however, to have the abbey declared a national monument, and the monks were given its custody. Lacking political power and impoverished by the loss of its patrimony, M. nevertheless preserved its moral prestige, with a renewed monastic spirit. Studies flourished again with publications of documents from the Archive, with teaching in the schools of the diocesan Seminary and of the lay College, with the establishment of the meteorological and geodynamic Observatory. The publications were produced in the abbey itself by the printing press and the chromolithography. Other scholars worthy of mention were Anselmo Caplet, Andrea Caravita, Oderisio Piscicelli-Taeggi, Giuseppe Quandel, Ambrogio Amelli, Luigi Vaccari. Meanwhile artistic activity was not neglected: in 1880 the sanctuary of the tower of St. Benedict was consecrated; on its decoration worked the monk artists of the abbey of Beuron, who then, still under the direction of d. Desiderio Lenz, completely renewed the crypt in their style, consecrated in 1913. Not even the last total destruction following the aerial bombardment of 15 February 1944 was able to break definitively the zealous monastic activity at M. The reconstruction, already begun under the abbot Gregorio Diamare (d. 1945) with the help of the Italian government, is already quite far advanced in these last years. A recognition of the relics of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica was carried out on 2 August 1950 on the initiative of the abbot Ildefonso Rea.
Of the Library and the Archive, more than 1000 codices and 40,000 parchments escaped destruction, together with the entire collection of printed works with 250 incunabula.
The cultural activity of the monks of M., so intense in the Middle Ages, has not ceased in modern times. Publications by now famous are I codici e le arti a M., by A. Caravita (3 vols., 1869-71); the Bibliotheca Casinensis (5 vols., 1873-96); La paleografia artistica di M. (2 vols., 1876-77) and Le miniature nei codici cassinesi (1887) by O. Piscicelli-Taeggi; the Codicum Casinensium manuscriptorum catalogus, by M. Inguanez (3 vols., 1915-41). Highly esteemed by historians and diplomatists are the series Miscellanea Cassinese, which reached vol. XXVI in 1950, and Tabularium Casinense, which comprises, besides the Codex diplomaticus Cajetanus by A. Caplet, 4 Regesti cassinesi published by Inguanez.
THE DIOCESE OF MONTE CASSINO
It came into being gradually, as happened with other abbeys, through the territories that were assigned to the monastery. Over these the abbot in fact exercised spiritual care, thanks also to the privilege of exemption from the authority of the Ordinary, obtained by the abbey itself. When John XXII elevated M. to a diocese, these rights were consolidated and assumed an aspect that was not lost even with the suppression of the bishopric. Now M. is an abbey nullius. To the ancient territory, in 1698 Pope Innocent XII annexed that of the abbey of S. Vincenzo al Volturno, whose actual transfer, however, took place in 1700; in 1834 the prepositura of Atina was also united to the Cassinese diocese. In this way the present diocese of M. extends through the Abruzzi, Molise, Lazio, and Campania.
It has an area of 1000 sq km, with a population of 110,000 inhabitants distributed in 70 parishes served by 75 priests; it has 22 religious institutes, 18 educational institutes of which 15 nurseries and 3 orphanages, 1 major and 1 minor seminary with 38 students. - See plate XCII.
Bibliography10 works
Ambrogio Mancone