Congregation of Cistercian Monks of Casamari

CONGREGAZIONE CISTERCENSE DI CASAMARI: v. CASAMARI.

CISTERCIAN CONGREGATION OF ITALY

In 1497 Alexander VI established the union of the Cistercian monasteries of upper Italy into a Congregation, named St. Bernard; but it became effective only with a new intervention by Julius II (1501). It was also called the Lombard Congregation. In 1631 Urban VIII approved its statutes, and the abbot president of the Congregation held the first place in the General Chapter of Cîteaux, after the four primary abbots. Belonging to the Congregation were, among others, the famous monastery of the Tre Fontane in Rome and, from 1560 onward, that of S. Croce in Gerusalemme. The seat of the abbot president was at Chiaravalle Marche.

Meanwhile the General Chapter of the Order of 1613 ordered the union of the Cistercian monasteries of central Italy and of the Kingdom of Naples, which had not joined the Lombard Congregation, and Gregory XV in 1623 made the decision effective; thus the Roman Congregation was born.

Finally, Urban VIII in 1632, in accordance with a decision of the General Chapter of the Order of 1605, made effective the union of the Cistercian monasteries of Calabria and Lucania, instituting the Congregation of the Madonna of Calabria, or of Flori, or Florensian.

Meanwhile a particular Cistercian reform had begun in France, through the work of Jean de la Barrière, with its seat at the abbey of N.-D. de Feuillant, approved by Sixtus V in 1586 and by Clement VIII in 1592 and erected into a Congregation. The founder obtained in Rome a seat in the vicinity of the Baths of Diocletian (1598), where the church of S. Bernardo alle Terme was later built. Urban VIII, in 1630, divided this new Congregation into two independent branches, the Cistercians of Notre-Dame-de-Feuillant in France and the Reformed of St. Bernard in Italy (43 monasteries), called by the people "Bernardoni", who had in Rome, besides the church of S. Bernardo, the procurator general's office at S. Vito and the church of S. Pudenziana.

The French Revolution and the grave political upheavals that followed caused the almost complete ruin of the Lombard Congregation and brought about the closure of many other monasteries. For this reason, Pius VII, in 1802, united the surviving Italian houses to the Roman Congregation, today called the Cistercian Congregation of Italy, dedicated to St. Bernard. The seat of the abbot president is at S. Croce in Gerusalemme.

Giuseppe Löw

CISTERCIAN ARCHITECTURE - The sense of austerity that underlies the Cistercian reform is profoundly reflected in the appearance of the churches erected by the Order. The rules indeed contain numerous norms in this regard: every sculptural decoration, every symbolic representation was to be banished, vertical development limited, the entire construction marked by the utmost economy, the bells themselves reduced in number and size. The coincidence of the first developments of the Gothic in France was a decisive factor for the architecture of the new churches, which drew from it constructive arrangements, such as the pointed arch adopted as early as that of Cîteaux. More particularly the monks adhered to the Burgundian style as the simpler and more unadorned, linking back in their general layout to the ancient Benedictine models, beginning with St. Gall.

The first Cistercian churches therefore present a great simplicity in their organism, on a Latin cross plan or more often an Egyptian one, with three naves covered by cross vaults supported by polystyle piers in which the half-columns on the side of the central nave continue up to the impost blocks of the vaults themselves. At the meeting of the nave and the transept rises the tiburium functioning as a bell tower, so as to allow the monks themselves, who officiate, to ring the bells, since the choir is in front of the high altar. The apse generally has a square plan.

To the left of the church and in direct communication with it stands the great cloister, which serves as the passageway between all the rooms of the convent: chapter house, refectory, study rooms, etc.

Chiaravalle Milanese, Fossanova, S. Paolo alle Tre Fontane, etc., adhere to this scheme.

Given the great diffusion of the reform of Cîteaux, the Cistercians influenced the whole of European religious architecture of the 12th century, also as disseminators of forms not only in the countries bordering their land of origin, but also in those beyond the Channel and even in Scandinavia.

At the beginning of the 13th century various architectural currents began to be distinguished within the Order itself, owing to the superimposition on the traditional forms of other local ones, which sometimes resulted in further constructive simplifications, as in southern Lazio.

In Burgundy, on the other hand, the monks followed the developments of the stylistic evolution of Gothic taste not only in the constructive forms, which were indeed perfected by them with technical skill, but also in the decorative motifs, in part accepted by them. A new wave of Gothicism thus spread through northern and central Italy, as attested by the abbey churches of S. Galgano and of S. Martino al Cimino, where a more refined sense of decoration is associated with a greater slenderness, and by that of S. Andrea at Vercelli, in which the flying buttress also appears.

Mario Zocca