SANTISSIMA TRINITÀ DI CAVA DEI TIRRENI, BADIA della. — Abbey nullius, immediately subject. Within an area of 180 sq km it comprises 21,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, distributed among 17 parishes served by 27 diocesan and 31 regular priests; it has a seminary, 2 male and 10 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 645). Founded in 1010 by S. ALFEO (v.), a nobleman from Salerno, inside and around a grotto, Cava became enormously powerful through a religious congregation, the Benedictine Ordo Cavensis, which spread the principles of the great Cluniac reform.
Lombard and Norman princes, and the pontiffs Gregory VII, Lucius III, and Innocent III, granted the abbots exceptional privileges that contributed to its extraordinary development (it had jurisdiction over as many as 29 abbeys and 91 priories, extending as far as Sicily). In 1394 the cenobium was raised to episcopal dignity, but in 1465 the abbey and the bishopric were given in commendam, and a rapid process of decline began for the Congregation, ending in its complete extinction. In 1496 the commendatory abbot Oliviero Carafa entrusted the abbey to the reformed Congregation of S. Giustina of Padua, and from then on the monks were united with the Cassinese Congregation. In 1517 the episcopal see was restored, but was no longer united with the abbey (v. CAVA e SARNO). From the end of the 16th century it began to receive young scholars, and after 1860 it became the seat of a bishop’s seminary and a college.
In the second half of the 18th century the church and some parts of the convent were enlarged and rebuilt following the collapse of an overhanging rock, which affected the buildings of the abbey, including the library; nevertheless, substantial remains survive of the original constructions of the 11th and 12th centuries. In the crypt, adorned with interesting 14th-century frescoes and scattered with tombs, a plaque commemorates the antipope Theodoric under the name of Sylvester III, confined by Paschal II to the abbey, where he died (1102). Beside the crypt is the chapel of S. Germano, bishop of Auxerre (1280). The small cloister contains Roman and medieval marbles and Quattrocento bas-reliefs; the Picture Gallery contains paintings, engravings, prints, and a precious collection of Lombard and Norman coins. Besides the three saints whom a pious biographer designates as Alferio’s immediate successors—Leone, Pietro I, and Costabile—the monastery counts among its members the blessed abbots Simeone, Falcone, Marino, Benincasa, Pietro II, Balsamo, Leonardo, and Leone (1124–95); it hosted illustrious figures such as T. Tasso, Filangeri, and Giannone, and was administered by distinguished abbots: Sangrino, Mansi, and De Blasi. Suppressed as a monastic community following the law of 7 July 1866, it was declared a national monument (7 August 1867) and entrusted to the care of the abbot pro tempore.
LO « SCRIPTORIUM », LA BIBLIOTECA, L'ARCHIVIO. — The abbey of the S. T. of C. d. T. was one of the most active centers for the dissemination of Beneventan script; although Lowe tends to circumscribe its importance within rather narrow limits, it is undeniable that the surviving examples attest to such perfection, already only a few years after the foundation of the monastic center (ms. Cav. 3, from the mid-11th century), as to presuppose the existence of a flourishing school. This school displays such a tenacious tradition that it offers examples of this script in its finest phase even at the end of the 13th century (ms. Cav. 19, from 1280). Very fine examples also survive from the Gothic period, such as the manuscripts written by Guido (mss. Cav. 25 and 26, from 1316–31), which are also notable for their miniatures; and it is known that Abbot Mainerio (1351–52) summoned Tuscan miniaturists to the Cavense scriptorium. Among the scribes of this center, Giovanni Capuano should also be remembered, to whom ms. Cav. 24, from 1295, is owed, as well as Rainaldo, who compiled an epitome of the Bible (beginning of the 14th century), now lost. The fact that the surviving codices from this center are not very numerous (the Cavense origin of the Liber Pontificalis, cod. Vat. lat. 3746, is now excluded; that of the Imitation of Christ, Paris, Bibl. naz., lat. 13599, remains controversial) is not sufficient to diminish its importance; all the more so since many examples may have been lost in the collapse of the 18th century.
The Library today contains several parchment codices and others on paper, not very numerous but of considerable importance; the most notable “items,” however, such as the famous 9th-century Bible, were not produced at Cava. It also possesses 120 incunabula.
The Archive, extremely rich, also includes documents that came to the abbey as munimenta of its extensive possessions or were entrusted to it as a secure place, outside the continual conflicts that agitated the surrounding territory for many centuries. It therefore contains documents far older than the foundation of the abbey itself and of great interest for the history of the Lombard and Norman periods. The eight substantial volumes of the Codex diplomaticus Cavensis published thus far contain only a small portion of them. — Vedi tav. CXXI.