Most Holy Trinity of Cava dei Tirreni, Abbey of

MOST HOLY TRINITY OF CAVA DEI TIRRENI, Abbey of. - Abbey nullius, immediately subject. Over an area of 180 sq km it comprises 21,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, distributed in 17 parishes, served by 27 diocesan priests and 31 regulars; it has a seminary, 2 male religious communities and 10 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 645). Founded in 1010 by St. Alferio (v.), a nobleman of Salerno, within and in the vicinity of a grotto, Cava became very powerful with 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 marvelous development (it had within its jurisdiction as many as 29 abbeys and 91 priories, which extended as far as Sicily). In 1394 the cenobium was elevated 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, leading to its complete extinction. In 1496 the commendatory abbot Oliviero Carafa entrusted the abbey to the reformed Congregation of St. Giustina of Padua, and from then on the monks were united with the Cassinese Congregation. In 1517 the episcopal see was reinstated, but no longer united with the abbey (v. CAVA and SARNO). From the end of the 16th century it began to take in young scholars, and after 1860 it became the seat of a diocesan 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 that engulfed the rooms of the abbey, including the library, but substantial remains of the original constructions of the 11th and 12th centuries survive. In the crypt, adorned with interesting 14th-century frescoes and strewn with tombs, a plaque commemorates the antipope Theodoric under the name Sylvester III, relegated by Paschal II to the abbey where he died (1102). Next to the crypt is the chapel of St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre (1280). In the small cloister are collected Roman and medieval marbles and 15th-century bas-reliefs; in the Pinacoteca there are paintings, engravings, prints and a precious collection of Lombard and Norman coins. The monastery numbers, besides the three saints whom a pious biographer designates as the immediate successors of Alferio — Leo, Peter I and Costabile — the blessed abbots Simeon, Falcone, Marino, Benincasa, Peter II, Balsamo, Leonardo and Leo (1124-95); it hosted illustrious figures such as T. Tasso, Filangeri, Giannone, and was administered by distinguished abbots: Sangrino, Mansi, De Blasi. Suppressed as a monastic community following the law of 7 July 1866, it was declared a national monument (7 Aug. 1867) and entrusted for safekeeping to the abbot pro tempore.

Felice De Filippis

THE « SCRIPTORIUM », THE LIBRARY, THE ARCHIVE. - The abbey of the S. T. di C. d. T. was one of the most active centers of diffusion of Beneventan script; although Lowe tends to circumscribe its importance within rather narrow limits, it is undeniable that the surviving examples attest such perfection, already a few years after the founding of the monastic center (ms. Cav. 3, of the mid-11th century), as to postulate the existence of a flourishing school, which displays a tradition so tenacious as to offer examples of this script in its best phase even at the end of the 13th century (ms. Cav. 19, of 1280). Very beautiful specimens also remain from the Gothic period, such as the manuscripts written by Guido (mss. Cav. 25 and 26, years 1316-31), notable also for their miniatures; and there is record that the abbot Mainerio (1351-52) summoned Tuscan miniaturists to the Cavense scriptorium. Among the copyists of this center we should also remember Giovanni Capuano, to whom the ms. Cav. 24, of 1295, is due, and Rainaldo, who wrote a compendium of the Bible (early 14th century) now lost. The circumstance that the codices remaining 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. nat., lat. 13599, is disputed) is not sufficient to diminish its importance; all the more so since many specimens may have been lost in the collapse of the 18th century.

The Library today contains some parchment codices and other paper ones, not very numerous but of notable importance: the most notable "pieces," moreover, such as the famous 9th-century Bible, were not produced at Cava. There are also 120 incunabula.

The Archive, very rich, also includes documents that came to the abbey as munimina of its extensive possessions or entrusted to it as a safe place, outside the continuous struggles that agitated the surrounding territory for long centuries: there are therefore found there papers much earlier than the founding of the abbey itself and most interesting for the history of the Lombard and Norman age. The 8 large volumes so far published of the Codex diplomaticus Cavensis comprise only a minimal part of it. - See pl. CXXI.

Alessandro Pratesi