SCOLASTICA, santa. — Sister of s. Benedetto (v.), born at Norcia around 480, died near Cassino on 10 February 547 (previously thought to be 543), according to tradition 40 days before her brother.
The only historical source that remains is the Dialoghi of s. Gregorio Magno (l. II, chaps. 33–34: PL 66, 194–96; ed. U. Moricca, Rome 1924, pp. 125–28), the basis of everything that later hagiographers relate about the life of the Saint (cf. Martyr. Romanum, p. 56). Having consecrated herself to God from childhood, S. always remained closely bound to s. Benedetto: at Subiaco (the monastery of Roccabotte?) and at Cassino, in the monastery near Plumbariola (Plumarola or Primarola, in the territory of Aquino, 3 miles from Cassino), or, as Cardinal Schuster prefers (v. BIBLICA), at the foot of the mountain, where the annual meeting with her brother took place, near the so-called «Chapel of the Colloquy». Here, in fact, recent excavations (1939 onwards) have brought to light the remains of a small apsidal church, which was later made longer and transformed into a trefoil structure. Here, on 6 February 547, the last conversation with her brother would have taken place, together with the miracle of the storm related, according to the account of s. Gregorio, in the Breviario Romano (10 February). Three days later Benedetto, while in contemplation in the tower of his monastery, saw his sister’s soul ascend to heaven in the form of a dove, and buried her mortal remains in the tomb that he had already prepared for himself on the summit of the mountain, in the oratory of S. Giovanni Battista («ut, quorum mens una semper in Deo fuerat, eorum quoque corpora nec sepultura separaret»).
A tradition, perhaps originating from these words of s. Gregorio Magno, but accepted at Montecassino in the 9th century, would make the two Saints twins. A gentle figure that softens the austere one of Benedetto, and an ideal model of a life consecrated to God in the cloister, S. was chosen by the Benedictine nuns as their special Patroness. She is represented as an abbess, with the book of the Rule and with the dove recalling Benedetto’s vision, or in her final conversation with him. She is invoked against lightning and also to obtain rain. In the 9th century, in the time of Leone IV (ca. 847–55), the principal Benedictine monastery of Subiaco was dedicated to her.
Contrary to the constant Cassinese tradition, many scholars, especially French ones, held that the bodies of s. Benedetto and s. S. had been taken, in the 7th century, to Fleury-sur-Loire (cf. H. Leclercq, Fleury-sur-Loire, in DACL, V, cols. 1709–61). But the discovery of their relics at Montecassino, in August 1950, beneath the high altar of the devastated Cathedral, definitively resolved the centuries-old controversy (v. BIBLICA). Scientific anatomical and radiological study of the remains (which were intermingled) demonstrated that they were bones belonging to only two persons, whose bodies had remained substantially intact in the tomb: that of s. Benedetto was found to be slender in build and robust (height 172 cm); that of s. S., «a small woman in the various parts, yet healthy and robust» (height 159 cm). — Vedi tav. IV.