VALVISCIOLO. – Monastery situated at the foot of Mount Corvino, approximately halfway between Norma and Sermoneta, in the diocese of Terracina, province of Latina. It is dedicated to SS. Pietro and Stefano.
The Basilian monks inhabited it from the 7th–8th century; later, the Templars did so, and following their suppression Clement V granted it to the Cistercian monks of the abbey of V. di Carpineto, who, together with its goods and possessions, also brought there the title, and the abbey hitherto called that of Sermoneta came to be called that of V. Augustinians, who soon abandoned it because of the wars in 1548; in 1471, having been reduced to a commendam, it was assigned to Cardinal Orsini, bishop of Frascati. In 1612 the Reformed Cistercians known as Feuillants were summoned there; they abandoned it again in 1619, when the commendatory abbot Bonifacio Gaetani, who had recalled them, died, and the religious of S. Francesco di Paola succeeded them. In 1633, Onorato Gaetani recalled the Cistercians, who came to inhabit it only on 17 July 1635 and remained there until Napoleon I’s suppression (c. 1809). The last commendatory abbot was Filippo Gaetani, who surrendered the Abbey to the pope
L'architettura della chiesa e del monastero di tipo citercense è gotico-lombarda (dopo il 1240). L'interno è a tre navate; di grande effetto artistico è il finestrone circolare sulla porta d'ingresso, che domina la elegantissima facciata, molto ammirato dagli storiografi della Badia. Nella chiesa si conservano pregevoli opere del Pomarancio, del Muziano e del sermonetano Girolamo Siciolante (m. nel 1541). Elegante è anche l'architettura del chiostro, adorno di doppia serie di colonne marmoree che sorreggono le quattro facciate laterali.