Vincent of Volturno, Saint, Abbey of

VINCENT OF VOLTURNO, Saint, ABBEY OF. - Near the sources of the Volturno river, on a vast deserted plateau, 500 m. above sea level, surrounded by mountains, are the ruins of the Benedictine abbey of St. Vincent Martyr, founded in 703 by three nobles of the Beneventan court.

Rising 180 years after Montecassino, it soon became a flourishing religious and cultural center and reclaimed the wild area with industrious agricultural populations. To the east are the great abbey church with the palace and ruined buildings, and toward the west, beyond the river and the bridge, the abbots had small churches and oratories built at the foot of the mountain, eleven of which are recorded by the Chronicon Vulturnense. Just 15 years after its foundation, monks and population hastened to rebuild the abbey of Montecassino destroyed by the Lombards of Zotto. Among the abbots, Joshua is remembered, who consecrated the abbey church in 808, in the presence of the Carolingian court. After the Saracen invasion of 854, there followed the massacre of 10 Oct. 882 in which, together with Abbot Majone, 800 monks perished. The survivors took refuge at Capua, but after thirty years the abbey had a new period of life which the Chronicon recalls with the church consecrated by Paschal II. From 703 to 1154, 36 abbots are recorded, and from the last, little-known periods considerable remains survive.

In 1885, a few meters from the bridge, a crypt-oratory came to light, entirely painted in the time of Abbot Epiphanius (826-43). On the central vault the Savior and the Virgin are represented within two large starry circles. On the walls below and in the apse, winged archangels, the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Baptism of Jesus; near the altar the Crucifixion, the Madonna, the Saints, the stories of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence, etc., form an important pictorial cycle of the Carolingian age. In the vast rectangular entrance enclosure, with an ancient entrance, a few meters from the bridge, there is an atrium of a sacred character, judging by the fragments of wall decorations, but perhaps a church, judging by the remains of low walls leaning against the front of the crypt, between the ancient window that gives light to the painted crypt below and, above it, the altar, of which remains survive. Above the painted crypt, cut into the same natural tufa rock, is a construction with three apses, preserved to a height of about two meters, with walls entirely painted, imitating fabrics. In the center there remains, "in situ", a circular marble base that must have supported a table altar.

dell'ist. stor. it., 1909, pp. 75-80 V. Federici, Chronicon Vulturnense del monaco Giovanni, I-II, Roma 1925, III, ivi 1938; Cottineau, II, coll. 2918-19.