From the Alps to Gargano, a north-south itinerary through monastic complexes that
they have guarded faith, art and knowledge, going through centuries of Italian history.
There are places where Italy does not tell its story through the monumentality of its squares or its fame
of cities of art, but through spaces that have long remained on the margins of urban power, where
spirituality, work and landscape have been intertwined for centuries. The abbeys are one of them
more evident expressions: they arise along ancient pilgrimage routes, on isolated heights, in
valleys harvested, next to the sea or close to the cultivated countryside. Italian Traditions
proposes a journey from north to south among some of the most relevant and evocative monastic complexes
of the country, chosen for their ability to unite history, architecture and relationship with the territory.
The route can start in South Tyrol, at Novacella Abbey, near Bressanone.
Founded in 1142 by Blessed Artmanno, bishop of Bressanone, it is still one of the great
monastic realities of the Alpine arc. The complex of Augustinian canons unites memory
religious, culture and work, including cloisters, library, school, cellar, gardens and buildings from eras
different. Novacella tells the story of an Alpine Italy, where convent life, study, welcome and
wine production coexist in a balance that is still alive.
Descending towards Piedmont,the Sacra di San Michele changes register completely.
Perched on Mount Pirchiriano, at the entrance to the Susa Valley, it dominates the valley with a
almost vertical presence. Built at the end of the 10th century, the complex seems to have arisen from the
rock itself, transforming the path to the abbey into a physical experience as well as
spiritual. Stairs, buttresses, arches and alpine views create a sense of ascent that made the
Sacred one of the most symbolic places in Piedmont.
In Liguria, the Abbey of San Fruttuoso introduces another face of Italian monasticism:
the maritime one. The complex is located in a bay between Camogli and Portofino, reachable from
sea or through the paths of the promontory. Here Benedictine history is intertwined with that
of the Doria family, with the life of the fishermen and with the very shape of the coast.
The abbey does not dominate the sea, but leans against it; it does not separate the sacred from the landscape, but holds them
together in a scene of great visual force.
At the gates of Milan, the Abbey of Chiaravalle Milanese instead shows its agricultural face and
laborious of Cistercian monasticism. Founded in 1135 on the initiative of Saint Bernard of
Clairvaux in a then marshy and uncultivated area, became a religious and productive center
capable of transforming the surrounding territory. Its location, today on the edge of the Park
Agricolo Sud Milano, maintains visible the relationship between monastic life, land reclamation and landscape
rural. The Ciribiciaccola, the ancient nolar tower that towers over the complex, remains one of the profiles
more characteristic of the Milanese plain.
In Emilia-Romagna,the Abbey of Pomposa moves the journey along the ancient Romea road, between
Venice and Ravenna. Originating in a territory marked by the Delta wetlands, it reached the
maximum splendor in the 11th century, when it became an important spiritual, cultural center
and cheap. The bell tower from 1063, 48 metres high, stands out on the plain. Around it we
develops a complex of great medieval value, including mosaics, frescoes, cloisters and memories
of studies also linked to Guido d’Arezzo, monk and music theorist, considered a
central figure in the birth of modern musical notation.
Tuscany offers one of the most powerful images of the entire itinerary with the Abbey of San
Galgano, in the Chiusdino area. The great Cistercian church, built starting from the 13th century
century, today it is striking for the absence of the roof: after the collapse of the vaults in 1781, the sky is
become part of the architecture and light freely passes through the nave. The Gothic walls,
isolated in the Sienese countryside, they suggest the greatness of an abbey that lived its
most prosperous season between the 13th and 14th centuries.
In Lazio, Fossanova Abbey takes the journey into the heart of Italian Cistercian Gothic.
Built in Priverno on a previous Benedictine settlement, with the altar consecrated in
1208, impresses with the clarity of its architecture: bare stone, sober proportions, spaces
arranged around the cloister. It is a severe beauty, entrusted to the balance of forms more than
to ornament. Added to this silent essentiality is the connection with St. Thomas
d’Aquino, died in the complex’s guesthouse on March 7, 1274.
A little further south, Montecassino is an unmissable stop. In 529 Saint Benedict chose
this mountain to found the monastery that would become one of the cornerstones of the
western monasticism. Its history goes through centuries of destruction, reconstruction,
cultural splendors and wounds of the twentieth century, until the bombing of 15 February 1944 and the
subsequent rebirth. Visiting Montecassino means entering a place where spirituality,
European memory and Italian history overlap with a rare density. For this reason it remains
one of the absolute references of every itinerary dedicated to Italian abbeys.
In Abruzzo, the Abbey of San Giovanni in Venere opens the route to the Adriatic. It rises at
Fossacesia, on a promontory overlooking the Costa dei Trabocchi, between cultivated fields and
sea. The name preserves the memory of a probable Roman temple dedicated to Venus, while
the current medieval complex testifies to the long religious continuity of the place. His
beauty arises from the balance between architecture and horizon: the basilica is not just a building
worth visiting, but an observation point on the coast, countryside and ancient passageways.
In Campania, the Abbey of the Holy Trinity of Cava de’ Tirreni houses one of the
most important chapters of Southern monasticism. Founded in 1011 by Sant’Alferio
Pappacarbone in the Selano valley, was born from a hermit experience and became in
Middle Ages a leading religious and cultural centre, linked to the Ordo Cavensis and a
documentary heritage of extraordinary value. Its importance lies not only in the
monumentality of the complex, but in the continuity of a tradition that still lives between
archive, library, liturgy and monastic community.
The journey can end in Puglia, on the Gargano, with the Abbey of Santa Maria di Pulsano, little
distant from Monte Sant’Angelo. The complex, linked to an ancient monastic tradition
and flourished again in the 12th century with San Giovanni da Matera, it is surrounded by rock hermitages often
difficult to reach. It thus introduces a harsher and more vertical dimension, where the
monasticism takes on the face of isolation, toil and contemplation, in a
landscape that seems to push away the superfluous.
From Novacella to Pulsano, Italian abbeys make up an alternative map of the country.
Crossing them means approaching an Italy that grew up far from the great centers of power, in the
places that have transformed the territory without fanfare, preserving a memory over the centuries
still capable of speaking in the present.