Rome: Monday

Today the group took a bus outside of Rome to visit the Monastery of St. Benedict in Subiaco. Dr. Hatlie led the tour and gave us a brief description of the life and importance of St. Benedict. He also highlighted all of the noteworthy frescos inside the building.

The Monastery of St. Benedict in Subiaco enshrines the cave (Sacro Speco) in which St. Benedict lived as a hermit before he organized his first monastic community.

St. Benedict was born and raised in Norcia (near Spoleto) in 480 AD. He went to university in Rome, but was so horrified by the immorality in the big city that he left soon after. He sought solitude on the forested slopes of Mount Taleo near Subiaco, where he met a monk named Romanus.

A monastery was already established in the area, but Benedict chose to live alone in a cave (the Sacro Speco) for three years, sustained only by scraps of food lowered in a basket by Romanus. 

Benedict was eventually discovered in his cave and invited to become the superior of the nearby monastery of Vicovaro. However, the monks soon found his rule so unpleasantly strict that they tried to poison him. Benedict returned to his cave, but by then had attracted so many followers that he could no longer pursue the solitary life.

So St. Benedict organized his first monastic community at Subiaco, dedicated to St. Clement of Rome and housed in part of Nero's old imperial villa. Benedict lived there for 20 years, during which time he founded 12 daughter monasteries and wrote his famous Rule that would become the standard guideline for western monasticism.

He is regarded as the founder of monasticism in Western Europe; he was canonized formally in 1220; in 1964 he was named the patron saint of Europe by Pope Paul VI.

Some building took place at the cave in the 10th and 11th centuries, but very little survives from this period. Regular monastic life began at the Sacro Speco around 1200, under the control and patronage of Santa Scholastica further down the hill. The two monasteries are still united under a single abbot. 

Towards the end of the 12th century the abbots of S. Scolastica decided to build a detached section of their monastery around the holy cave (Sacro Speco) where Benedict lived as a hermit. The new monastery was built at various stages along a steep ravine; it seems to hang on the rock and it was compared to a swallow's nest by Pope Pius II.

The entrance to the monastery is located at its upper end and the first rooms one sees are the last which were built and decorated.

A small rose garden is an excellent starting point for visiting the monastery following a chronological order. According to tradition instead of roses it had thorn bushes and Benedict threw himself on them as a form of punishment for having had some unchaste thoughts. St. Francis of Assisi, who visited the monastery in 1223, turned the thorns into roses.

  a fresco depicting St. Benedict throwing himself into a thorn bush by the garden of rose bushes outside his original cave

fresco depicting St. Francis of Assisi's visit to the monastery 

when he changed the thorn bush into a rose bush

A small very old fresco in the Shepherds' Cave indicates that the area was the object of worship before the construction of the monastery. One of the chapels which make up the Lower Church was dedicated to St. Gregory the Great, who wrote about the life of St. Benedict. The chapel contains the earliest known portrait of St. Francis of Assisi: he is without the halo and he holds a paper with the words "Peace to this house" (Luke 10:5).

                       oldest fresco in the church               oldest known portrait of St. Francis of Assisi

At Sacro Speco, the stairs built on the steep path linking the Shepherd's Cave with the cave where St. Benedict lived are called the Scala Santa (Holy Stairs). This part of the Lower Church is a mixture of different styles; the architecture is Gothic, while the Cosmati floor is typically Roman and the frescoes are of the school of Siena. 

pictures of the lower church

The Upper Church is composed of just one nave, but it has the appearance of a church. Of the many frescoes which decorate it, the Crucifixion is particularly impressive: it is worthy to note that those having a negative role in the portrayed event are dressed in Arab or Turkish costumes of the 14th century. Almost every inch of the two churches is covered with paintings.

Sacro Speco continued to be decorated with new paintings until the beginning of the 16th century; after that period, no other major additions to its works of art were made.