San Michele Abbey, Montescaglioso, Italy

The Benedictine Territorial Abbey of San Michele Arcangelo has been existed at least from 1078 and was probably built in the 5th century. The benedictine Abbey Church (12th century), dedicated to St. Michael, has a notable portal and a Norman-style bell tower with mullioned windows. The Norman lord Humphrey of Hauteville and his son Rudolph made large donations to the abbey. In 1484, after joining the Benedictine Congregation of St. Giustina from Padua, the abbey was enlarged and restored in Renaissance forms.

Afterwards it decayed due to numerous wars ravaging the country in those years. Renewed starting from 1590, it received a cylindrical cupola in 1650. The monks abandoned the abbey in 1784.

User Reviews

mladen djordjiev (5 years ago)
Wonderful place to visit, the place has a long history and artifacts to prove it. The central garden is breathtaking, the upper floor have frescoes unlike any from other monasteries, and the tombs in the basement are very interesting.

Senan O Kiersey (5 years ago)
Parking outside

Graham Fielder (5 years ago)
Typically italian

Franca Fortunato (5 years ago)
Unforgettable ❤

Marica Jakobsson (6 years ago)
It's amazing how such beautiful monastery was so worshipped, that it was not seen as just a place for worship, but also a home & workplace.

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Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.

The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).

San Michele Abbey

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