Tiglieto Abbey, founded in 1120, was the first Cistercian abbey to be founded in Italy, and also the first outside France. It was a daughter house of La Ferté Abbey. The first abbot was probably Opizzone. It may have gained the name Tiglieto after being given the estate of that name by the Margrave Anselm of Ponsone in 1131.
In 1442, through Pope Eugenius IV, Tiglieto became an abbey in commendam. In 1648 it was turned into a family estate of the last commendatory abbot, Cardinal Raggio, and dissolved. In 1747 the area was occupied by the Austrians, who shortly afterwards were driven out by the Genoese. In 2000 Tiglieto was reoccupied by the Cistercians.
The church is a primitive Romanesque brick basilica; the original side-chapels were removed in the 14th century to make way for a new east end. The nave was vaulted in the Baroque period, and a new choir at the west end was added at the same time, as was a Baroque campanile.
The conventual buildings are to the south of the church. The early Gothic chapter house in the east range has survived, with a square chapter room with nine bays from the early 13th century and symmetrical triforium windows looking onto the central courtyard and the site of the cloister, no longer extant, with the dormitory with bricked-up windows in the upper storey, as have the sacristy, the Fraternei and to the south the refectory building, as well as the lay brothers' block in the west, now converted for residential purposes.
The entire precinct was renovated for the new community that took over the premises in 2000.
References: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).