Pomposa Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in the comune of Codigoro on the Adriatic coast near Ferrara, Italy. [1] It was one of the most important in northern Italy, famous for the Carolingian manuscripts preserved in its rich library, one of the wealthiest of Carolingian repositories, [2] and for the Romanesque buildings.
The earliest report of a Benedictine abbey at this site dates from 874, by which time Pomposa was already a center of sophisticated Carolingian art [3] The settlement was probably two centuries earlier, founded at some point following the devastation of Classe, the port of Ravenna (574) [4] during the Lombard epoch of northern Italy by monks of the Irish missionary, Columbanus. A letter of c. 1093 mentions among classical texts acquired or copied for the library by the abbot Girolamo alludes to Horace ( Carmen Saeculare , Satires , Epistles ), Virgil's Georgics , Juvenal, Persius, Quintilian, Terence's Andria, Jerome's preface to the history of Eusebius, Cicero's De officiis and De oratore , the abridgement of Livy called Periochae [5] and the Mathematica of Julius Firmicus Maternus. [6]
Until the 14th century the abbey had possessions in the whole of Italy, making its cartulary of more than local importance, [7] but later declined due to impoverishment of the neighbouring area owing to the retreat of the sea front and the increasing presence of malaria of the lower Po valley. It played an important role in the culture of Italy thanks to the work of its scribe monks and in part to the sojourn at Pomposa of Peter Damian. [8] In this abbey Guido d'Arezzo invented the modern musical notation in the early 11th century. [9]
The monks of Pomposa migrated to San Benedetto, Ferrara, 1650, leaving the abbey unoccupied. In the 19th century the abbey was acquired by the Italian government.
The church of Santa Maria is an example of a triple-nave Ravennan Romanesque-style basilica with arcaded aisles and carpentry rafters, originating in the 7th-9th century, and sequentially enlarged as the abbey grew in power and prestige, attaining its present aspect, with a segmental apse, in the 11th century. The interior contains a 12th-century Cosmatesque and mosaic inlaid stone pavement, and frescoes in the apse by Vitale da Bologna and his assistants; [10] and there are also paintings in the refectory by a Riminese master. The chapter hall has early 14th-century frescoes by a pupil of Giotto. [11]
The free-standing campanile (begun in 1063 and completed within several decades), standing at 48 m, is one of the finest surviving belltowers from the Romanesque period, together with the campanile of Abbey of San Mercuriale (75 m), in Forlì.
Notable also is the mid-11th century Palazzo della Ragione facing the abbey church in the forecourt or atrium that was built before the abbey church was consecrated in 1026, by an architect trained at Ravenna, Mazulo.
Guido of Arezzo or Guido d'Arezzo was an Italian music theorist and pedagogue of High medieval music. A Benedictine monk, he is regarded as the inventor—or by some, developer—of the modern staff notation that had a massive influence on the development of Western musical notation and practice. Perhaps the most significant European writer on music between Boethius and Johannes Tinctoris, after the former's De institutione musica, Guido's Micrologus was most widely distributed medieval treatise on music.
Arezzo is a city and comune in Italy and the capital of the province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about 80 kilometres southeast of Florence at an elevation of 296 metres (971 ft) above sea level. In 2013 the population was about 99,000.
The Badìa Fiorentina is an abbey and church now home to the Monastic Communities of Jerusalem situated on the Via del Proconsolo in the centre of Florence, Italy. Dante supposedly grew up across the street in what is now called the 'Casa di Dante', rebuilt in 1910 as a museum to Dante. He would have heard the monks singing the Mass and the Offices here in Latin Gregorian chant, as he famously recounts in his Commedia: "Florence, within her ancient walls embraced, Whence nones and terce still ring to all the town, Abode aforetime, peaceful, temperate, chaste." In 1373, Boccaccio delivered his famous lectures on Dante's Divine Comedy in the subsidiary chapel of Santo Stefano, just next to the north entrance of the Badia's church.
San Pietro in Valle is a medieval abbey in the comune (township) of Ferentillo in Umbria.
Bologna Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Peter, is the cathedral of Bologna in Italy, and the seat and the metropolitan cathedral of the Archbishop of Bologna. Most of the present building dates from the 17th century, with a few parts from the late 16th century.
Poggibonsi is a town in the province of Siena, Tuscany, central Italy. It is located on the river Elsa and is the main centre of the Valdelsa Valley.
Sansepolcro, formerly Borgo Santo Sepolcro, is a town and comune founded in the 11th century, located in the Italian Province of Arezzo in the eastern part of the region of Tuscany.
The basilica diSan Pietro is a Catholic basilica and abbey in the Italian city of Perugia.
The Abbey of Sant'Antimo, Italian: Abbazia di Sant'Antimo, is a former Benedictine monastery located in Castelnuovo dell'Abate, in the comune of Montalcino, Tuscany, central Italy. It is approximately 10 km from Montalcino about 9 km from the Via Francigena, the pilgrim route to Rome. After many years of disuse, the abbey was reoccupied in 1992 by a small community of Premonstratensian Canons Regular. Since January 2016, the occupants are a community of monks of the Olivetan Benedictine order.
Vitale da Bologna, also known as Vitale di Aymo de' Cavalli or Vitale degli Equi, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance.
Santo Stefano is a church in Genoa, northern Italy. Located on a hill overlooking the central Via XX Settembre, it is one of the most outstanding examples of Romanesque architecture in the city.
Novalesa Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in the Metropolitan City of Turin, Piedmont, Italy. It was founded in 726, and dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Andrew.
Arezzo Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of Arezzo in Tuscany, Italy. It is located on the site of a pre-existing Palaeo-Christian church and, perhaps, of the ancient city's acropolis.
The Abbey of Santa Maria di Rovegnano is a Cistercian monastic complex in the comune of Milan, Lombardy, northern Italy. The borgo that has developed round the abbey was once an independent commune called Chiaravalle Milanese, now included in Milan and referred to as the Chiaravalle district.
The Abbey of Saint Scholastica, also known as Subiaco Abbey, is located just outside the town of Subiaco in the Province of Rome, Region of Lazio, Italy; and is still an active Benedictine order, territorial abbey, first founded in the 6th century AD by Saint Benedict of Nursia. It was in one of the Subiaco caves that Benedict made his first hermitage. The monastery today gives its name to the Subiaco Congregation, a grouping of monasteries worldwide that makes up part of the Order of Saint Benedict.
Pietro da Rimini was an early 14th-century Italian painter.
Duecento is the Italian word for the Italian culture during the 13th century.
Stefano Fiorentino (1301–1350) was an Italian painter of the time of Giotto.
The Cathedral of Sansepolcro is a Catholic church in Sansepolcro, Tuscany, central Italy.
Mario Salmi was an Italian art historian and art critic who specialized in Romanesque architecture, Tuscan sculpture and the early Italian Renaissance.
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to Abbazia di Pomposa . |
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Other | |
