The Monastery of Santa Scolastica stands just downstream from the Sacro Speco. Santa Scolastica was the sister of Saint Benedict, and this building is part of the 14 monasteries he founded along his preaching journey, the most important being the Abbey of Montecassino. For a long time, until the end of the 12th century, the Monastery of Santa Scolastica was the only Benedictine monastery that survived earthquakes and Saracen devastations. Initially, it was called “Monastery of Saint Silvester” and only later (around the 9th century) took the name “Monastery of Saint Benedict and Santa Scolastica,” reaching its current denomination only in the 14th century. Its peak period, however, was between the 11th and 13th centuries. The entire complex appears as a collection of buildings constructed in different eras and styles: the entrance, marked by a portal bearing the Benedictine motto “Ora et labora,” is decidedly modern. Through it, however, you reach one after the other the three internal cloisters, each built in a different period. The first cloister, or “Renaissance Cloister,” dates back to the 16th century; from it, you pass into the second, the “Gothic Cloister,” built in the 14th century, and finally you arrive at the “Cosmatesque Cloister,” from the 13th century. The bell tower, instead, originates from the 12th century, while the church was rebuilt in the 18th century. The monastery’s history boasts, in 1465, the installation inside of the first Italian printing press, operated by two German clerics A. Pannartz and C. Sweynheym, thanks to which its Library, located on the north side of the Gothic cloister, was enriched with valuable books and incunabula. The valley where the building stands was so characterized over the centuries by monks and hermits who lived there in prayer and meditation that it is still remembered today as the “Holy Valley.”
Information about Monastery of Santa Scolastica
Via dei Monasteri, 22
00028 Subiaco (Rome)
077485525
pm-laz@beniculturali.it
https://www.polomusealelazio.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/263/monastero-di-santa-scolastica
Source: MIBACT
