Discover Abbey of Montecassino

Montecassino is a Benedictine monastery on the rocky hill of Monte Cassino, in the Latin Valley about 130 km south-east of Rome, standing on the site of the Roman town of Casinum. It is the first house of the Benedictine order: Benedict of Nursia established it himself around 529, and it was for this community that he composed the Rule of Saint Benedict.

There is a case that this building changed European architecture, and it rests on one abbot. Kenneth John Conant held that Desiderius's eleventh-century rebuilding used pointed arches. Abbot Hugh of Cluny visited Monte Cassino in 1083; five years later he began the third church at Cluny, which included pointed arches and became a major turning point in medieval building. On that reading the Gothic arch travels from this hilltop to Burgundy and outward.

Desiderius built on a deliberately international scale, bringing artists from Amalfi, Lombardy and Constantinople to supervise different parts of the work, and sending envoys to Constantinople after 1066 specifically to hire Byzantine mosaicists. He then had large numbers of his own young monks trained by them, which is the practical mechanism by which mosaic was revived in medieval Italy -- the chronicler Leo of Ostia records the decision in those terms.

What a visitor sees now argues something else. The present abbey is a postwar reconstruction of the building the bombs destroyed, consecrated in 1964, and the choice to rebuild rather than consolidate a ruin was made with the support of the President of the Republic, Luigi Einaudi. The architecture is therefore a statement about continuity made in the 1950s, standing on foundations that are genuinely continuous.

It was built on a temple, out of a temple. Gregory the Great's life of Benedict records that the monastery went up on an older pagan site, a temple of Apollo crowning the hill, with a grove beside it where sacrifices were still being made. Benedict smashed the idol, overturned the altar and cut down the grove, then reused the temple itself, dedicating it to Saint Martin, and built a second chapel on the spot where the altar had stood, dedicated to John the Baptist. Excavation after 1944 confirmed the account and gave the dimensions: the first oratory 12 m by 8, the second 15.25 m long.

It has been destroyed and rebuilt five times. "The first to demolish it were Lombards on foot in 580; the last were Allied bombers in 1944." The Lombards sacked it in 581 under Abbot Bonitus and the surviving monks fled to Rome for more than a century, taking Benedict's body as far as Fleury. Saracens sacked and burned it in 884, killing Abbot Bertharius; the community lived at Teano and then from 914 at Capua until the monastery was rebuilt in 949. An earthquake destroyed the buildings in 1349, and in 1369 Urban V demanded a contribution from every Benedictine house to fund the rebuilding. French Revolutionary troops sacked it in 1799.

The eleventh-century rebuilding was the great one. Under Desiderius, abbot from 1058 to 1087 and later Pope Victor III, the buildings were reconstructed on a scale of great magnificence, with artists brought from Amalfi, Lombardy and Constantinople to supervise. The abbey church was consecrated by Alexander II in 1071. Byzantine mosaicists hired from Constantinople decorated the apse, the arch and the vestibule; two fragments showing greyhounds are all that survive.

15 February 1944 destroyed almost all of it, and should not have happened. The town of Cassino formed part of the Gustav Line, the German defence running 161 km from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic, with the abbey overlooking Highway 6 and the road to Rome. Kesselring's regard for the monument meant German troops had not initially used the abbey as part of those fortifications. Reports from British Indian Army officers suggested they were occupying it; every commander in the field treated it as a key observation post; and General Sir Harold Alexander, supported by numerous Allied commanders, ordered the bombing. No German troops were in the abbey. The only people the bombing killed inside the monastery were 230 Italian civilians sheltering there. German Fallschirmjäger of the 1st Parachute Division then occupied the ruins, because ruins gave excellent defensive cover.

The rebuilding was a national decision. The abbey was reconstructed after the war with considerable support from Luigi Einaudi, President of the Italian Republic, in the early 1950s; the library was housed at the Pontifical Abbey of St Jerome-in-the-City while the work went on; and Paul VI consecrated the rebuilt basilica on 24 October 1964.

Is the abbey at Monte Cassino original?

No. It is a postwar reconstruction, consecrated by Paul VI on 24 October 1964. Almost everything was destroyed in the bombing of 15 February 1944 -- the fifth destruction of a monastery first built around 529.

Were German troops really inside when it was bombed?

No. The raids were ordered on reports from British Indian Army officers that the Germans were occupying the monastery, and every commander in the field treated it as a key observation post, but no German troops were present. German paratroopers occupied the ruins afterwards, because ruins made better defensive cover. The only people the bombing killed inside were 230 Italian civilians sheltering there.

Is this where the Rule of Saint Benedict was written?

Yes. Benedict established the first house of the order here around 529 and wrote the Rule for this community; he never left, and died and was buried here.

What survives from the Middle Ages?

Very little above ground. Two mosaic fragments showing greyhounds, in the abbey museum, from the Byzantine decoration Desiderius commissioned after 1066; and the excavated traces of Benedict's two oratories, found after the 1944 destruction.

Is entry free on the first Sunday of the month?

No. The operator states that Montecassino does not take part in that initiative, so there is no free admission on the first Sunday.

Are the abbey and the museum open at the same times?

Not in winter. From 1 November to 31 March the museum opens only on Sundays and public holidays, while the abbey opens Monday to Saturday 9.30-16.50 and Sunday 9.30-17.15. From 1 April to 31 October both run 9.30-18.30 daily.