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Monte Cassino is a rocky hill about eighty miles south of Rome, Italy, a mile to the west of the town of Cassino (the Roman Cassinum having been on the hill) and about 1700 ft altitude. It is noted as the site where St. Benedict of Norcia established his first monastery, the source of the Benedictine Order, around 529 CE.As so often with early Christian institutions, the monastery was constructed on an older pagan site, a temple of Apollo that crowned the hill, enclosed by a fortifying wall above the small town of Cassino, still largely pagan at the time and recently devastated by the Goths. Benedict's first act was to smash the sculpture of Apollo and destroy the altar. He rededicated the site to John the Baptist. Once established there, Benedict never left. At Monte Cassino he wrote the Benedictine Rule that became the founding principle for western monasticism. There at Monte Cassino he received a visit from Totila, king of the Ostrogoths, in 580 (the only secure historical date for Benedict), and there he died.
Monte Cassino became a model for future developments. Unfortunately its protected site has always made it an object of strategic importance. It was sacked or destroyed a number of times. In 584 the Lombards sacked the Abbey, and the surviving monks fled to Rome, where they remained for more than a century. During this time the body of St Benedict was transferred to Fleury, the modern Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire near Orleans, France. A flourishing period of Monte Cassino followed its re-establishment in 718, when among the monks were Carloman, the son of Charles Martel, Rachis, brother of the great Lombard Duke Astolf, and Paul the DeaconPaul the Deacon (c. 720 13 April 800), also known as Paulus Diaconus Warnefridi and Cassinensis (i. of Monte Cassino"), was a Benedictine monk and historian of the Lombards. An ancestor named Leupichis entered Italy in the train of Alboin and received lan, the historian of the Lombards. In 883Events Oldest known mentioning of the city of Duisburg. Monte Cassino is sacked and burned down by the Saracens. Births Deaths 883. Saracens sacked and then burned it down.
It was rebuilt and reached the apex of its fame in the 11th century10th century 11th century 12th century other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 11th century was that century which lasted from 1001 to 1100. Events 1000 (cca), Vikings, led by Leif Eirikson, establish small settlements at and aro under the abbot Desiderius (abbot 1058 - 1087), who later became Pope Victor IIIThe Blessed Victor III ne Dauferius (b. September 16, 1087), pope ( May 24, 1086 until his death), was the successor of Pope Gregory VII. Son of Landolfo V, prince of Benevento, he was born ca. 1026; in his thirtieth year he entered monastic life at Monte, and abbot Oderius. The number of monks rose to over two hundred, and the library, the manuscripts produced in the scriptoriumA Scriptorium was a room or building, usually within a Christian monastery where, during medieval times, manuscripts were written. Before the introduction of moveable type for printing, anything written had to be written down by hand since time immemorial and the school of manuscript illuminators became famous throughout the West. The buildings of the monastery were reconstructed on a scale of great magnificence, artists being brought from Amalfi, Lombardy, and even Constantinople to supervise the various works. The abbey church, rebuilt and decorated with the utmost splendor, was consecrated in 1071 by Pope Alexander IIAlexander II born Anselmo Baggio (d. April 21, 1073), pope from 1061 to 1073, was a native of Milan. As bishop of Lucca he had been an energetic coadjutor with Hildebrand in endeavouring to suppress simony, and to enforce the celibacy of the clergy. His e. A detailed account of the abbey at this date exists in the Chronica monasterii Cassinensis of Leo of Ostia.
An earthquake damaged the Abbey in 1349Events October 20 Pope Clement VI publishes a papal bull that condemns the Flagellants The bubonic plague is spread to Norway when an English ship with everyone dead on board floats to Bergen Births Duke Albert III of Austria, on September 9 Deaths Willia, and although the site was rebuilt it marked the beginning of a long period of decline. In 1321 pope John XXII made the church of Monte Cassino a cathedral, and the carefully preserved independence of the monastery from episcopal interference was at an end. In 1505 the monastery was joined with that of St. Justina of Padua. The site was sacked by Napoleon's troops in 1799 and from the dissolution of the Italian monasteries in 1866, Monte Cassino became a national monument. There was a final destruction on February 15, 1944 when during the four battles of Monte Cassino (January - May 1944), the entire building was pulverized in a series of heavy air-raids. The Abbey was rebuilt after the war, financed by the Italian State. Pope Paul VI reconsecrated it in 1964.
The archives, besides a vast number of documents relating to the history of the abbey, contained some 1400 irreplaceable manuscript codices, chiefly patristic and historical. By great foresight, these were all transferred to the Vatican at the beginning of the war.
