San Benedetto has an exceptionally beautiful and peaceful location built right into the rocks of the mountainside and, like Anagni, it's filled with medieval frescoes.
There are two levels to the monastery church, the Upper Church and Lower Church.
The churches were mostly built and frescoed in the 13th through 15th centuries. The subjects of the paintings are mainly biblical scenes, various saints, and scenes from the life of St. Benedict.
Adoration of the Magi
Pope Innocent III, one of the Anagni popes.
This fascinating portrait of St. Francis is very special, as it shows him without a halo or the stigmata. These and other factors indicate it was painted during his lifetime, before 1224. It is protected behind glass in a small chapel in the Lower Church.
St. Benedict smacking a lazy monk with a rod.
St. Benedict and his sister St. Scholastica enjoying dinner together.
The winged lion, symbol of St. Mark the Evangelist.
A later, rather goofy, interpretation of the same.
The stairway in the lower church led to the monk's cemetery and is decorated with grim subjects reflecting this:
Death on a rampage
Learning about the stages of decomposition
The Grotto of St. Benedict, believed to be the very cave where he lived as a hermit for three years before founding his first monastery.
On the way out we visited the bookshop, manned by a friendly monk.
The switchback-heavy road back down the hill provided a fine view of Subiaco's other monastery, St. Scholastica (Benedict's sister seen in a fresco above). It was bombed in World War II and a lot of it has been rebuilt, but it has a nice tower and several pretty cloisters.
Closer look at Santa Scholastica. We parked and had a brief look around, but the sun had gone behind the clouds, photos weren't allowed inside, and you can only visit on a guided tour. And we were hungry. So we skipped it.
Finding lunch was, as usual in Italy so far, an astonishingly difficult task. There was a restaurant next to Santa Scholastica but it was closed. So we drove into the town of Subiaco, all the way to the top of the hill and back down again, but didn't find a single open restaurant. Finally, as we were preparing to give up, we spotted the perfect place near the bus station!
It's just the sort of place we always wish for at lunch and had never found - a casual place that sells hot slices of pizza or similar. This one not only had several kinds of pizza, but ready-made pasta dishes and plates of meat they would heat up for you. And cold Coke Zero in a fridge!
We each had two big slices of pizza and cold Cokes for a total of €7.20. The victory at having found the place was almost as delicious as the food.
On our way back to the hotel we stopped in Anagni again, mainly so I could check on whether the Treasury Museum was open. I hadn't known about it until I read my new guidebook on the cathedral last night. I inquired in the bookshop and sadly the answer was no, it wasn't open. There was no indication that it would be anytime soon, either. Oh, well.
Meanwhile, the weather took a serious turn for the worse and by the time I returned to David waiting at the car, the sky had turned an ominous gray and thunder rumbled across the countryside. We snapped a couple photos with the dramatic sky...
..then barely got halfway to our hotel before the heavens opened up and it poured like I haven't seen it pour in a long time! I hope it's sunny again tomorrow, as we are heading to Rome! Hooray!
1 comment:
Thanks for the lovely tour and commentary on San Benedetto monastery! The inside pictures of the monastery and the way it is built into the living rock are great. I also really appreciated the images of the frescos. I've never been to Italy and it felt like I was really there!
Post a Comment