Abbazia di Montecassino

Montecassino Abey is famous Benedictine monastery in Lazio, in the province of Frosinone. Founded in 529 by St. Benedict of Norcia on the site of ancient tower and a temple dedicated to Apollo, has suffered throughout its history destruction, looting, earthquakes and subsequent reconstruction. Throughout Middle Ages, Abbey was lively center of culture through its abbots, libraries, archives, writers and illumination schools, who transcribed and preserved many works of antiquity. The most illustrious of its abbots was Desiderio, who later became Pope Victor III (buried in the same), that at the end of the eleventh century did completely rebuild the Abbey and enriched the church in precious frescoes and mosaics. Most of the decorations were made of paints, today in most lost, and Byzantine mosaics. Destroyed by an earthquake in 1349 and rebuilt again in 1366, Abbey took on in the seventeenth century, the appearance of typical Neapolitan Baroque monument, thanks to paintings by many artists, such as Luca Giordano, Francesco Solimena, Francesco de Mura and Giovanni de Matteis.