Places of worshipAbbey of St. Mary in Farfa |
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In the Sabine region: a centre of civilisation and culture
Amongst the woods and olive groves of the Sabine region, rises the Abbey of St. Mary in Farfa, one of the architectural jewels of Lazio. The name is derived from the river of the same name, The Farfarus of Ovid, which runs nearby and also gave its name to the nearby town. The Abbey was one of the most powerful monastic centres of the Middle Ages. The origins of the Abbey can be traced back to the middle of the VI century, when it was founded by the Bishop Lorenzo, on the remains of an ancient Roman building, possibly a temple dedicated to the goddess Vacuna. Set on fire by the Lombards, it was rebuilt in 680 by Tommaso di Maurienne. Over time the Abbey extended its religious and administrative control across most of central Italy, becoming a very powerful organisation whose interests often contrasted with those of the pontiffs in Rome. The “imperial” Abbey, so-called because of the support it received from emperors and kings, from Charlemagne to Federico Barbarossa, rose to the height of its splendour between the VIII and the IX centuries, when it represented one of the most important centres of culture and promoted the reintroduction of education. The extension and restructuring of the Abbey that took place between 15th and 17th centuries, gave shape to the architecture of the present complex of buildings.
Guided tour
In order to admire the whole complex, we recommend climbing the road towards Castelnuovo di Farfa. Access is via a Romanesque portal from the XV century (designed Anselmo da Perugia). Above the portal is a lunette containing a fresco of the "Madonna with Child and Saints". In the courtyard, which is dominated to the left by a large crenellated tower known as the "Palazzaccio", the visitor is greeted by beautiful facade of the church (consecrated to the Virgin and reconstructed in the fifteenth century by Battista Orsini incorporating the existing Lombard-Carolingian structure), adorned with rose window and fragments of Early Christian and Roman sarcophaguses.  An elegant late Gothic portal leads into the church, with its three naves. Highlights of the church include a panelled wooden ceiling from 1494, created by skilled German workers, a wonderful Final Judgement painted in oil on the wall of the counter façade by Flemish painters in 1561. In the transept and the apse are several frescoes in the grotesque style of the Zuccari school. During vespers, the choir stalls reverberate to the sound of haunting Gregorian chants sung by the Benedictine monks. It is also fascinating to visit the more ancient parts of the building: the semi-annular crypt from the VIII century, with a Roman sarcophagus from the 2nd century A.D., the bell tower, the remains of a small cloister from XIV century, called "Lombard", with Romanesque mullioned windows. Also of note is the current state library, accessed via a cloister from the late 1500s, which has at its centre a bronze statue of St. Benedict, in memory of the ancient scriptorium, where the monk Gregorio da Catino worked from 1090 to 1134, handing down 3,500 documents relevant not just to the history of Farfa, but to that of Europe. The library contains 350 manuscripts, 56 incunabula and over 60,00 volumes. |
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Via Benedicti
Sulle tracce di San Benedetto tra Umbria e Lazio
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