The MONTECASSINO Monastery

The MONTECASSINO Monastery, was founded by St. Benedict about 529 of the Christian Era on the remnants of a preexisting Roman fortification of the municipium Casinum. The heathen cult was still practised on this mountain site in the temple of Apollo and in a nearby holy grove to which a sacrifice area was adjoining.
Montecassino became famous for the prodigious life and the Sepulchre of its Founder. Through the ages, the abbey was looked upon as a place of holiness, culture and art for which it became renowned on world-wide level.
Around 577, the monastery was destroyed by the Longobards of Zotone, Duke of Beneventum, but early in the eighth century Pope Gregory II commissioned the Brescian Petronace to rebuild the monastery.
For the Cassinese abbey this was the beginning of a period of great splendour: the Saxon Monk Villibald, the Monk Sturmius disciple of S. Boniface, Founder of Fulda and of German monasticism, Gisulf II Duke of Beneventum, Carlomanno brother of Pippin, Ratchis king of the Longobards, Anselm future abbot of Nonantola all flocked to Montecassino. In 787 Charlemagne came to visit the Abbey and granted it vast privileges.
In 883, the Saracens invaded and sacked the Monastery and burnt it down, causing the death of Bertarius its saint Abbot, Founder of mediaeval Cassino. The surviving monks first fled to Teano and later to Capua. Monastic life was only fully resumed towards the middle of the tenth century, thanks to Abbot Aligerno.

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