Franciscan monastery

“ The place has little to attract one. A modern building, which I took to be the residence of some wealthy person, occupies a prominent position, and is surrounded by well-kept grounds, inclosed with a wall. The Franciscan monastery is a good sized institution, having on its grounds the remains of a church of the Crusaders' period, over which a new and attractive building has been erected. One section of it has the most beautiful floor of polished marble, laid in patterns, that I have ever seen. It also contains a painting of the Savior and the two disciples. ”

“ The monastery, which existed here in the time of Gregory the Great, had fallen into disuse when the Normans came to Sicily, and King Roger restored the old buildings. The interior now is absolutely bare and the windows unglazed. The Moorish domes give the little church a very eastern appearance, to which the flat members of the rustic stones of the cloister arches in no small measure add. It is a peaceful spot where exotic plants flourish luxuriantly, and vie with all sorts of flowers in wanton growth. ”

“ This monastery has been for many years deserted and untenanted, but an immense black iron cross stands out with weird arms pointing into the summer sky from the extreme summit of this wild eyrie.
Looking at the almost perpendicular rocks, it is difficult to believe that any one could scale those heights; and one felt that here, at any rate, was a monastery which could have little or no communication with the outer world. ”

“ After this a nunnery was founded, which in the tenth century became a Benedictine convent.
Ages rolled on, and it grew famous. When destroyed by the French it held as many as 900 monks: a great religious community, wealthy and powerful. But the mighty are fallen. The few remaining monks, more exclusive in their retirement than the great body of their predecessors, have a school attached to the monastery in which much time is given to the study of music. It is going far out of the world for instruction, but Nature herself should come to their aid. ”

“ The most modern part of the Monastery is to-day in the hands of private owners, but in such a dilapidated condition that it is almost unsafe to venture among its tottering walls. These buildings, erected during a period of the institution’s greatest prosperity, suffered more at the Revolution than the older parts of the Abbey. If the florid eighteenth-century buildings were all removed, they would be little loss to the place from an architectural{168} point of view, for their features strike a discordant note among the simple early Gothic surroundings. ”

“ When we think of the stately monastery, an embodiment of luxury, with its closely-mown lawns, its gardens and bowers, its fountains and many murmuring streams, we must connect it not with the ague-stricken peasant dying without help in the fens, but with the abbot, his ambling palfrey, his hawk and hounds, his well-stocked cellar and larder. He is part of a system that has its centre of authority in Italy.. ”

“ The Friaries, Colleges of secular canons, and Hospitals, were generally in or near the towns. There is a popular idea that the monks chose out the most beautiful and fertile spots in the kingdom for their abodes. A little reflection would show that the choice of the site of a new monastery must be confined within the limits of the lands which the founder was pleased to bestow upon the convent. Sometimes the founder gave a good manor, and gave money besides, to help to build the house upon it ”

“ Still, the empty cloister, with Signorelli's and Sodoma's frescos on the walls, Fra Giovanni of Verona's intarsia-work in the church, and the solitary monastery itself, so silent after centuries of activity, have an inexpressible charm, and travellers who undertake a pilgrimage hither can never forget their impressions. ”

“ It is strange that the name of the great architect who designed this beautiful church and monastery should be doubtful, especially as San Francesco is said to be almost the first Gothic church built in Italy, and remains to this day one of the purest and most beautiful in style, free from that admixture of Renaissance work which robs so many Italian churches of the reverence and religious inspiration created by our English and so many French cathedrals. ”

“ A Benedictine monastery, at one time among the richest and most famous of Italy, situated not far from Rome. It was founded in the middle of the sixth century by Saint Laurence, Bishop of Spoleto, and soon reached a position of importance, receiving endowments from the Lombard and Carolingian rulers and from the popes. The monks were driven out by the Saracen invaders in the closing years of the ninth century, and it lay desolate for fifty years. ”

“ On the summit of an abrupt height, over a double row of arcades, appears the monastery; at its base a torrent plows the soil, winding off in the distance between banks of boulders; beyond is the old town prolonging itself on the ridge of the mountain. We ascend slowly under the burning sun, and suddenly, at the end of [Pg 79] a court surrounded by slender columns, enter within the obscurity of the cathedral. It is unequalled; before having seen it one has no idea of the art and the genius of the Middle Ages. ”

“ Whenever the Benedictines resolved on building a monastery, they chose the most barren, deserted spot they could find, often a piece of land long regarded as useless, and therefore frequently given without a price, then they set to work, cleared a space for their buildings, laid their foundations deep in the earth, and by gradual but unceasing toil, often with their own hands, alternating their labor with their prayers, they reared up those stately abbeys which still defy the ravages of age. ”

“ Monastic history, like secular, centers in the biographies of such great men as Anthony, Basil, Jerome, Benedict, Francis, Dominic and Loyola. To understand the [pg 85] character of the powerful forces set in motion by the coming of the monks to Rome, it is necessary to know the leading spirits whose preeminent abilities and lofty personalities made Western monasticism what it was.
The time is about 418 A.D.; the place, a monastery in Bethlehem, near the cave of the Nativity. In a lonely cell, within these monastic walls, we shall find the man we seek. ”

“ The secularization of monasteries was an evil which grew with their wealth and influence. At a Council held by the patriarch Photius in the Apostles’ church at Constantinople, it is complained that some persons attach the name of “monastery” to property of their own, and while professing to dedicate it to God, write themselves down as lords of what has been thus consecrated, and are not ashamed to claim after such consecration the same power over it which they had before. ”

“ Oh, my lord, you cannot imagine how useful convents and monasteries are on various occasions, nor what various sorts of men can be found within them. Now there are always many who have taken priest's orders, and in this monastery there is one, at least, qualified in every way to celebrate matrimony, or anything else you like. He is Madonna Francesca's director, and therefore must be a holy and devout man. ”

“ The monastery, we believe, was reduced to its present condition through the decrees against monastic orders issued during the unhappy reign of the infidel Emperor Joseph. The church was never, however, without its chaplain. It is a plain, whitewashed building, with a flat frontage, irregularly pierced with a great many windows, while to the back rises one of those extraordinary steeples so often seen in the Tyrol, suggestive of a farm-house rather than a church. ”

“ Around the sacristy and beneath the above-named lunettes, there is a frieze of the depth of four feet, and divided into compartments, wherein are represented figures of emperors, kings, dukes, and other princes, who, having abandoned their sovereign condition, have made themselves Monks of that Order. Among these figures, Francesco portrayed from the life many of the monks who were dwelling in the convent while he was occupied with this work, or who were making their temporary abode in that monastery. ”

“ Men and women, therefore, who wished to keep themselves pure, withdrew to hermitages or monasteries, where they might be removed from temptation, and might fit themselves for heaven by prayer and fasting. In the fifth century Benedict of Nursia had organised in Italy a system of life for the monastery which he governed, and the Benedictine rule, as it was called, was soon accepted in almost all the monasteries of Western Europe. ”

“ Monasteries do not babble of their inmates to the world, but the world soon began to babble of the eloquent young Franciscan when his shrewd superiors sent him forth, as yet only a youth of nineteen, to electrify the various towns where their convents were planted, by his fiery and fervent tongue. ”

“ The whole of the lower storey of the monastery is built in the Romanesque style, while the two upper ones belong to the beginning of the sixteenth century, and are specimens of the decadent decorative Gothic style. “In spite of the fact,” remarks Vazquez Nuñez, “that three centuries must have elapsed between the building of the ground storey and the one above it, and in spite of the fact that they belong to such different styles of architecture, the combined result, though it lacks unity, is nevertheless one of noteworthy and singular beauty.” The monastery is nothing but a ruin ”

“ It is now frequently so crowded at high mass that it is difficult for an individual entering it after the commencement of the service to find even standing room. In the meantime the monastery itself, if that is the proper term, was completed—a splendid appearance it presents— and we believe is now fully occupied. ”

“ I believe much more in the jovial times the old abbots indulged in. At least we have a capacious refectory and inexhaustible wine vaults to prove what fine banquets they had in the Middle Ages. We have come down to poor times, in my opinion. The world in general seems very much what this monastery is—a patched-up ruin. ”

“ For, to pass over most of them, he raised two dead men for you, and one for us; and as he used often to say himself, there was more virtue in him before he was bishop than after. And so it is necessary that he complete for us after death what he did not finish in his lifetime. For he was taken away from you and given to us by God. If a custom long established is kept, a man shall have his tomb by God’s command in the city in which he was ordained. And if you desire to claim him because of the right of the monastery, let us tell you that his first monastery was at Milan. ”

“ Canute was the actual founder of the monastery proper, for in the 11th century he brought over Benedictine monks from Hulm, granting them a charter and many benefactions. The monastery yearly became more prosperous, and, with the exception of Glastonbury, exceeded in magnificence and privileges all other ecclesiastical establishments in the country. In the height of its glory it must have been a most beautiful and dignified structure. Leland writes:—
“A monastery more noble, whether one considers the endowments, largeness, or unparalleled magnificence, the sun never saw. ”

“ In a monastery I need hardly say it was quite different. The monks did not live each man in his own house; they lived in common, with a common refectory to dine in and a common dormitory to sleep in. Thus when, in Henry the Eighth's time, the monks were put out and secular canons put in again, the monastic buildings were no longer of any use, while there were no houses for the new canons. ”

“ This beautiful shrine is of Byzantine workmanship, and, in its way, is a superb work of art.
The refectory of the monastery is a large square building, but the dining-room which it contains is in the form of a cross, about one hundred feet in length each way; the walls are decorated with fresco pictures of the saints, who vie with each other in the hard-favoured aspect of their bearded faces; they are tall and meagre full-length figures as large as life, each having his name inscribed on the picture. Their chief interest is in their accurate representation of the clerical costume. ”

“ At the age of nine years she entered a monastery. Four years later she was commissioned by Pope Nicholas IV to assist in the foundation of a monastery at Proceno, and became its prioress at the age of fifteen. ”

“ At the dissolution of monasteries in 1866 Monte Cassino was spared, owing mainly to a remonstrance by English well-wishers of United Italy. The monastery became a national monument and the monks were recognized as custodians. There is a large secondary school with 250 boys, and rich archives. ”

“ Renewing also the holy canon, we decree that the monasteries which have been once consecrated by the Episcopal will, are always to remain monasteries, and the things which belong to them are to be preserved to the monastery, and they cannot any more be secular abodes nor be given by any one to seculars. ”

“ It is scarcely unreasonable to suppose that the good old monks may have been as divided in motive as modern travellers are in mind. Some may have turned with horror from precipices down which pilgrims are known to have been pitched headlong, while others will have rested fondly on the vision of the founder who saw in a dream, on the very site of this sky-soaring monastery, a silver staircase reaching from earth to heaven.
Monte Oliveto Maggiore has shared a common fate ”