Monte Cassino

“ At the Monastery of Monte Cassino in the eleventh century was an interesting personality,—the Abbé Didier, its Superior. About 1066 he brought workers from Constantinople, who decorated the apse and walls of the basilica under his direction. At the same time, he established a school at the monastery, and the young members were instructed in the arts and crafts of mosaic and inlay, and the illumination of books. Greek influence was thus carried into Italy through Monte Cassino. ”

“ One loves even to touch the stones that knew his presence at Monte Cassino. Subiaco is full of him indeed, but it was at Monte Cassino that his greatest work was done; over its foreseen destruction he wept bitterly and it was there that he died.
A yet more notable encounter than the one with Galla took place at the arched doorway, in 542, one year before Benedict’s death. Totila, the Ostrogoth, swept down through Italy to retrieve the losses and defeats inflicted on his predecessor by Belisarius. It was a triumphal progress. ”

“ Mr. Vane said. “There is a house outside the gate where you ladies can stop, and I can have a bed inside. What do you say to it?”
The invitation was accepted by acclamation. Monte Cassino was one of the places to see in Italy—a gem of nature, religion, and art. Before sleeping that night their plans were made. They would put off the visit a little, hoping for cooler days, as the journey was one of five or six hours. Meantime they had a little trip to Genzano in view, to see the festa of the Santissimo Salvatore. ”

“ It is something to see a great domed church on the top of such a mountain, and a building of such vast proportions, containing one of the greatest libraries in the world. A mule path was all the monks intended for communication between the two worlds, but now a great carriage road takes us up by an easy zigzag.
“April 18th.—Every hour of our visit to Monte Cassino must be lived. I made a sketch of the monastery and the abyss into which one peers from that great height, with angry red clouds gathering over the tops of the snowy mountains. ”

“ ON the summit of a conical hill, rising above the great amphitheatre of forests that skirt the sunny Apulian plains, upon the ruins of a temple to Apollo and in a grove sacred to Venus here, in the sixth century had arisen the model of western monasticism, the cloisters of Monte Cassino. ”

“ While the rest of Italy was torn with the struggles of rival barbarians, and desolated by the rapacity of men like the Galla who drove his poor captives before him to the feet of St. Benedict at Monte Cassino, the peasants of Monte Gargano, safe in their isolation, lived as they live to-day, obscure, contented, minding their own affairs—which are chiefly their own cattle—with all their mind. ”

“ He worked at Monte Cassino as if for eternity, yet it was revealed to him that forty years after his death the Lombards would destroy the convent and disperse the monks. It puzzles one to understand that perfect trust and obedience. ”

“ From this point the country increases in beauty at every step. The heights are strikingly fertile, and in the valley an excellent road winds amid pleasant gardens. The mountains frequently seem to approach as though about to form an impenetrable pass; while ruins crown the summits of the rocks, and give a romantic appearance to the whole. At about three o’clock we reached the little town of Jeromania, lying in the midst of vegetable-gardens. Above this town the handsome convent of Monte Cassino stands on a rock, and in its neighbourhood we notice the ruins of an amphitheatre. ”

“ Monte Cassino boasted of three storeys, the upper one being only used for keeping fodder and stores. As the chief aim was solidity of building, great attention was paid to the proportionate thickness of the outer walls. ”

“ We must be content to enumerate a few of the most eminent.
In Italy Monte Cassino is a striking example of the dangers and vicissitudes to which monastic collections were exposed. Ruined by the Lombards in the 6th century, the monastery was rebuilt and a library established, to Monastic libraries. fall a prey to Saracens and to fire in the 9th. The collection then reformed survived many other chances and changes, and still exists. ”

“ This does not agree with the opinion of the learned, that the Urbinas Manuscript is a copy of the one at Monte Cassino, unless great liberties were taken with it. The fact that the arcade with the specus of the aqueduct is always built of large squared stones, is strongly in favour of the Codex Urbinas. It is also certain from the nature of the work, that a large number of men must have been employed upon it. ”

“ The portico has three arcades resting on columns and pilasters with capitals of Lombard-Byzantine style.
We find the guild at work not only in the north, but in the south of Italy at this epoch. One of the famous buildings in South Italy with which the Comacine Masters were connected, is the celebrated monastery of Monte Cassino with its church. This monastery had been built in the first instance by a Brescian named Petronax, who made a pilgrimage to Rome to see Pope Gregory II. The Pope urged Petronax to go to Monte Cassino where St. ”

“ John. "The horrible fate of the Templars," says Allen, "was taken by many as a beginning and omen of the destruction that would soon pass upon [pg 203] all the hated religious orders. And so this final burst of enthusiasm and splendor in the religious life was among the prognostics of a state of things in which monasticism must fade quite away."
Wondrous changes have taken place in those dark and troubled years since Benedict began his labors at Monte Cassino, in 529. The monk has prayed alone in the mountains, and converted the barbarian in the forest. ”

“ Desiderius was born to be monk, abbot, and at last pope (Victor III.) against his will. Alphanus, always a man of letters, was drawn by his friend to monastic life. Long after, when Archbishop of Salerno, he gave a refuge and a tomb to the outworn Hildebrand.
The rebuilding and adorning of Monte Cassino by Desiderius with the aid of Greek artists is a notable episode, in the history of art. [18] Under the long rule of this great abbot (1058–1087) the monastery reached the summit of its repute and influence. It was the home of theology and ecclesiastical policy. ”

“ Very little progress was made, as we may imagine, until after the great revival movement begun by Cimabue, Giotto, and their contemporaries, about the middle of the thirteenth century. But before taking up any inquiry into Italian work generally we must not omit reference to the remarkable MSS. produced at La Cava and Monte Cassino during the Franco-Lombard period. Some idea has already been furnished in dealing with Celtic MSS. and the foundations begun by Columbanus and his scholars. Indeed, the general character of these Lombard MSS. is seen in the Franco-Celtic. ”

“ Hope [52] instances as the more rude and early style of Lombard cloisters, those of San Lorenzo at Rome and Santa Sabina and San Stefano at Bologna, and as models of the more splendid style those of 66 S. John Lateran, which are resplendent with porphyry, serpentine, and gold enamel, inlaid in the marble; and those of S. Zeno of Verona of every tint of marble which the Euganean hills can afford. For the interior arrangements of a Longobardic monastery we will take Padre Ricci's account of the first plan of Monte Cassino which Petronax the Brescian engaged the Comacines to build. ”

“ ITALY
CASSINO AREA, looking along Highway 6. “Castle Hill,” in left foreground topped by tower, was in Allied hands for weeks before the town of Cassino fell. Below cliff are ruins of the town. The picture, made from the vicinity of the abbey, gives some indication of the enemy’s observation over Allied positions. The main drive through the Winter Line defenses started above San Pietro Infine. U. S. forces began the advance on 15 November 1943 and had fought their way to the outskirts of Cassino by 26 January 1944, a distance of eight miles in seventy days. ”

“ The solid hills meet the air that seems almost solid, too, so far away; their outlines lie peacefully upon the sky, soft browns and greens of pastures contrasting with the harsher character of rocks, and again with the softest quality of clouds. Just opposite, Monte Pilato breaks from out the [222] quiet line of the horizon to strike up a great mass into the air, and at the foot of the valley Monte Cranio makes a mitre with its two sharp peaks, in whose clefts one can see the chestnut trees’ outline even from this distance. ”

“ Broad sheets of vapour brooded on the plain, telling of miasma and fever, of which we on the mountain, in the pure cool air, knew nothing. The Alps were all there now—cold, unreal, stretching like a phantom line of snowy peaks, from the sharp pyramids of Monte Viso and the Grivola in the west to the distant Bernina and the Ortler in the east. Supreme among them towered Monte Rosa—queenly, triumphant, gazing down in proud pre-eminence, as she does when seen from any point of the Italian plain. There is no mountain like her. ”

“ Perhaps from nowhere else are the impressive beauties and the almost overwhelming grandeur of the Monte Rosa of Macugnaga to be seen to better advantage than from the Monte Moro. From the Jägerhorn up the Nordend, over the Grenz Gipfel, beyond the Zumstein Spitze and the Punta Margherita down to the Colle della Loccie, the eye travelled on that still, clear morning along a bewildering succession of clear-cut snow-crests, aglow and glistening in the morning light, interrupted here and there by gaunt rock cliffs all dusted with freshly-fallen snow. ”

“ They grow generally upon the sides of hills so steep, that neither light nor view is for long hidden; and wherever a tree grew thinly, or a little group had been cut down, spreading great arms across the road, there, through the gap, rose the perfect, glistening snow peak of Monte Cinto, the highest mountain in Corsica, close beside us, steeply precipitous, and clothed with fir-trees on every ledge. Below, to the very edge of the deep valley, we looked over the forest tree tops; while up above us, avenues of straight tall stems rose to a giddy height. ”

“ The mighty Mont Blanc, full seventy miles away, first caught our eyes, and then, still farther off, the Monte Rosa group; while, rolling away to the east, one unknown range after another succeeded in unveiled splendor, fainter and fainter in tone, but still perfectly defined, till at last the eye was unable to distinguish sky from mountain, and they died away in the far-off horizon. Monte Viso rose up grandly, but it was less than forty miles away, and we looked over it to a hazy mass we knew must be the plains of Piedmont. ”

“ We are then on the very ridge or crest of the mountain, and look down on the one hand upon the valley of the Dora going up to Susa, with the glaciers of the Mont Cenis in the background, and on the other upon the plains near Turin, with the colline bounding the horizon. Immediately beneath is seen the glaring white straight line of the old Mont Cenis road, looking much more important than the dingy narrow little strip of railroad that has superseded it. The trains that pass along the line look no bigger than caterpillars, but even at this distance they make a great roar. ”

“ They differ, therefore, very considerably in size from those of the Giant’s Causeway, some of which measure two feet in width. The length of the columns of the Monte del Diavolo can not be ascertained, as they present only their summits to the view: their remaining parts are deeply buried in the hill, and in some places entirely covered. Those of Monte Rosso, as far as they are visible, measure from six to eight or ten feet in hight; an inconsiderable size when compared with the hight of those of the Giant’s Causeway. ”

“ On the opposite bank of the Rapido are the ruins called Monticelli, attributed to the villa of Varro, a part of which was frequently drawn by the architects of the 16th century (T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, ii. 19) . The medieval town of S. Germano, which resumed the name Cassino in 1871, lies a little to the north. The cathedral was founded in the 8th century, but the present building was constructed in the 17th century. The church of S. Maria delle Cinque Torri contains twelve ancient marble columns; above the town is a picturesque medieval castle. ”

“ But I am running away from my subject with the recollection of youthful follies, said the Baronet, checking himself; “let me come to the point.”
Among my familiar resorts was a Cassino under the Arcades on one side of the grand square of St. Mark. Here I used frequently to lounge and take my ice on those warm summer nights when in Italy every body lives abroad until morning. I was seated here one evening, when a group of Italians took seat at a table on the opposite side of the saloon. Their conversation was gay and animated, and carried on with Italian vivacity and gesticulation. ”

“ The last important globe maker of the eighteenth century in Italy was Giovanni Maria Cassini (fl. 1790) , an engraver, and a geographer of distinction, to the truth of which statement his excellent work gives testimony. As evidence of his interest in the matter of globe construction we have the introduction to his ‘Nuovo atlante geografico universale ...,’ wherein he gives carefully devised rules for the construction of globe gores, and in addition we still find a number of his completed globes, particularly in Italian museums and libraries. ”