Camaldolese monks have prayed at Fonte Avellana since around the year 980, tucked into a fold of Monte Catria where the silence itself feels built. Saint Peter Damian arrived as a monk in 1035 and later became prior, shaping both the community’s austere rule and the stone cloister that still stands.
Dante Alighieri is said to have stayed here while exiled from Florence, and wrote a hermitage very like it into the Paradiso. In 1325 Fonte Avellana became an abbey, the only Camaldolese house ever raised to that rank, and Pope John Paul II marked its thousandth anniversary with a visit in 1982. Monks still keep the ancient pharmacy that once served pilgrims with herbal remedies, and a botanical garden of the monastery’s own medicinal plants has been open to visitors since 2007.
Sources and citations (3)
- Monastero della Santa Croce di Fonte AvellanaStoria del monasteroPage introduction and institutional footerRead source
- Monastero della Santa Croce di Fonte AvellanaInformazioniContact and address sectionsRead source
- Monastero della Santa Croce di Fonte AvellanaVisitaSections Scriptorium, Sala San Giovanni da Lodi, Chiostro, Sala del Capitolo, Cripta, and Basilica MinoreRead source
