Monte Cassino
A hilltop above the town of Cassino, between Rome and Naples, where Benedict of Nursia founded his monastery in the sixth century. An abbey still stands on the site.
Gregory the Great describes the town of Cassino as lying on the side of a high mountain that rises for three miles above it. Here stood an old shrine where the country people still sacrificed to Apollo. Benedict of Nursia broke the idol, burned the groves and built two oratories, of Saint Martin and of Saint John (Gregory the Great, Dialogues 2.8). He and his sister Scholastica were buried in the oratory of Saint John (Gregory the Great, Dialogues 2.34, 2.37).
What happened here
- c. AD 530–550, estimated dateBenedict Writes His Rule
Benedict of Nursia, abbot of Monte Cassino, writes a rule for monks living in community under an abbot, with a day divided between common prayer, reading and manual work. It later becomes the standard rule of Western monasteries.
Primary sources
Dialogues
- Gregory the Great, Dialogues 2.8tertullian.org
- Gregory the Great, Dialogues 2.34, 2.37tertullian.org