Bobbio Abbey
Encyclopedia
Bobbio Abbey is a monastery founded by Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 Saint Columbanus
Columbanus
Columbanus was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries on the European continent from around 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil and Bobbio , and stands as an exemplar of Irish missionary activity in early medieval Europe.He spread among the...

 in 614, around which later grew up the town of Bobbio
Bobbio
Bobbio is a small town and commune in the province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy. It is located in the Trebbia River valley southwest of the town Piacenza. There is also an abbey and a diocese of the same name...

, in the province of Piacenza
Province of Piacenza
The Province of Piacenza is a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Piacenza.The province has 273,689 inhabitants . Its total area is 2,589 km². There are 48 comuni in the province, see Comuni of the Province of Piacenza...

, Emilia-Romagna
Emilia-Romagna
Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. It is dedicated to Saint Columbanus. It was famous as a centre of resistance to Arianism
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...

 and as one of the greatest libraries in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, and was the original on which the monastery in Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...

's novel The Name of the Rose
The Name of the Rose
The Name of the Rose is the first novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...

was based. The abbey was dissolved under the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 administration in 1803, although many of the buildings remain in other uses.

Foundation

The background to the foundation of the abbey was the Lombard
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

 invasion of Italy in 568. The Lombard king Agilulf
Agilulf
Agilulf called the Thuringian, was a duke of Turin and king of the Lombards from 591 until his death.-Biography:A relative of his predecessor Authari, he was selected king on the advice of the Christian queen and widow of Authari, Theodelinda, whom he then married...

 married the devout Roman Catholic Theodelinda
Theodelinda
Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, was the daughter of duke Garibald I of Bavaria.She was married first in 588 to Authari, king of the Lombards, son of king Cleph. Authari died in 590. Theodelinda was allowed to pick Agilulf as her next husband and Authari's successor in 591...

 in 590 and under her influence and that of the Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 missionary Columbanus, he was persuaded to accept conversion to Catholicism. As a base for the conversion of the Lombard people Agilulf gave Columbanus a ruined church and wasted lands known as Ebovium, which, before the Lombards seized them, had formed part of the lands of the papacy. Columbanus particularly wanted this secluded place, for while enthusiastic in the instruction of the Lombards he preferred solitude for his monks and himself. Next to this little church, which was dedicated to Saint Peter, a monastery was soon built. The abbey at its foundation followed the Rule of St. Columbanus, based on the monastic practices of Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...

.

7th century

Saint Columbanus was buried on 23 November 615, but was followed by successors of high calibre in Saints Attala
Saint Attala
Saint Attala was a disciple of Saint Columbanus and his successor as abbot of Bobbio Abbey.-Biography:...

 (d. 627) and Bertulf (d. 640), who steered the new monastery through the dangers of militant Arianism under King Rotharis (636–652). Bobbio was much involved in the tradition concerning Rotharis' immediate predecessor, Arioald
Arioald
Arioald was the Lombard king of Italy from 626 to 636. Duke of Turin, he married the princess Gundeberga, daughter of King Agilulf and his queen Theodelinda. He was, unlike his father-in-law, an Arian who did not accept Catholicism....

, who became a Catholic after having Saint Bladulf
Bladulf
Bladulf , was a monk of Bobbio Abbey, killed at the orders of the Lombard king Arioald, an Arian.He is a Catholic and Orthodox saint, feast day January 2 .-External links:...

, a monk of Bobbio, assassinated, because Bladulf refused to salute him, as an Arian. The story goes that Attala restored Bladulf to life and delivered Arioald from a diabolical possession, the punishment of his crime; and that this double miracle led to Arioald's conversion.

In 628, when Saint Bertulf made a pilgrimage to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, Pope Honorius I
Pope Honorius I
Pope Honorius I was pope from 625 to 638.Honorius, according to the Liber Pontificalis, came from Campania and was the son of the consul Petronius. He became pope on October 27, 625, two days after the death of his predecessor, Boniface V...

 exempted Bobbio from episcopal jurisdiction, thus making the abbey immediately subject to the Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

. Under the next abbot, Bobolen, the Rule of St. Benedict was introduced. At first its observance was optional, but in the course of time it superseded the harsher Rule of St. Columbanus, and Bobbio joined the Congregation of Monte Cassino
Monte Cassino
Monte Cassino is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, Italy, c. to the west of the town of Cassino and altitude. St. Benedict of Nursia established his first monastery, the source of the Benedictine Order, here around 529. It was the site of Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944...

. In 643, at the request of Rotharis and Queen Gundelberga, Pope Theodore I
Pope Theodore I
Pope Theodore I , who was pope from November 24, 642, to May 14, 649, is considered a Greek, but was born in Jerusalem. He was made a cardinal deacon, and a full cardinal by Pope John IV....

 granted to the Abbot of Bobbio the use of the mitre and other pontificals.

During the turbulent 7th century Bobbio succeeded in remaining a centre of Catholic belief and culture. Through the efforts of Saint Columbanus's disciples, increasing numbers of the Lombards were received into the Roman Catholic Church. But during the first half of the 7th century, the large tract of country lying between Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

 and Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...

, Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

 and Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, was in a very irreligious and disturbed state; even idolatry was not unknown. In fact, not until the reign of the usurper Grimoald I
Grimoald I of Benevento
Grimoald I was duke of Benevento and king of the Lombards .Born probably before 610 to Duke Gisulf II of Friuli and the Bavarian princess Ramhilde, daughter of Duke Garibald I of Bavaria, he succeeded his brother Radoald as duke of Benevento...

 (663–673), himself a convert, did the bulk of the nation accept Catholicism. But after this point Arianism rapidly disappeared in the West.

8th century onwards

Theodelinda's nephew Aripert I
Aripert I
Aripert I was king of the Lombards in Italy. He was the son of Gundoald, duke of Asti, who had crossed the Alps from Bavaria with his sister Theodelinda. As a relative of the Bavarian ducal house, his was called the Bavarian Dynasty.He was the first Roman Catholic king of the Lombards, elected...

 (653–663) restored all the lands of Bobbio which belonged by right to the pope. Aripert II
Aripert II
Aripert II was the king of the Lombards from 701 to 712. Duke of Turin and son of King Raginpert, and thus a scion of the Bavarian Dynasty, he was associated with the throne as early as 700. He was removed by Liutpert, who reigned from 700 to 702, with the exception of the year 701, when...

 confirmed this restitution to Pope John VII
Pope John VII
Pope John VII was pope from 705 to 707. The successor of John VI, he was of Greek ancestry. He is one of the popes of the Byzantine captivity.-Biography:...

 in 707. The Lombards soon dispossessed the popes again, but in 756 Aistulf
Aistulf
Aistulf was the Duke of Friuli from 744, King of Lombards from 749, and Duke of Spoleto from 751. His father was the Duke Pemmo.After his brother Ratchis became king, Aistulf succeeded him in Friuli. He succeeded him later as king when Ratchis abdicated to a monastery...

 was compelled by Pepin the Younger to give up the lands. In 774 Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

 made liberal grants to the abbey. In 1153 Frederick Barbarossa confirmed by two charters various rights and possessions.

The fame of Bobbio reached the shores of Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, and Columbanus' reputation attracted many more Irish religious. Bobolen's successor may have been a certain 'Comgall'. Bishop Cummian, who had resigned his see in Ireland in order to become a monk of Bobbio, died in the abbey about 730, as his poetic inscription there attests.

See of Bobbio

In 1014, the Emperor Henry II
Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor
Henry II , also referred to as Saint Henry, Obl.S.B., was the fifth and last Holy Roman Emperor of the Ottonian dynasty, from his coronation in Rome in 1014 until his death a decade later. He was crowned King of the Germans in 1002 and King of Italy in 1004...

, on the occasion of his own coronation in Rome, obtained from Pope Benedict VIII
Pope Benedict VIII
Pope Benedict VIII , born Theophylactus, Pope from 1012 to 1024, of the noble family of the counts of Tusculum , descended from Theophylact, Count of Tusculum like his predecessor Pope Benedict VI .Benedict VIII was opposed by an antipope, Gregory...

 the erection of Bobbio as an episcopal se
Diocese of Bobbio
The Italian Catholic diocese of Bobbio existed until 1986, having been created from Bobbio Abbey. In 1923 it was combined with the territorial Abbey of San Columbano, with official name diocese of Bobbio-San Colombano. As reorganised in 1986, it became part of the archdiocese of Genova-Bobbio...

e. Peter Aldus, its first bishop, had been abbot of Bobbio since 999, and his episcopal successors for a long time lived in the abbey, where many of them had been monks. From either 1133 or 1161 Bobbio was a suffragan see of the archdiocese of Genoa. From time to time disputes arose between the bishop and the monks, and in 1199 Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III was Pope from 8 January 1198 until his death. His birth name was Lotario dei Conti di Segni, sometimes anglicised to Lothar of Segni....

 issued two bulls, restoring the abbey in spirituals and temporals, and empowering the bishop to depose an abbot if within a certain time he did not obey.

Dissolution

Saint Columbanus' abbey and church were taken from the Benedictines by the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 occupying forces in 1803, when the abbey was suppressed.

The Basilica

The current Basilica of San Colombano (1456–1530) replaced the old edifice in Renaissance times.

In the Holy Scriptures written along the central nave of the Basilica there is only one citation which has been – voluntarily – attributed the maximal importance. This sole finding allows interpreting the whole series of Biblical chapters.
The sentence is the verse 6.63 from the Gospel of St. John; this verse acquires peculiar nuances if read in relation to the intricate circumstances the Church was going through during the period the Basilica was decorated.
Also the Renaissance frescoes are in relationship with the theological disputes the Church had to face during the Renaissance.

The Basilica is on the Latin cross plan with a nave and two aisles, a transept and a rectangular apse. It includes a 9th century baptismal font. The nave fresco decoration is by Bernardino Lanzani (16th century). The 15th century crypt houses the sarcophagus of St. Columbanus, by Giovanni dei Patriarchi (1480), and those of the first two abbots, St. Attala and St. Bertulf. Also in the crypt is a 12th century pavement mosaic with the histories of the Maccabeans and the Cycle of the Months.

The bell Tower (late 9th century) and the smaller apse are from the original Romanesque edifice.

The Torre del Comune (Communal Tower) was built in 1456-1485.

The Museum of the Abbey includes findings and remains from Roman (tombs, altars, sculptures) and Lombard
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

 ages (capitals, tombstones). It houses also a polyptych
Polyptych
A polyptych generally refers to a painting which is divided into sections, or panels. The terminology that follows is in relevance to the number of panels integrated into a particular piece of work: "diptych" describes a two-part work of art; "triptych" describes a three-part work; "tetraptych"...

 by Bernardino Luini
Bernardino Luini
Bernardino Luini was a North Italian painter from Leonardo's circle. Both Luini and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio were said to have worked with Leonardo directly; he was described to have taken "as much from Leonardo as his native roots enabled him to comprehend". Consequently many of his works were...

 and the Bobbio collection, the second largest in the world, of Monza ampullae
Monza ampullae
The Monza ampullae form the largest collection of a specific type of Early Medieval pilgrimage ampullae or small flasks designed to hold holy oil from pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land related to the life of Jesus, that were made in Palestine, probably in the fifth to early seventh centuries...

, pilgrimage flasks from the 6th century.

Library

The nucleus of the abbey's library may have been formed by the manuscripts which Columbanus had brought from Ireland (though these must have been exceedingly few) and the treatises which he wrote himself. The learned Saint Dungal
Saint Dungal
The Irish monk Dungal lived at Saint-Denis, Pavia and Bobbio. He wrote a poem on wisdom and the seven liberal arts and advised Charlemagne on astronomical matters. He died after 827, probably at the Monastery of Bobbio...

 (d. after 827) bequeathed to the abbey his valuable library, consisting of some 27 volumes.

A late-9th-century catalogue, published by Ludovico Antonio Muratori
Ludovico Antonio Muratori
Ludovico Antonio Muratori was an Italian historian, notable as a leading scholar of his age, and for his discovery of the Muratorian fragment, the earliest known list of New Testament books....

 (but now superseded by the edition of M. Tosi), shows that at that period every branch of knowledge, divine and human, was represented in this library. The catalogue lists more than 600 volumes. Many of the books have been lost, the rest have long since been dispersed and are still reckoned among the chief treasures of the later collections which possess them.

In 1616 Cardinal Federico Borromeo
Federico Borromeo
Federico Borromeo was an Italian ecclesiastic, cardinal and archbishop of Milan.-Biography:Federico Borromeo was born in Milan as the second son of Giulio Cesare Borromeo, Count of Arona, and Margherita Trivulzio...

 took for the Ambrosian Library of Milan eighty-six volumes, including the famous "Bobbio Orosius
Bobbio Orosius
The Bobbio Orosius is an early 7th century Insular manuscript of the Chronicon of Paulus Orosius. The manuscript has 48 folios and measures 210 by 150 mm. It is thought to have been produced at the scriptorium of Bobbio Abbey.It contains the earliest surviving carpet page in Insular art. The...

", the "Antiphonary of Bangor
Antiphonary of Bangor
The Antiphonary of Bangor is an ancient Latin manuscript, supposed to have been originally written at Bangor Abbey in modern day Northern Ireland....

", and the Bobbio Jerome
Bobbio Jerome
The Bobbio Jerome is an early seventh century manuscript copy of the Commentary on Isaiah attributed to St. Jerome. The manuscript has 156 pages and measures 235 by 215 mm...

 a palimpsest
Palimpsest
A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...

s of Ulfilas
Ulfilas
Ulfilas, or Gothic Wulfila , bishop, missionary, and Bible translator, was a Goth or half-Goth and half-Greek from Cappadocia who had spent time inside the Roman Empire at the peak of the Arian controversy. Ulfilas was ordained a bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia and returned to his people to work...

' Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...

 version of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

. Twenty-six volumes were given, in 1618, to Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V
-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...

 for the Vatican Library
Vatican Library
The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

. Many others were sent to Turin, where, besides those in the Royal Archives, there were seventy-one in the University Library until the disastrous fire of 26 January 1904.

Gerbert of Aurillac (afterwards Pope Sylvester II), became abbot of Bobbio in 982; and with the aid of the numerous ancient treatises which he found there he composed his celebrated work on geometry.

Burials

  • Saint Cummian
    Cummian
    Cumméne Fota or Cummian was an Irish bishop.-Biography:Cummian was an Irish Bishop and fer léignid of Cluain Ferta Brénainn , was an important theological writer in the early to mid 7th century. He is famous for a Paschal letter which displays his high level of learning...

  • Saint Columbanus
    Columbanus
    Columbanus was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries on the European continent from around 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil and Bobbio , and stands as an exemplar of Irish missionary activity in early medieval Europe.He spread among the...

  • Saint Attala
    Saint Attala
    Saint Attala was a disciple of Saint Columbanus and his successor as abbot of Bobbio Abbey.-Biography:...

  • Saint Barbolenus, fourth Abbot
    Abbot
    The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...

     of Bobbio. Died around 640 AD and his Feast Day is August 31.
  • Saint Baudacarius, a monk
    Monk
    A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...

     at Bobbio and died around 650 AD. His Feast Day is December 21.
  • Saint Bladulf
    Bladulf
    Bladulf , was a monk of Bobbio Abbey, killed at the orders of the Lombard king Arioald, an Arian.He is a Catholic and Orthodox saint, feast day January 2 .-External links:...


External links

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