1.
Lombards
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The Lombards or Longobards were a Germanic people who ruled large parts of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. In the 1st century AD, they formed part of the Suebi, the Lombard king Audoin defeated the Gepid leader Thurisind in 551 or 552, his successor Alboin eventually destroyed the Gepids at the Battle of Asfeld in 567. The Lombards were joined by numerous Saxons, Heruls, Gepids, Bulgars, Thuringians, and Ostrogoths, by late 569 they had conquered all north of Italy and the principal cities north of the Po River except Pavia, which fell in 572. At the same time, they occupied areas in central Italy and they established a Lombard Kingdom in north and central Italy, later named Regnum Italicum, which reached its zenith under the 8th-century ruler Liutprand. In 774, the Kingdom was conquered by the Frankish King Charlemagne, however, Lombard nobles continued to rule southern parts of the Italian peninsula, well into the 11th century when they were conquered by the Normans and added to their County of Sicily. In this period, the part of Italy still under Longobardic domination was known by the name Langbarðaland in the Norse runestones. Their legacy is apparent in the regional name Lombardy. The fullest account of Lombard origins, history, and practices is the Historia Langobardorum of Paul the Deacon, pauls chief source for Lombard origins, however, is the 7th-century Origo Gentis Langobardorum. The Origo Gentis Langobardorum tells the story of a tribe called the Winnili dwelling in southern Scandinavia. The Winnili were split into three groups and one part left their land to seek foreign fields. The reason for the exodus was probably overpopulation, the departing people were led by the brothers Ybor and Aio and their mother Gambara and arrived in the lands of Scoringa, perhaps the Baltic coast or the Bardengau on the banks of the Elbe. Scoringa was ruled by the Vandals and their chieftains, the brothers Ambri and Assi, the Winnili were young and brave and refused to pay tribute, saying It is better to maintain liberty by arms than to stain it by the payment of tribute. The Vandals prepared for war and consulted Godan, who answered that he would give the victory to those whom he would see first at sunrise. The Winnili were fewer in number and Gambara sought help from Frea, at sunrise, Frea turned her husbands bed so that he was facing east, and woke him. So Godan spotted the Winnili first and asked, Who are these long-beards. and Frea replied, My lord, thou hast given them the name, from that moment onwards, the Winnili were known as the Longbeards. When Paul the Deacon wrote the Historia between 787 and 796 he was a Catholic monk and devoted Christian and he thought the pagan stories of his people silly and laughable. Paul explained that the name Langobard came from the length of their beards, a modern theory suggests that the name Langobard comes from Langbarðr, a name of Odin. Priester states that when the Winnili changed their name to Lombards, they changed their old agricultural fertility cult to a cult of Odin
2.
Benevento
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Benevento listen is a city and comune of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento,50 kilometres northeast of Naples. It is situated on a hill 130 metres above sea level at the confluence of the Calore Irpino and it is also the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop. Benevento occupies the site of the ancient Beneventum, originally Maleventum or still earlier Maloenton, the -vent portion of the name probably refers to a market-place and is a common element in ancient place names. The Romans theorized that it meant the site of bad events, in the imperial period it was supposed to have been founded by Diomedes after the Trojan War. A patron saint of Benevento is Saint Bartholomew, the Apostle, Benevento, as Maleventum, was one of the chief cities of Samnium, situated on the Via Appia at a distance of 51 kilometres east from Capua on the banks of the river Calor. Festus, on the contrary, related that it was founded by Auson, a son of Ulysses and Circe, a tradition which indicates that it was an ancient Ausonian city, previous to its conquest by the Samnites. But it first appears in history as a Samnite city, and must have already been a place of strength and it appears, however, to have fallen into their hands during the Third Samnite War, though the exact occasion is unknown. Benevento was certainly in the power of the Romans in 274 BC, six years later they further sought to secure its possession by establishing there a Roman colony with Latin rights. It is probable that the Oscan or Samnite name was Maloeis, or Malieis, whence the form Maleventum would derive, like Agrigentum from Acragas, Selinuntium from Selinus and its wealth is also evidenced by the quantity of coins minted by Beneventum. Horace famously notes Beneventum on his journey from Rome to Brundusium and it was indebted to the same circumstance for the honor of repeated visits from the emperors of Rome, among which those of Nero, Trajan, and Septimus Severus, are particularly recorded. It was probably for the reason that the triumphal arch. The Arch of Trajan is one of the best-preserved Roman structures in the Campania and it repeats the formula of the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, with reliefs of Trajans life and exploits of his reign. Some of the sculptures are in the British Museum, successive emperors seem to have bestowed on the city accessions of territory, and erected, or at least given name to, various public buildings. Its inhabitants were included in the Stellatine tribe, diaconus speaks of it as a very wealthy city, and the capital of all the surrounding provinces. The territory of Beneventum under the Roman Empire was of considerable extent. An inscription has preserved to us the names of several of the pagi or villages dependent upon Beneventum, the citys most ancient coins bear the legend Malies or Maliesa, which have been supposed to belong to the Samnite, or pre-Samnite, Maleventum. Coins with the legend BENVENTOD, must have struck after it became a Latin colony. Not long after it had been sacked by Totila and its walls razed, the circumstances of the creation of duchy of Benevento are disputed
3.
Southern Italy
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It generally coincides with the administrative regions of Abruzzo, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, Molise, Sicily, and Sardinia. Some also include the most southern and eastern parts of Lazio within the Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy carries a unique legacy of culture. It features many major tourist attractions, such as the Palace of Caserta, there are also many ancient Greek cities in Southern Italy, such as Sybaris, which were founded several centuries before the start of the Roman Republic. These same subdivisions are at the bottom of the Italian First level NUTS of the European Union, the term Mezzogiorno first came into use in the 18th century and is an Italian rendition of meridies. The term was popularised by Giuseppe Garibaldi and it eventually came into vogue after the Italian unification. In a similar manner, Southern France is colloquially known as le Midi, Southern Italy forms the lower part of the Italian boot, containing the ankle, the toe, the arch, and the heel, along with the island of Sicily. Separating the heel and the boot is the Gulf of Taranto, named after the city of Taranto and it is an arm of the Ionian Sea. The island of Sardinia, right below the French island of Corsica, on the eastern coast is the Adriatic Sea, leading into the rest of the Mediterranean through the Strait of Otranto. Along the northern coast of the Salernitan Gulf and on the south of the Sorrentine Peninsula runs the Amalfi Coast, off the tip of the peninsula is the isle of Capri. The climate is mainly Mediterranean, except at the highest elevations and the eastern stretches in Apulia, along the Ionian Sea in Calabria. The largest city of Southern Italy is Naples, a name from the Greek that it has maintained for millennia. Bari, Taranto, Reggio Calabria, Foggia, and Salerno are the next largest cities in the area. The region is very active and highly seismic, the 1980 Irpinia earthquake killed 2,914 people, injured more than 10,000. Also during this period, Greek colonies were established in places as widely separated as the eastern coast of the Black Sea, Eastern Libya and they included settlements in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula. The Romans called the area of Sicily and the foot of Italy, Magna Graecia, the ancient geographers differed on whether the term included Sicily or merely Apulia and Calabria—Strabo being the most prominent advocate of the wider definitions. With this colonisation, Greek culture was exported to Italy, in its dialects of the Ancient Greek language, its religious rites, an original Hellenic civilization soon developed, later interacting with the native Italic and Latin civilisations. Many of the new Hellenic cities became very rich and powerful, like Neapolis, Syracuse, Acragas, other cities in Magna Graecia included Tarentum, Epizephyrian Locri, Rhegium, Croton, Thurii, Elea, Nola, Syessa, Bari, and others. After Pyrrhus of Epirus failed in his attempt to stop the spread of Roman hegemony in 282 BCE, from then to the Norman conquest of the 11th century, the south of the peninsula was constantly plunged into wars between Greece, Lombardy, and the Islamic Caliphate
4.
Pope
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The pope is the Bishop of Rome and, therefore, the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013, the office of the pope is the papacy. The pope is considered one of the worlds most powerful people because of his diplomatic and he is also head of state of Vatican City, a sovereign city-state entirely enclaved within the Italian capital city of Rome. The papacy is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history, the popes in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity and the resolution of various doctrinal disputes. In the Middle Ages, they played a role of importance in Western Europe. Currently, in addition to the expansion of the Christian faith and doctrine, the popes are involved in ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, charitable work, Popes, who originally had no temporal powers, in some periods of history accrued wide powers similar to those of temporal rulers. In recent centuries, popes were gradually forced to give up temporal power, the word pope derives from Greek πάππας meaning father. The earliest record of the use of title was in regard to the by then deceased Patriarch of Alexandria. Some historians have argued that the notion that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, the writings of the Church Father Irenaeus who wrote around AD180 reflect a belief that Peter founded and organised the Church at Rome. Moreover, Irenaeus was not the first to write of Peters presence in the early Roman Church, Clement of Rome wrote in a letter to the Corinthians, c. 96, about the persecution of Christians in Rome as the struggles in our time and presented to the Corinthians its heroes, first, the greatest and most just columns, the good apostles Peter and Paul. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote shortly after Clement and in his letter from the city of Smyrna to the Romans he said he would not command them as Peter and Paul did. Given this and other evidence, many agree that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero. Protestants contend that the New Testament offers no proof that Jesus established the papacy nor even that he established Peter as the first bishop of Rome, others, using Peters own words, argue that Christ intended himself as the foundation of the church and not Peter. First-century Christian communities would have had a group of presbyter-bishops functioning as leaders of their local churches, gradually, episcopacies were established in metropolitan areas. Antioch may have developed such a structure before Rome, some writers claim that the emergence of a single bishop in Rome probably did not occur until the middle of the 2nd century. In their view, Linus, Cletus and Clement were possibly prominent presbyter-bishops, documents of the 1st century and early 2nd century indicate that the Holy See had some kind of pre-eminence and prominence in the Church as a whole, though the detail of what this meant is unclear. It seems that at first the terms episcopos and presbyter were used interchangeably, the consensus among scholars has been that, at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries, local congregations were led by bishops and presbyters whose offices were overlapping or indistinguishable
5.
Liutprand, King of the Lombards
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He is often regarded as the most successful Lombard monarch, notable for the Donation of Sutri, which was the first accolade of sovereign territory to the Papacy. His father was driven to exile among the Bavarians, his older brother Sigipert was blinded by Aripert II, king of the Lombards and his mother Theodarada, Liutprand was spared only because his youth made him appear harmless. He was released from Aripert IIs custody and allowed to join his father, Liutprands reign endured for thirty-one years. Within the Lombard kingdom he was considered a lawgiver of irreproachable Catholicity, at the opening of his reign, Liutprands chief ally among neighboring rulers was the Agilolfing Theodo I, the Frankish duke of Bavaria. Theodo Is intervention on Ansprands behalf helped him gain the throne, Theodo died in 717 or 718, under his successor the Lombard ties with the Agilolfing weakened. Until distracted by Byzantine politics in 726, Liutprands chief warmaking energies were concentrated on taking Bavarian castles on the River Adige, in his early reign, Liutprand did not attack the Exarchate of Ravenna or the Papacy. But in 726, the Emperor Leo III made his first of many edicts outlawing images or icons. The pope, Gregory II, ordered the people to resist, Liutprand chose this time of division to strike the Byzantine possessions in Emilia. In 727, he crossed the Po and took Bologna, Osimo, Rimini and Ancona, along with the cities of Emilia. He took Classis, the seaport of Ravenna, but could not take Ravenna itself from the exarch Paul, Paul was soon killed in a riot, however. Eventually, Ravenna would capitulate to Liutprand with barely a fight, the first Moorish raids on Corsica began around 713–719 from the Balearic Islands to the west. Acting as the protector of the Catholic Church and its faithful, Liutprand subjected the island to Lombard government, Corsica remained with the Lombard kingdom even after the Frankish conquest, by which time Lombard landholders and churches had established a significant presence on the island. When the Saracens invaded Sardinia, Liutprand redeemed the body of Augustine about the year 720 and he brought it with great ceremony to Pavia, and enshrined it in the Church of Saint Peter in Ciel doro, which was then the cathedral of Pavia. He rescued the relics stationed on the island with great haste as well as with great expense, according to Paul the Deacon. There the two reached an agreement, by which Sutri and some towns in Latium were given to the Papacy, as a gift to the blessed Apostles Peter. They were the first extension of Papal territory beyond the confines of the Duchy of Rome and this was the beginning of the Papal States. In the meantime, Leo sent Eutychius, as Exarch of Ravenna, the dukes, Thrasimund II and Godescalc, surrendered — though control of the duchies from Pavia was not to endure for long — and the new exarch marched on Rome. In 733 Liutprand promulgated the Notitia de actoribus regis, a series of six laws and they sought to curb the usurpation by local administrators of public lands
6.
Po Valley
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The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain is a major geographical feature of Italy. The flatlands of Veneto and Friuli are often considered apart since they do not drain into the Po, the plain is the surface of an in-filled system of ancient canyons extending from the Apennines in the south to the Alps in the north, including the northern Adriatic. Geo-political definitions of the valley depend on the defining authority, the Po Basin Water Board, authorized in 1989 by Law no. The law defines the Po basin as the territory from which rainwater or snow and glacier melt flows on the surface, the valley is crossed by a number of affluents running down from the Alps in the north and from the Apennines in the south. The Pos major affluents include the Tanaro, Scrivia, Trebbia, Panaro and Secchia in the south, Dora Riparia, Dora Baltea, Sesia, Ticino, Lambro, Adda, Oglio and Mincio in the north. Since the Messinian the system has been filling with sediment mainly from the older Apennines, the shoreline of the Adriatic depends on a balance between the sedimentation rate and isostatic factors. Until about 1950 the Po delta was prograding into the Adriatic, where the land surface now dips below sea level the river must run at a relative elevation between dikes. The Po Valley is often regarded as a syncline, or dip in the crust due to compression at the edges. Regardless of whether this concept accurately describes its geology, the valley is manifestly a sediment-filled trough, or virtual syncline, the upper areas of the Po valley take local names which reflect in their meanings their being modestly suited for farming. It varies from a few kilometres to as much as 50 km wide, the fontanili line is the outcrop, or intersection, of the anticlines water table with the surface at the edge of the bassa. The rock above the line is porous, surface water in the intermittent streams of the mountains tends to disappear below ground only to spring out again in the spring zone. The spring zone is called the middle valley. Surface runoff water is not of value to the valleys dense population for drinking and other immediate uses, being unreliable, often destructive and heavily polluted by sewage. Its main anthropic value is for power, irrigation and industrial transport. The cost of purifying it for consumption makes that process less feasible. The fresh drinking water comes from hundreds of thousands of wells concentrated especially in the fontanili zone, the older and smaller cities deriving from ancient times are still located there. The Po Valley has a subtropical climate. The conformation of the plain, surrounded by the Alps and the Apennines, the climate of the Po Valley becomes increasingly warmer and more humid farther south and east
7.
Ravenna
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Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the city of the Western Roman Empire from 402 until that empire collapsed in 476. It then served as the capital of the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths until it was re-conquered in 540 by the Eastern Roman Empire. Afterwards, the city formed the centre of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna until the invasion of the Lombards in 751, although an inland city, Ravenna is connected to the Adriatic Sea by the Candiano Canal. It is known for its well-preserved late Roman and Byzantine architecture, the origin of the name Ravenna is unclear, although it is believed the name is Etruscan. Some have speculated that ravenna is related to Rasenna, the term that the Etruscans used for themselves, the origins of Ravenna are uncertain. Ravenna consisted of houses built on piles on a series of islands in a marshy lagoon – a situation similar to Venice several centuries later. The Romans ignored it during their conquest of the Po River Delta, in 49 BC, it was the location where Julius Caesar gathered his forces before crossing the Rubicon. Later, after his battle against Mark Antony in 31 BC and this harbor, protected at first by its own walls, was an important station of the Roman Imperial Fleet. Nowadays the city is landlocked, but Ravenna remained an important seaport on the Adriatic until the early Middle Ages, during the German campaigns, Thusnelda, widow of Arminius, and Marbod, King of the Marcomanni, were confined at Ravenna. Ravenna greatly prospered under Roman rule, Emperor Trajan built a 70 km long aqueduct at the beginning of the 2nd century. During the Marcomannic Wars, Germanic settlers in Ravenna revolted and managed to seize possession of the city, for this reason, Marcus Aurelius decided not only against bringing more barbarians into Italy, but even banished those who had previously been brought there. In AD402, Emperor Honorius transferred the capital of the Western Roman Empire from Milan to Ravenna, at that time it was home to 50,000 people. However, in 409, King Alaric I of the Visigoths simply bypassed Ravenna, after many vicissitudes, Galla Placidia returned to Ravenna with her son, Emperor Valentinian III and the support of her nephew Theodosius II. The late 5th century saw the dissolution of Roman authority in the west, Odoacer ruled as King of Italy for 13 years, but in 489 the Eastern Emperor Zeno sent the Ostrogoth King Theoderic the Great to re-take the Italian peninsula. After losing the Battle of Verona, Odoacer retreated to Ravenna, Theoderic took Ravenna in 493, supposedly slew Odoacer with his own hands, and Ravenna became the capital of the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy. Both Odoacer and Theoderic and their followers were Arian Christians, but co-existed peacefully with the Latins, Ravennas Orthodox bishops carried out notable building projects, of which the sole surviving one is the Capella Arcivescovile. Theoderic allowed Roman citizens within his kingdom to be subject to Roman law, the Goths, meanwhile, lived under their own laws and customs
8.
Pavia
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Pavia is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy,35 kilometres south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c, the city was the capital of the Kingdom of the Lombards from 572 to 774. Pavia is the capital of the province of Pavia, known for agricultural products including wine, rice, cereals. Although there are a number of industries located in the suburbs, Pavia is the episcopal seat of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Pavia. The city possesses many artistic and cultural treasures, including several important churches and museums, dating back to pre-Roman times, the town of Pavia, then known as Ticinum, was a municipality and an important military site under the Roman Empire. It was said by Pliny the Elder to have founded by the Laevi and Marici. It was at Pavia in 476 AD that the reign of Romulus Augustulus, ten months after Romulus Augustulus’s reign began, Orestes’s soldiers under the command of one of his officers named Odoacer, rebelled and killed Orestes in the city of Pavia in 476. Without his father Romulus Augustulus was powerless, instead of killing Romulus Augustulus, Odoacer pensioned him off at 6,000 solidi a year before declaring the end of the Western Roman Empire and himself king of the new Kingdom of Italy. Odoacer’s reign as king of Italy did not last long, because in 488 the Ostrogothic peoples led by their king Theoderic invaded Italy and waged war against Odoacer. After fighting for 5 years Theoderic defeated Odoacer and on March 15,493 assassinated Odoacer at a banquet meant to negotiate a peace between the two rulers, with the establishment of the Ostrogoth kingdom based in northern Italy, Theoderic began his vast program of public building. Pavia was among several cities that Theodoric chose to restore and expand and he began the construction of the vast palace complex that would eventually become the residence of Lombard monarchs several decades later. Near the end of Theoderic’s reign the Christian philosopher Boethius was imprisoned in one of Pavia’s churches from 522 to 525 before his execution for treason and it was during Boethius’s captivity in Pavia that he wrote his seminal work the Consolation of Philosophy. Pavia played an important role in the war between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths that began in 535, after the capitulation of the Ostrogothic leadership in 540 more than a thousand men remained garrisoned in Pavia and Verona dedicated to opposing Eastern Roman rule. The resilience of Ostrogoth strongholds like Pavia against invading forces allowed pockets of Ostrogothic rule to limp along until finally being defeated in 561, Pavia and the peninsula of Italy didn’t remain long under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire for in 568 a new people invaded Italy. This new invading people in 568 were the Lombards, in their invasion of Italy in 568, the Lombards were led by their king Alboin, who would become the first Lombard king of Italy. Alboin captured much of northern Italy in 568 but his progress was halted in 569 by the city of Pavia. Meanwhile Alboin, after driving out the soldiers, took possession of everything as far as Tuscany except Rome and Ravenna and some other fortified places which were situated on the shore of the sea. ”The Siege of Ticinum finally ended with the Lombards capturing the city of Pavia in 572. Pavia’s strategic location and the Ostrogoth palaces located within it would make Pavia by the 620s the main capital of the Lombards’ Kingdom of Pavia, under Lombard rule many monasteries, nunneries, and churches were built at Pavia by the devout Christian Lombard monarchs
9.
Gregorian chant
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Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song of the western Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, although popular legend credits Pope St. Gregory the Great with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from a later Carolingian synthesis of Roman chant and Gallican chant. Gregorian chants were organized initially into four, then eight, the scale patterns are organized against a background pattern formed of conjunct and disjunct tetrachords, producing a larger pitch system called the gamut. The chants can be sung by using six-note patterns called hexachords, Gregorian melodies are traditionally written using neumes, an early form of musical notation from which the modern four-line and five-line staff developed. Multi-voice elaborations of Gregorian chant, known as organum, were a stage in the development of Western polyphony. Gregorian chant was sung by choirs of men and boys in churches. It is the music of the Roman Rite, performed in the Mass, although Gregorian chant is no longer obligatory, the Roman Catholic Church still officially considers it the music most suitable for worship. During the 20th century, Gregorian chant underwent a musicological and popular resurgence, singing has been part of the Christian liturgy since the earliest days of the Church. Until the mid-1990s, it was accepted that the psalmody of ancient Jewish worship significantly influenced and contributed to early Christian ritual. However, early Christian rites did incorporate elements of Jewish worship that survived in later chant tradition, canonical hours have their roots in Jewish prayer hours. Amen and alleluia come from Hebrew, and the threefold sanctus derives from the threefold kadosh of the Kedushah, the New Testament mentions singing hymns during the Last Supper, When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives Matthew 26.30. The 3rd-century Greek Oxyrhynchus hymn survived with musical notation, but the connection between this hymn and the plainchant tradition is uncertain, musical elements that would later be used in the Roman Rite began to appear in the 3rd century. The Apostolic Tradition, attributed to the theologian Hippolytus, attests the singing of Hallel psalms with Alleluia as the refrain in early Christian agape feasts, around 375, antiphonal psalmody became popular in the Christian East, in 386, St. Ambrose introduced this practice to the West. In the fifth century, a school, the Schola Cantorum, was founded at Rome to provide training in church musicianship. Scholars are still debating how plainchant developed during the 5th through the 9th centuries, around 410, St. Augustine described the responsorial singing of a Gradual psalm at Mass. 520, Benedict of Nursia established what is called the rule of St. Benedict, around 678, Roman chant was taught at York. Distinctive regional traditions of Western plainchant arose during this period, notably in the British Isles, Spain, Gaul and these traditions may have evolved from a hypothetical year-round repertory of 5th-century plainchant after the western Roman Empire collapsed. John the Deacon, biographer of Pope Gregory I, modestly claimed that the saint compiled a patchwork antiphonary, unsurprisingly and he reorganized the Schola Cantorum and established a more uniform standard in church services, gathering chants from among the regional traditions as widely as he could manage
10.
Monte Cassino
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Monte Cassino is a rocky hill about 130 kilometres southeast of Rome, Italy,2 kilometres to the west of the town of Cassino and 520 m altitude. Site of the Roman town of Casinum, it is best known for its historic abbey, St. Benedict of Nursia established his first monastery, the source of the Benedictine Order, here around 529. The hilltop sanctuary was the site of the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944, the site has been visited many times by Popes and other senior clergy, including Pope Benedict XVI in May 2009. Since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council the monastery is one of the few remaining territorial abbeys within the Catholic Church, on 23 October 2014, Pope Francis applied the norms of the motu proprio Ecclesia Catholica to the Abbey. This act removed from its jurisdiction all 53 parishes and reduced its territory to the Abbey itself - while retaining its status as a Territorial Abbey. The former territory of the Abbey, except the land on which the Abbey Church and monastery sit, was transferred to the local diocese of Sora-Cassino-Aquino-Pontecorvo. The history of Monte Cassino is linked to the town of Cassino which was first settled in the fifth century B. C. by the Volsci people who held much of central. It was the Volsci who first built a citadel on the summit of Monte Cassino, the Volsci in the area were defeated by the Romans in 312 B. C. The Romans renamed the settlement Casinum and build a temple to Apollo at the citadel, modern excavations have found no remains of the temple, but ruins of an amphitheatre, a theatre, and a mausoleum indicate the lasting presence the Romans had there. Generations after the Roman Empire adopted Christianity the town became the seat of a bishopric in the fifth century A. D, lacking strong defences the area was subject to barbarian attack and became abandoned and neglected with only a few struggling inhabitants holding out. According to Gregory the Greats biography of Benedict, Life of Saint Benedict of Nursia, the monastery was constructed on a pagan site. The biography records that the area was still pagan at the time and Benedicts first act was to smash the sculpture of Apollo. He then reused the temple, dedicating it to Saint Martin, archaeologist Neil Christie notes that it was common in such hagiographies for the protagonist to encounter areas of strong paganism. Once established at Monte Cassino, Benedict never left and he wrote the Benedictine Rule that became the founding principle for Western monasticism, received a visit from Totila, king of the Ostrogoths, and died there. The Rule of St. Benedict mandated the moral obligations to care for the sick, so in Monte Cassino St. Benedict founded a hospital that is considered today to have been the first hospital in Europe of the new era. There Benedictine monks took care of the sick and wounded according to the Benedict’s Rule, the monastic routine called for hard work. The care of the sick was such an important duty that those caring for them were enjoined to act as if they served Christ directly, Benedict founded twelve communities for monks at nearby Subiaco, where hospitals were settled too as adjuncts to the monasteries in order to provide charity. Soon many monasteries were founded throughout Europe, and everywhere there were hospitals like in Monte Cassino, Monte Cassino became a model for future developments
11.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
12.
Friuli
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Friuli is an area of Northeast Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity. It comprises the part of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, i. e. the administrative provinces of Udine, Pordenone. The multiethnic and subsequent multilingual tradition of Friuli means that the name of the region according to locality. Besides Friuli from Italian, other local Romance forms include Friulian Friûl and Venetian Friul, Friaul in German and Furlanija in Slovene, the name Friuli originates from the ancient Roman town of Forum Iulii. The adjacent Slovene parts of the Soča/Isonzo valley from Gorizia/Nova Gorica up to Mt. Triglav, the mountainous northern part of the region belongs to the Southern Limestone Alps. Rivers flowing southwards from the mountains are numerous and this plain is commonly divided into the High Friulian plain and the Low Friulian plain, whose boundary is the Napoleonic road that connects the cities of Codroipo and Palmanova. To the south of road is the risorgive zone, where water resurfaces from underground waterways in spring-fed pools throughout the area. South of the plains lie the lagoons of Marano and Grado, other important rivers include the Torre, Natisone, Stella, Isonzo/Soča, and Ausa. Friuli covers an area of 8,240 square kilometres, subdivided among the provinces of Udine 4,905 square kilometres, Pordenone 2,178 square kilometres and Gorizia 466 square kilometres. The historical capital and most important city of is Udine, it was also the capital of the medieval Patria del Friuli. Other important towns are Pordenone, Gorizia/Nova Gorica, Sacile, Codroipo, Cervignano del Friuli, Cividale del Friuli, Gemona del Friuli, Monfalcone, the climate of the Friulian plain is humid sub-Mediterranean. The climate in this area is suitable for growing wine grapes. The hills, however, have a climate, and the mountainous regions have an alpine climate. On the coast the annual temperature is 14 °C, while in the inner plains. Further north, in Tolmezzo, the temperature is approximately 10.6 °C. The lowest values are recorded in the Alps,4 °C at Passo di Monte Croce Carnico, Gorizia, a short distance from Udine, enjoys a particularly milder micro-climate with its approximate annual average of 4 °C. In the warmest month, July, the range between 22.5 °C -24 °C along the coast and plains and the 14 °C -16 °C in Val Canale. Precipitation in Friuli is relatively abundant, the distribution of rainfall varies a great deal during the course of the year
