The 'Fossanova Abbey, built at the dawn of the' Order of the Benedictines,expanded during the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the past to the Cistercian monks, who developed the reclamation of the nearby swampy allowing the spiritual rebirth, social and economic.
The church was built in the second half of 1100 with the help of FrederickBarbarossa "Fridericus Emperor Augustus always hoc opus fecit proud."
In the abbey, where he met his death St. Thomas Aquinas, a Studium Artiumdeveloped for the training of monks, many of whom brought with the secrets of the influence of Fossanova sites in the surrounding area.
Official Site: http://www.abbaziadifossanova.it/
Even before the settlement of the Cistercian monks, the place was inhabited byBenedictine monks who had built a monastery with the title St. Stephen the First Martyr, where he also lived Gregory IV dell'827 first year of his election to thepapacy. Later, probably around the year one thousand, the monastery was therestructuring and expansion, of which still remain well preserved, the three sides of the Romanesque cloister.
