HISTORY
Built within the Samoggia valley, the Abbey of Monteveglio, dedicated to the Madonna, was erected to celebrate the victory of Matilda of Canossa over Henry IV. The emperor was defeated in the siege of Matilda’s castle at Monteveglio in 1092. As an act of thanks, the Countess had the Abbey built there, added to the preexisting church. The monastery was affiliated with the Augustinian Order of San Frediano of Lucca, but in 1455, it passed to the Lateran Canons of San Giovanni in Monte of Bologna. The church was particularly remembered for having taken in Ugo Foscolo, traveling in disguise. He was imprisoned for suspicion of being an Austrian spy.
ART-HISTORICAL NOTES
The Abbey’s present appearance is the result of the restoration led by the architect Rivani between 1925 and 1934. The restoration aimed to bring the convent back to its original state, eliminating later interventions considered inauthentic to the medieval building.
Founded in the fifth century, the church still preserves its appearance from the Romanesque period, including its twelfth-century façade, which faces west. It is a three-aisled plan, with a raised presbytery over the older crypt. It is divided into four bays by pilasters and columns, terminating in three altars, corresponding to three apses. In the central apse is an authentic sepulchral stone from the Roman period, decorated by concentric cornices.
From the nave, a Baroque staircase leads up to the presbytery, illuminated by monocuspid windows, faced in alabaster. In the center of the three apses is an altar in red marble of Verona, supported by five columns. A splendid walnut choir dates from the Renaissance.
Inside the complex are two cloisters, the larger from the fifteenth century, with an elevated loggia that led into the canons’ cells. The lower portico contains plaques that recount the history of the monastery. The older cloister, located to the rear, was mostly destroyed, with only a single side remaining with twelfth-century anthropomorphic capitals.
The complex of Santo Stefano is composed of an ensemble of chapels, churches and associated monastery, known together as the “Sette Chiese” (seven churches). According to a legend, Santo Stefano was founded by San Petronio, the Bishop of Bologna between 431/432 and 450, who is buried there. The story reports that following a pilgrimage in the Holy Land, he founded a group of buildings destined to reproduce the sites of Christ’s Passion. Despite the legend, the first written record of the complex is not until the 9th century, in a diploma of Charles the Fat.
The various components of the complex date to different epochs. The church dedicated to the Holy Sepulcher was possibly a Roman temple dedicated to Isis, later transformed into a church with an edicola inside containing the relics of San Petronio. Where today the church of the Trinity is found, at the end of the 4th century was the area of a walled Christian cemetery. The church of San Giovanni Battista (today called the Crocifisso (crucifix), is instead probably of Lombard foundation, as the so-called basin of Pilate would attest, which contains an inscription referencing Kings Liutprand and Hildebrand, who reigned together from 736 to 744.
The beginning of the 11th century was a moment of great splendor for the complex, when the Abbot Martino built a crypt in the church of San Giovanni Battista, and on March 3, 1019 he translated the bodies of Saints Vitale and Agricola. At that date, the monastery probably already contained the structures that exist today: the curch of San Giovanni, the church dedicated today to Saints Vitale and Agricola, and the church of the Trinity.
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