Abbazia di San Benedetto in Valledacqua

The Abbey of San Benedetto in Valledacqua located in the territory of Acquasanta Terme, along the Via Salaria, in the valley upstream of the Castle of Luco, on a site inhabited as early as the Piceno. The name Valledacqua has ancient origins and is linked to that of Aqui and Aquas, reported in the Tabula Peutingeriana. At the core of the ancient church dedicated to St. Benedict, discovered in the foundations of the chancel, small, with a semicircular apse to the east, at the behest of Adam, Abbot of Farfa and later bishop of Ascoli, was added a monastery around the ‘ Thousand year. The many donations to the monks of Farfa increased the prestige and evidence of the activity of the settlement monastic religious, economic and social, promoted by the religious community. Abbey saw several expansions with the transformation of the church in its present form. The new nave and the apse wall were correctly oriented and painted with numerous figures of saints; The facade, with a single portal surmounted by a small lancet window similar to that of the apse was built with small blocks of travertine well squared. Damiano, the Plebano de Aquis, is remembered in the payment of tithes the years 1290-1292 and for the body responsible for collecting the tithes of 1299. The Land Registry Ascoli 1381, under Sindacatus Vallis daqui lists the innumerable properties of the abbey with the formula rem St. Benedict. A dispute over the usufruct of goods between the head of the monastery of St. Benedict with the previous one, became bishop, was resolved in favor of the first bull of Pope Boniface IX of 1395. Between 1476 and 1499 the monks of Farfa Valledacqua They decided to raise funds and make frescoes in honor of the Virgin, which is a valuable Madonna with Child, on the wall of the presbytery. In the pastoral visit of Bishop Camaiani 1571 no longer mentions the monks and the abbey is described as a parish church; in the next Mgr. Aragon, in 1580, the church, placed under the ius patronatus family Sgariglia and other patrons, he appeared with all the facilities in a state of severe disrepair enough to threaten the collapse of the numerous cracks in the walls operable. It was thought to transfer the parish in the nearby church of St. Iusta and felt duos Fabros murarios, the Magister Laurentius Scorzi lombardus and Magister Iacobus lombardus, it was decided to break down the parts of the building unsafe and reduce its size. Work started in 1605, affected the demolition of most of the monastery and the bell tower, originally with four bells. The presbytery was arranged with the construction of a barrel vault above the altar, set on the side walls of the chancel and apse leaning against the wall exists. They were raised the walls of the church: three new windows replaced the small single and a small bell tower with a single bell was raised crowning the facade. The ancient abbey was reduced to the current two bodies of the monastery set against the sides of the nave of the church. Further changes were made in 1738, as evidenced by the date carved on the lintel of a window on the first floor of the west side, and after a pastoral visit in 1740 Msgr. Marana who established to repair the roof and make a new floor and a ceiling. Part of the monastery was burned and looted by Piedmontese troops in 1860, rebuilt by the parish priest in the following years, the architectural structure took its present shape. Subsequently, the abbey was the subject of maintenance which kept it in good condition until the static conditions worsened due to the earthquake of 1972. Following the landslides and collapses due to mum of 1997, a clever intervention of synergistic State bodies with the Institute Diocesan Clergy Sustenance of Ascoli Piceno has had a rapid recovery of the abbey in 2002 and allowed the return of a prestigious monastic community, camaldolese, between its ancient walls.