History

Benedict of Nursia arrived at Monte Cassino around 529 after years as a hermit in the cave at Subiaco (see also Sacro Speco di Subiaco). He destroyed the existing temple of Apollo on the hilltop, baptized the local population, and began building a monastery. Within 15 years he had written the Rule — a document of extraordinary practical wisdom that prescribed not an impossible asceticism but a measured, sustainable life of communal prayer, manual work, and study. The Rule spread through Europe via the Lombard invasions (which paradoxically carried Benedictine monks as refugees to England, France, and Germany), and by the 8th century it had become the standard for monastic life from Ireland to Poland.

The first destruction came in 580, just 33 years after Benedict's death, when the Lombards sacked the abbey. The monks fled to Rome, taking the manuscript of the Rule and Benedict's own texts. Rebuilding began in the 8th century under Abbot Petronax, and the abbey rose to its medieval peak under Desiderius (abbot 1058–1087, later Pope Victor III), when it employed Byzantine craftsmen to create mosaics and became a centre of manuscript production and Benedictine reform. The Saracen raid of 884 caused the second destruction; the earthquake of 1349 the third. Each time the abbey was rebuilt, retaining and sometimes exceeding its earlier grandeur. The 17th-century building that was destroyed in 1944 had been one of the finest Baroque complexes in southern Italy.

The Battle of Monte Cassino (January–May 1944) was among the bloodiest of the Italian campaign: the German defensive line (the Gustav Line) used the mountain as an anchor, and four Allied offensives were needed to break through. The abbey itself was bombed on 15 February 1944 under the mistaken belief it was being used as a German observation post (subsequent inquiry found it had not been). The ruins were used by German paratroopers after the bombing. Reconstruction began in 1944 and was completed in 1964.