Il Lago di Castel San Vincenzo e l'antica Terra ... - Regione Molise

The second phase or that of San Vincenzo Maggiore
(9th-12th centuries AD)
Towards the end of the eighth century San Vincenzo appeared on the scene among the
Benedictine abbeys sustained by Charlemagne in Europe. The European tendency towards
analogous Carolingian abbeys on the southern border of the Frankish empire came
to a close and the abbey received privileges from the emperor in 787 AD, becoming a sort
of outpost for the Frankish empire on the Mediterranean Sea, an irradiation point for the
Carolingian renovatio towards the Byzantines and Lombards in the South. Functioning
as a symbol of religious and imperial power created the problem of the new monastery,
which was built next to the first, with avantgarde architecture and decoration: a large
church, measuring 68 meters by 28, with three naves divided by columns (16 for each
part) that came from an ancient temple in Campania, pavements made from sheets of
white marble that contained different types of geometric designs, a crypt similar to that of
St. Peter's in Rome and frescoed walls. QUEQUE VIDES, OSPES, PENDENCIA
CELSA, VEL IMA, VIR DOMINI IOSUE STRUXIT CUM FRATRIBUS UNA is written
on the façade. (Everything you see, foreigner, which rises up from low to high,
was built by a man of God, Giosuè, together with his brothers). The frescoes decorated
the entire monastery, although there is little remaining evidence which includes the
Crypt of Epifanio in which the pictorial cycle that covers both the walls and the vault is
dominated by scenes of the Virgin, from the Annunciation to the Maternity, to the figure
of the Queen depicted on the vault next to her son, Jesus Christ. A fundamental chapter,
that of San Vincenzo's painting, inevitable in Europe's art history in the early Middle
Ages. The old monastery was transformed in a reception centre for the upper classes and
connected to the new monastery with porticoes. Today the complete and original pavements
are still visible in the refectory, where hundreds of monks had their meals, based on
vegetables, fish and fruit, grains (emmer, durum wheat and orzo), white meat, legumes
(lentils, beans and tick-beans: broad bean soup with pig lard was often eaten in winter).
The workshops were located next to the monastery: and other precious objects made with
French cloisonné enamel, the first example in the Mezzogiorno after those of the Sancta
Sanctorum in Rome and Sant’Ambrogio in Milan. A real monastic city, that of San Vincenzo
al Volturno, with a landed property that exceeded 450 square kilometres and covered
various regions, from Campania to Puglia, Abruzzo and Lazio. The monastery underwent
its first moment of peril when, in 860 AD, the Saracens arrived, then appeased with
3,000 gold coins. The raid reoccurred in 881 AD and included
Sotto: Cripta anulare di
S. Vincenzo Maggiore.
(da R. Hogdes)
San Vincenzo al Volturno - 35
looting, the death of hundreds of monks; those who managed to
escape then fled to Capua. The Arab’s second attack was
sustained by the duke and bishop of Naples, Atanasio II, warned
twice by the Pope to stop all contractual relations with the
infidels.