LE STRADE DEI PARCHI - Naturainviaggio.It

Tratto VICOVARO - JENNE
Jenne Subiaco
From Jenne to Subiaco
One gets to Jenne from the upper side, entering the most modern area of the village
where also the Park offices and, further down, the Visitors Centre are.
The old town centre is beyond the square, made of narrow alleys and stone portal
houses, placed on a rocky terrace above the Aniene valley, with the fortress at
its edge. Not to be missed, in local restaurants, a home made pasta of wheat flour
mixed to bran known as “ndremmappi”.
The road to Subiaco is narrow and very panoramic, completely dug into the rock at
the end of the XIX century. On the other side of the valley there’s the small chain of
the Affilani Mountains that is a sort of miniature “twin” of the imposing one of
the Simbruini Mountains: similar rocks and same kind of woods covering its slopes.
After about eight kilometres of hairpin bends, tunnels and landscape views, a road
on the right goes up to the Monastery of S. Benedict. The building is set against a
rocky wall falling sheer, almost challenging
gravity force, built around the cave in
which, in the 500 a.C., the young Benedict
from Norcia retired for three years in
loneliness and total meditation.
The complex is made of two overlapping
churches, frescoed by the most important
Italian pictorial schools of the period between
the XIII and XVI century, with
several chapels connected, corridors,
vaults, stairs and strips of outcropping bare rock. For centuries this silent spiritual
place has been visited by popes, artists, men of letters and millions of pilgrims.
Back again on the road towards Subiaco, after a few hundred metres one gets to the
Monastery of S. Scolastica, an authentic Benedictine citadel.
Originally born as the most important among thirteen monasteries founded by S.
Benedict in the Aniene valley, the only one survived until nowadays, the monastic
complex is formed by the joining of various heterogeneous units. Its main elements
are the Romanesque bell tower of the XI century, one of the most ancient in Central
Italy, and three cloisters: the gothic
(XIV century) and the “cosmatesco”
(XIII century) ones represent
real architectural gems.
It’s here that in 1465 the first books
printed in Italy saw the light. Many
rooms are filled with a valuable library
of more than 100.000 volumes
and hundreds of parchments, manuscripts,
and very antique rare books.
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