San Michele Abbey, Montescaglioso, Italy

The Benedictine Territorial Abbey of San Michele Arcangelo has been existed at least from 1078 and was probably built in the 5th century. The benedictine Abbey Church (12th century), dedicated to St. Michael, has a notable portal and a Norman-style bell tower with mullioned windows. The Norman lord Humphrey of Hauteville and his son Rudolph made large donations to the abbey. In 1484, after joining the Benedictine Congregation of St. Giustina from Padua, the abbey was enlarged and restored in Renaissance forms.

Afterwards it decayed due to numerous wars ravaging the country in those years. Renewed starting from 1590, it received a cylindrical cupola in 1650. The monks abandoned the abbey in 1784.

User Reviews

mladen djordjiev (6 years ago)
Wonderful place to visit, the place has a long history and artifacts to prove it. The central garden is breathtaking, the upper floor have frescoes unlike any from other monasteries, and the tombs in the basement are very interesting.

Senan O Kiersey (6 years ago)
Parking outside

Graham Fielder (6 years ago)
Typically italian

Franca Fortunato (6 years ago)
Unforgettable ❤

Marica Jakobsson (7 years ago)
It's amazing how such beautiful monastery was so worshipped, that it was not seen as just a place for worship, but also a home & workplace.

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Photo from Flickr, copyright Christian Lauw

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Wieskirche

The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.

The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.

The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.

San Michele Abbey

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