Rehna Abbey is a former Benedictine (the 13th century) and Premonstratensian nunnery (until 1552). It was founded between 1230 and 1236. In 1254 the monastery was inaugurated and this year also began the construction of the cloister between church and convent. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the monastery was one of the most important monasteries Mecklenburg. Numerous Lübeck families had their daughters educated there and funded the monastery with donations.
During the Reformation the monastery was dissolved in 1552. From 1576 to the early 18th century it belonged to Duke widows and princesses Anna Sophia of Prussia (until 1591), Sophia of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (to 1634), Anna Sophie (until 1648) and Juliane Sibylla (to 1761). At the beginning of the 18th century, the remaining buildings were used as offices until 1819. After the Second World War, the abbey was used as a school until 1995.
The late Romanesque brick church have survived from the original monastery, however it was radically altered in the mid-15th century.
References:The Villa d'Este is a 16th-century villa in Tivoli, near Rome, famous for its terraced hillside Italian Renaissance garden and especially for its profusion of fountains: the extraordinary system contains fifty-one fountains and nymphaeums, 398 spouts, 364 water jets, 64 waterfalls, and 220 basins, fed by 875 meters of canals, channels and cascades, and all working entirely by the force of gravity, without pumps. It is now an Italian state museum, and is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
Tivoli had been a popular summer residence since ancient Roman times due to its altitude, cooler temperatures and its proximity to the Villa Hadriana, the summer residence of the Emperor Hadrian I.
The Villa was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este (1509-1572), second son of Alfonso I d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara and grandson of Pope Alexander VI, along with Lucrezia Borgia.