![]() ![]() Monte Cassino was a crucial part of the Gustav Line, a string of fortified German defenses that bisected Italy. And with each reconstruction the abbey took on more of the characteristics of a citadel.įrom November, 1943, to May, 1944, the hill on which the abbey stood was at the center of one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the Second World War. ![]() Each time, it was rebuilt grander than before. The abbey has been sacked many times: by the Longobards in 581, the Saracens in 884, and by Napoleon nearly a millennium later. ![]() While the monastery’s perch on top of fifteen hundred feet of rock provided security, its location, near the main road between Naples and Rome, made the structure an attractive strategic asset. According to “Monte Cassino,” a history by Matthew Parker, by the start of the Second World War the monastery’s collection had grown to forty thousand manuscripts, including the majority of the writings of Tacitus, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, and Ovid. Generations of scribes labored in the abbey’s library to copy texts and preserve artifacts that dated to antiquity. From Monte Cassino, monks went out and set up monasteries across the Christian world. It was there that the Benedictine order established the principles of Western monasticism. The abbey at Monte Cassino is situated atop a rocky hill about eighty miles south of Rome and was founded in 529 by St. The legacy of “A Canticle for Leibowitz” can be seen in the current flood of end-of-the-world novels, TV shows, and movies. ![]()
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