It includes the tour of the the Monastery of St. Scholastica and the tour of the famous Monastry of St. Benedictus, the well-known founder of the Benedectine Order.
The tour of Subiaco will begin with a visit to the Monastery of St. Scholastica, which was founded in 520 A.D. and was originally known as Monastery of St. Sylvester. This is one of the oldest Benedectine monastery in Italy and in the world, and one of the thirteen monasteries founded by St. Benedict in the Subiaco area.
With the beginning of the activity of the Sacro Speco, in the twelfth century, to avoid confusion, the two monasteries were dedicated, one to St. Benedict and the other to his sister St. Scholastica.
The Subiaco Tour will continue with the Monastery of St. Benedict, which has been developed around the Sacro Speco (or Holy Cave), where the young St. Benedict, in the early 6th century, spent three years of his life as a hermit.
The monastery, as seen during the visits today, was built in the second half of the 13th century by the abbots Enrico and Bartolomeo. The starting point of the itinerary of the visit, is by a staircase, the current access, leading onto the loggia. On the door is a Gothic cross mosaic of the 13th century; at the end, you reach a door with 15th-century frescoes of the Umbrian school that leads to the old Chapter House, full of paintings of the school of Perugino, from the first half of the 16th century. The lower church leads to the Shrine. In the background you can admire the statue of St. Benedict in the cave, carved in 1637 by Antonio Raggi. Going outside, leads one to what, until 1870, was the small cemetery of the monks of the Speco. Adjacent to it is the Rose Garden of St. Benedict, the bush among the thorns of which St. Benedict threw himself to overcome temptation, and where later St. Francis, during his visit to the Sacro Speco in 1224, grafted roses. The episode, of which San Francis is the protagonist, is depicted on a wall by a fresco of the 17th century by Manenti.
