Wednesday 18 October 2017
History
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- Created on Thursday, 22 April 2010 08:47
- Written by Amministratore
From the wooded slopes of Mount Canto in the area known from time immemorial as La Fontanella (the Little Fountain), the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Egidio rises in solemn majesty above the treetops of its green forest glade. The Abbey was founded on January 13th, 1080. On this day in the convent of Saint Mar k, in the city of Lodi, as is testified in a parchment document in the archives of the Abbey of Cluny in France, the young Bergamo nobleman of longobard descent, Albert of Prezzate, made an official donation to the Cluny monks, of a section of land of his property. On this land Albert had already commissioned, at his own expense, the construction of a monastery dedicated to Saint Egidio, and on the day of the donation, construction was already well under way. Albert was already known for having founded the Monastery of Pontida. He had gone to Borgogna to visit Saint Hugo, the sixth abbot of the Cluny Monastery. There he was greatly impressed with the vigorous spirituality which emanated from this famous French religious center. The Cluny doctrines and activities were perfectly in harmony with the atmosphere of moral reawakening and reform that characterized the times of Pope Niccolò II. This Pontiff, infact, had taken steps to check the rising tendency of the political state to interfere in ecclesiastical matters. Not long after the donation Albert entered the Benedictine order and became the abbot of the Pontida Monastery; Here he continued his good works and here he died on September 2nd 1095, revered and honoured for his saintly life.
BIBL. U. ZANETTI, Il monastero di Sant’Egidio a Fontanella di Sotto il Monte, Ed. Bergamo, Bergamo 1993, pp. 124-136.