L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 8 THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2026 L'Italo-Americano I n 2026, the Abbey of N o v a l e s a , i n t h e Susa Valley west of Turin, marks thirteen c e n t u r i e s s i n c e i t s foundation. Of course, dates of this scale are a source of admiration on their own, but this anniversary is important f o r m o r e t h a n m e r e a g e , because it allows us to think – and for some of us, discover more – about what abbeys once represented in Italy, and in the entirety of Europe: not only places of prayer, but institutions that preserved books, organized archives, copied texts, educated rea- ders, and protected memory and culture through centuries of political change. Founded in 726, Novalesa rose in an Alpine corridor near the route of Mont Cenis, o n e o f t h e g r e a t p a s s a g e s linking the Italian peninsula with transalpine Europe, a setting that, on its own, is e n o u g h t o s h e d p l e n t y o f doubt on the modern stereo- type of monasteries as remote and withdrawn. In fact, many abbeys were built in strategic places – like along roads, near rivers, on agricultural land, or close to passes – to serve and influence their sur- roundings. And then, early medieval monasteries were also far more complex struc- tures than we may think, as they combined several roles at once: they were a religious community, certainly, but also landowners, employers, hostelries, places of refuge, centers of administration, and central nodes in wider networks of exchange. This role was especially important in regions where political power could be unstable or fragmented, and abbeys fre- quently represented the only form of continuity. Clearly, this continuity was enormously important for the preservation of culture; we only need to think about how much of the medieval world reached our times through the records and writings of these communities. Charters, legal agreements, invento- ries, correspondence, chroni- cles, liturgical books, theo- logical works, classical texts copied and recopied: these formed part of the documen- tary fabric through which E u r o p e , t o p u t i t s i m p l y , "remembered itself ," and Italy's abbeys – while not the only ones – were very much involved in that work. Novalesa is an unusually concrete example of this, because we still have its act of foundation, which is pre- s e r v e d i n t h e S t a t e Archives of Turin, where it is considered one of the earli- est parchment documents of the collection; but the abbey is also associated with the Chronicon Novaliciense, an important eleventh-centu- ry narrative linked to the m o n a s t e r y a n d a p e r f e c t example of how monasteries preserved local history and culture. Far from being mere l i s t s o f e v e n t s , m e d i e v a l chronicles were often acts of memory and identity through w h i c h c o m m u n i t i e s e x p l a i n e d t h e i r o r i g i n s , r e c o r d e d c r i s e s , h o n o r e d benefactors, and situated themselves in their wider socio-cultural and, indeed, political contexts. Because when a monastery wrote its p a s t , i t w a s a l s o h e l p i n g s h a p e t h e h i s t o r i c a l c o n - s c i o u s n e s s o f t h e s o c i e t y around it. This broader role can be e a s y t o o v e r l o o k b e c a u s e m o d e r n v i s i t o r s o f t e n encounter abbeys as architec- tural or artistic sites only, dominated by cloisters and silence. Beautiful things, cer- t a i n l y , b u t i n c o m p l e t e i f taken alone because the most v a l u a b l e e l e m e n t s w e r e sometimes those no longer visible in obvious form: the l i b r a r y , t h e a r c h i v e , t h e s c r i p t o r i u m , t h e s p a c e s where texts were copied and stored. This is why we should say that some of the greatest treasures abbeys had were not their physical posses- sions and buildings, but the habits of preservation they nurtured. H o w e v e r , t o s a y t h a t abbeys preserved knowledge does not mean they merely a c t e d a s n e u t r a l v a u l t s , because the selection, inter- pretation, and transmission of knowledge – regardless of its form – was carried out according to their priorities. In other words, what sur- vived did so through choices made by communities with beliefs, loyalties, and limita- tions and, as historians never tire to explain, we cannot read such documents without keeping in mind the influen- ce the context in which they were produced had on their content. B e y o n d c u l t u r e a n d h i s t o r y , t h e r e w a s a l s o a p r a c t i c a l i n t e l l i g e n c e t o m o n a s t i c c u l t u r e t h a t deserves to be remembered. Abbeys managed water, land, and agriculture with varying degrees of sophistication; often, they introduced tech- niques and organized labor, helping create stable eco- nomic environments in diffi- cult times. So, the same place that took care of intellectual p r e s e r v a t i o n w a s a l s o i n charge of material manage- ment: the same institution that copied manuscripts, very o f t e n , a l s o o v e r s a w v i n e - yards, mills, or grain stores. T h i s i s , p e r h a p s , w h y abbeys became such durable presences in the Italian land- s c a p e , b e c a u s e t h e y w e r e spiritual houses, but also f u n c t i o n i n g c o m m u n i t i e s with economic and cultural weight. Some accumulated wealth and power; others declined or were reformed; many changed dramatically over the centuries; yet taken together, they formed part of the very infrastructure of our civilization. When read through this lens, Novalesa's thirteenth- h u n d r e d t h a n n i v e r s a r y invites a wider reflection on how heritage is often imag- ined. Italy's cultural inheri- tance is frequently associated with courts, artists, and cities like Florence, Venice, Rome, or Milan. All of that is, of course, justified. But another portion of that inheritance was protected and dissemi- nated in valleys and along mountain routes, in places of silence and quietness, and in simple connection with natu- re and spirituality. Even the location of Novalesa feels s y m b o l i c i n t h i s r e s p e c t , because it is close to one of the main gateways through the Alps, in an area of pas- sage, not isolation. For cen- turies, people passed by, in an eternal flowing of minds, cultures, political beliefs, alliances, and, indeed, con- flicts; yet the Abbey remai- ned there silent and peaceful, a steady and solid symbol of the continuity of time and culture. Modern Italy no longer depends on abbeys to pre- serve literacy or maintain archives; we have universi- ties, libraries, and museums doing that job now, yet many of these later institutions inherited practices (think of cataloguing, copying, storing, and so on) that were born and developed within mona- stic communities. This is why anniversaries such as Novale- sa's can still be important, beyond religion or regional history. They remind us that civilization is not sustained o n l y b y m o m e n t s o f b r i l - liance, but also depends on patient institutions willing to k e e p r e c o r d s a n d c a r r y knowledge forward when cir- cumstances are uncertain. I t a l y ' s a b b e y s d i d t h a t work for centuries. Novalesa, with its 1300 years, simply allows us to see it more clear- ly. CHIARA D'ALESSIO Novalesa at 1300: why Italy's abbeys were the true custodians of culture The Abbey of San Galgano, one of the places where monasteries for centuries preserved manuscripts, knowledge, and Europe's cultural memory through the upheavals of their age (Photo: Elisa Bistocchi/Dreamstime) Montecassino Abbey, founded in the sixth century by Saint Benedict (Photo: Milacroft/Dreamstime) HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS

• Cover