45 minutes
Subiaco is about a 45-minute drive from Orvinio. Follow the Via Licinese towards Percile, then pass Licenza and arrive in Vicovaro on the Via Tiberina, where you have to turn left (opposite you can see the florist and butcher's shop, here you turn left). After one kilometer on the right you will find signs for Subiaco.
Monastery of San Benedetto
The Sanctuary of the Sacro Speco of Subiaco on Monte Taleo houses one of the most sacred places of Benedictine spirituality: the cave where the very young San Benedetto da Norcia lived as a hermit, following the example of the anchorite fathers, at the beginning of the sixth century.
The Grotta di San Benedetto became a place of worship as early as the 6th century, but the current structure was created only in the second half of the 11th century, which is characterized by the balance between nature, architecture and rock.
Today the Monastery is made up of two superimposed churches and many small chapels.
It is recommended to observe the first ancient existing portrait of St. Francis of Assisi, a pilgrim who reached Subiaco in 1223 following Cardinal Ugolino, the future Pope Gregory IX. The old refectory instead houses an extraordinary fourteenth-century fresco of the Last Supper, recently restored.
For more information: https://monasterosanbenedettosubiaco.it/monastero/
It is advisable to go on weekdays because on Sundays some parts of the monastery are closed for religious services.
Monastery of Santa Scolastica
The monastery is located at an altitude of 510 meters and for centuries it housed hermits and monks who dedicated themselves to contemplation and prayer. This is why the area is named "holy valley".
The monastery consists of a complex of buildings built in different periods and with different styles. At the entrance you can read the inscription "Ora et Labora" which leads to the first Renaissance cloister from the 16th century. From here you arrive in a second cloister, the "Gothic Cloister" of the fourteenth century and, finally, to the third, named "Cosmatesque Cloister", of the thirteenth century.
The bell tower is from the 12th century and the current church is from the end of the 1700s.
The monastery had its period of greatest splendor between the 11th and 13th centuries. In 1465 the two German clerics A. Pannartz and C. Sweynheym set up the first Italian printing press, which enriched the Library.
For more information: https://benedettini-subiaco.org/index.php/monastero-santa-scolastica
