Abazia Diformosa

About

Records of this abbey reach as far back as the ninth century, appearing in a document of Pope John VIII from 874. In 981 it comes under the authority of the San Salvatore monastery in Pavia, and in 999 passes into the jurisdiction of the archbishopric of Ravenna. Major expansion follows in the eleventh century, and the abbey is formally consecrated on 7 May 1026; in 1063 the architect Deusdedit raises its bell tower to a height of 48.5 meters. The music theorist Guido d'Arezzo is said to have worked at the abbey, laying the groundwork for what would become modern musical notation. From the mid-fourteenth century onward, painters of the Bolognese school cover its walls with frescoes depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments and the Book of Revelation, and in 1351 Vitale da Bologna paints the Majesty of Christ in the apse. The once-thriving abbey is ultimately suppressed by Pope Innocent X in 1653. The Guiccioli family of Ravenna purchases it in 1802, and ownership passes to the Italian state at the end of the nineteenth century, bringing it to its present form.