Palaces & Monuments
Biblioteca Monastica di Monte Oliveto Maggiore
ASCIANO
.jpeg)
The Library room, commissioned by Abbot Francesco Ringhieri in 1515, was designed by his brother fra Giovanni da Verona, who also sculpted the capitals in pietra serena, carved the entrance door, the cupboard for the choirs today on the wall of background and the large wooden candelabra from 1502, placed in the middle of the room for lighting.
The structure of the restaurant consists of a long room with three naves: the main one with a barrel vault and the two lateral ones with a cross vault.
The colonnade that divides the naves remains standing, although in the room below: the Refectory does not have corresponding support structures.
This is because the columns were built inclined, so as to be able to unload the weight of the vaults onto the load-bearing perimeter walls.
The monastic library contains 40,000 pamphlets, volumes and incunabula, which are not those of the original endowment which was lost after the Napoleonic suppression of the Olivetan Order in 1809, but come from the suppressed Olivetan monastery of Santa Maria di Monte Morcino Nuovo, near Perugia.
At the time of the suppression, the Bishop of Pienza: Monsignor Giuseppe Pannilini, on whom Monte Oliveto depended, ordered the transfer of the existing Miniated Choirs to the Diocese of Pienza, and then donated them the following year to the Cathedral of San Secondiano in Chiusi.
Thus, to admire the twenty-one Olivetan illuminated manuscripts, it is today necessary to go to Chiusi, to the Museum of the Cathedral and Etruscan Tunnel, where they are jealously guarded.
The Library room, commissioned by Abbot Francesco Ringhieri in 1515, was designed by his brother fra Giovanni da Verona, who also sculpted the capitals in pietra serena, carved the entrance door, the cupboard for the choirs today on the wall of background and the large wooden candelabra from 1502, placed in the middle of the room for lighting.
The structure of the restaurant consists of a long room with three naves: the main one with a barrel vault and the two lateral ones with a cross vault.
The colonnade that divides the naves remains standing, although in the room below: the Refectory does not have corresponding support structures.
This is because the columns were built inclined, so as to be able to unload the weight of the vaults onto the load-bearing perimeter walls.
The monastic library contains 40,000 pamphlets, volumes and incunabula, which are not those of the original endowment which was lost after the Napoleonic suppression of the Olivetan Order in 1809, but come from the suppressed Olivetan monastery of Santa Maria di Monte Morcino Nuovo, near Perugia.
At the time of the suppression, the Bishop of Pienza: Monsignor Giuseppe Pannilini, on whom Monte Oliveto depended, ordered the transfer of the existing Miniated Choirs to the Diocese of Pienza, and then donated them the following year to the Cathedral of San Secondiano in Chiusi.
Thus, to admire the twenty-one Olivetan illuminated manuscripts, it is today necessary to go to Chiusi, to the Museum of the Cathedral and Etruscan Tunnel, where they are jealously guarded.