Abbazia delle Tre Fontane

A walled monastic complex of three churches off via Laurentina, with the character of a fortified monastery and an entrance arch known as the Arco di Carlo Magno. The abbey is Trappist — Cistercians of the Strict Observance. The name comes from the tradition that St Paul was beheaded here and that his head bounced three times, striking a spring from the ground at each bounce; the valley, crossed by the ancient via Laurentina, has been called Aquae Salviae since at least the sixth century. The community also keeps an olive grove, an oil mill, an apiary and a farm, and brews beer sold through the monastic shop. The complex is open every day 06:30 to 20:45. The porter's lodge opens Monday to Saturday 08:30 to 12:30 and 15:00 to 18:00, and Sunday 08:30 to 09:30, 11:00 to 12:30 and 15:30 to 18:00; telephone +39 06 5401655.

History

A Greek-Armenian monastery here is attested at the synod of Martin I in 649, and the emperor Heraclius sent it the head of the Persian martyr Anastasius. Monastery and church burned at the end of the eighth century and were restored. Gregory VII gave the house to the Cluniacs around 1080; Innocent II took it from them in 1140 and gave it to the Cistercians, and the abbey church and monastery as they now stand date from that period. A document of 1161 names all three churches together. A Cistercian abbot of the house became Pope Eugene III. The monastery was completed in 1306 and acquired the relics of Vincent of Saragossa, who became co-titular, in 1370. Martin V turned it into a commenda in 1408. The French suppressed it in 1808 and sacked it, its books and archives going to the Vatican and Casanatense libraries and the site left malarial and ruined. Pius IX found funds for its restoration for the jubilee of 1867, and a bull of 1868 re-established a resident community of at least fourteen and handed the abbey to Trappist monks, who took 450 hectares of the Acque Salvie in perpetual emphyteusis on condition of planting 125,000 eucalypts to drain the ground. On 25 March 1981, by the bull Abbatia SS. Vincentii et Anastasii, John Paul II suppressed the territorial abbacy and the abbey passed to the diocese of Rome.

History

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