Pomposa Abbey

The earliest report of a Benedictine abbey at this site dates from 874, by which time Pomposa was already a center of sophisticated Carolingian art[3] The settlement was probably two centuries earlier, founded at some point following the devastation of Classe, the port of Ravenna (574)[4] during the Lombard epoch of northern Italy by monks of the Irish missionary, Columbanus.

A letter of c. 1093 mentions among classical texts acquired or copied for the library by the abbot Girolamo alludes to Horace (Carmen Saeculare, Satires, Epistles), Virgil's Georgics, Juvenal, Persius, Quintilian, Terence's Andria, Jerome's preface to the history of Eusebius, Cicero's De officiis and De oratore, the abridgement of Livy called Periochae[5] and the Mathematica of Julius Firmicus Maternus.

[6] Until the 14th century the abbey had possessions in the whole of Italy, making its cartulary of more than local importance,[7] but later declined due to impoverishment of the neighbouring area owing to the retreat of the sea front and the increasing presence of malaria of the lower Po valley.

It played an important role in the culture of Italy thanks to the work of its scribe monks and in part to the sojourn at Pomposa of Peter Damian.

The interior contains a 12th-century Cosmatesque and mosaic inlaid stone pavement, and frescoes in the apse by Vitale da Bologna and his assistants;[10] and there are also paintings in the refectory by a Riminese master.