Chiaravalle Abbey
The Abbey of Santa Maria di Rovegnano (Latin: Sanctæ Mariæ Clarævallis Mediolanensis) is a Cistercian monastic complex in the comune of Milan, Lombardy, northern Italy.
The abbey was founded on 22 January 1135 as a daughter house of Clairvaux;[1] it is one of the first examples of Gothic architecture in Italy, although maintaining some late Romanesque influences.
In 1490 Cardinal Ascanio Sforza (the brother of Ludovico il Moro, duke of Milan) commissioned Bramante and Giovanni Antonio Amadeo to construct the Chiostro Grande ("large cloister") and the chapterhouse.
The complex is accessed through a 16th-century tower commissioned by Louis XII of France; to the side there is an oratory dedicated to Saint Bernard which contains a fresco of Christ standing before Pilate, once attributed to Hieronymus Bosch but today assigned to the Swiss Hans Witz (also known as Johannes Sapidus), who was court painter in Milan during the rule of Galeazzo Maria Sforza.
The traditional façade a capanna, shows the gable end of the nave, flanked by the sloping roofs of the aisles, the frame supported by Lombard bands in terracotta.
Notable is the entrance portal, dating most likely to the early 16th century: it has sculpted figures of Saints Robert, Alberic, Stephen and Bernard, surmounted by the church's coats of arms: a stork with crosier and mitre.
The interior is on the Latin cross plan, with a nave and two aisles with cross-vault, divided by small cotto pilasters on the sides; the apse is flat.
in restoration, was frescoed with figures of the Saints Jerome, Augustine, Gregory and Ambrose, the four Evangelists surmounted by a starry sky.
The south transept paintings are dedicated to the order's saints and bishops: they include: Building of Cîteaux monastery, ovals with the Virgin, St. Benedict and St. Bernard, St. Dominic Abbot, St. Alberic, St. Galganus and St. Victor the monk, a large fresco with the order's family tree and, on the vault, St. Christian, St. Peter of Tarantasia, St. Edmund of Canterbury, St. William of Berry.
Here, until the Cistercians' expulsion in the Napoleonic times, was housed Louis the Pious's cross; it is now in the church of Santa Maria presso San Celso in Milan.
It is decorated by a Virgin Enthroned with Child Honoured by Cistercians (early 16th-century), once attributed to Gaudenzio Ferrari and today to Callisto Piazza.
The church tower, known in the local dialect as Ciribiciaccola, starts from the dome area at 9 meters, with two octagonal sections of 4.14 and 12.19 meters, and a final conical one of 11.97 m. The upper point, in correspondence of the tip of cross which lies over a globe, is at a total height of 56.26 m. Each of the sections is divided into two area with Lombard bands in different shapes, with carved frames and white pinnacles.
The origins of the hard Italian granular cheese known generically as grana—the best known examples today being Grana Padano and Parmigiano Reggiano (or Parmesan)—are traditionally ascribed to the monks of Chiaravalle.
