Abbey of Nonantola

Pope Stephen II appointed Anselm its first abbot, and presented some relics of Saint Sylvester to the abbey, named in consequence S. Silvestro de Nonantula.

After the death of Aistulf in 756, Anselm was banished to Monte Cassino by the new king, Desiderius, but was restored by Charlemagne after seven years.

In that year the famous monk Placidus of Nonantola wrote his De honore Ecclesiæ, one of the most able and important defences of the papal position that was written during the Investiture Conflict.

In 1514 abbot Gian Matteo Sertorio gave it to the Cistercians, but the abbey continued to decline until it was suppressed by Pope Clement XIII in 1768.

[2] Pope Pius VII restored it as a monastery on 23 January 1821, with the provision that the prelature nullius attached to it should belong to the Archbishop of Modena, into which the exempt territory was finally absorbed in 1986 to form the Diocese of Modena-Nonantola.