The "Chiostro Grande" of Monte Oliveto Maggiore and the Olivetan Reform Movement

The character of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italian Benedictine monasticism was profoundly changed through the vigorous reform effort spearheaded by the Olivetan Congregation. Begun in 1313 by Bernardo Tolomei, the Olivetan reform movement continued to thrive well into the sixteenth century. During these centuries abbot generals initiated numerous and vast artistic and architectural programs at the congregation's mother house, Monte Oliveto Maggiore. The culmination of these campaigns was the Chiostro Grande fresco cycle of the life of Saint Benedict commissioned by Abbot General Domenico Airoldi. Begun in 1495 under Signorelli and completed in 1508 by Sodoma, this cycle was the most extensive cloister cycle ever executed in Italy. Beginning in the fifteenth century, and contemporary with other Benedictine reform movements, Benedict cycles began to appear regularly in cloisters of other important reform houses. Based on Pope Gregory the Great's life of the saint, as set forth in the second book of his Dialogues, the Monte Oliveto Maggiore cycle most clearly expresses the chief measures that led to the restoration of Benedictine monasticism in Renaissance Italy. Essentially Signorelli and Sodoma transformed the sacred text of Gregory's Dialogues into a descriptive narrative emblematic of Olivetan monasticism and monastic reform. Each wall of the Chiostro Grande-east wall with episodes prior to Benedict's entrance into monastic life, south wall depicting narratives from the saint's abbacy at Subiaco, and the west and north walls depicting events from Benedict's abbacy at Monte Cassino-can be understood as a recapitulation of the history of the Olivetan Congregation and its founding. The expansion of the Order under Olivetan command, the strict adherence to the precepts of the Rule of Saint Benedict, the restructuring of the Order's governing infrastructure, and the implementation of Benedict's life as monastic exemplum are all integral elements of the program's central message. In this cycle a new interpretation of Gregory's Dialogues was developed to express the conceptual unity that pervades these messages. This included shifting focus away from the particulars of Benedict's life in an effort to stress the concordant nature of the Dialogues and the Rule. Only when this unity of text and monastic practice is recognized can the visual images be understood as exempla of the Olivetan's vision of the ideal monastic environment.