The San Benedetto Monastery complex, which includes the monastery and church, is located just below the Venetian walls, in what was once the village of Santo Stefano, today’s St. Alexander Street.
Santa Maria Novella, originally a humble foundation, passed in the sec.
XIV to the Benedictine nuns of S. Giuliano di Bonate.
The Benedictine nuns of Valmarina (there are records of them from 1153) moved from the countryside the following century, settling just below, still along Via S. Alessandro (the Rizolo).
It is known that a small church was erected in 1448, dedicated three years later to St. Benedict; architectural traces of it remain on the side of Via S. Alessandro.
After 1493 the two communities united, and the new nucleus grew rapidly.
In 1504 construction of the new church began; already in 1516 it appeared that restoration was necessary, due to the subsidence of a wall.
The new project was entrusted to the Bergamasque architect Pietro Cleri known as Isabello, who had already been responsible for the rearrangement of the nuns’ inner chapel, frescoed in the years 1510-15 by Jacopino de’ Scipioni and workshop, later transformed into the major sacristy.
During the 18th century the church experienced further changes but, with the advent of the Cisalpine Republic in 1797 and the suppression of religious orders, the monastery was closed and its liturgical furnishings-including a silver altar, vestments and numerous furnishings-were requisitioned by the Napoleonic authority.
The altarpieces suffered the same fate, in fact both Gianbattista Moroni ‘sAssumption and Calisto Piazza ‘s St. Stephen were transferred to the Brera Museum.
Despite the situation, the nuns were allowed to remain living in the monastery, albeit with a very limited community life.
The monastery became one again, in name and in fact, with the restoration on May 10, 1827.
In much more recent times, the monastery has returned to reveal details of its history thanks to some work to the interior of the sacristy-with the discovery of the fragment of a fresco of the miraculous Our Lady of Wailing, which made it possible to identify the ancient site of the oriented presbytery-and to the flooring, carried out in the 1980s.
The small cloister of St. Benedict
Along St. Alexander Street is the porticoed cloister of St. Benedict, which stands as an elegant entrance to the Monastery.
Built by Pietro Isabello, it has a rectangular plan on six round arches, supported on three sides by sandstone columns.
Twelve lunettes feature as many 16th-century frescoes by Cristoforo Baschenis the Younger, tracing the life of St. Benedict.
The small cloister forms the transition between the exterior of the structure and the large monastic complex, also equipped with direct access to the church.
The church
The church still retains intact its 16th-century character and has a main facade and a side facade tripartite by pilasters; an architraved portal, surmounted by a small tympanum, stands out in the center of the main facade.
The building has a central plan and dome enclosed in an octagonal tiburium.
The chancel, enclosed by a wooden transenna and placed above the elegant portico, allowed celebrations to be followed at the new north-facing altar from the Isabello.
Several noteworthy works of art are preserved inside, such as a Madonna and Child with Saints of Lottesque setting, executed by Lucano da Imola, and the altarpiece with The Miracle of Water Gushing from the Ark of Saints Fermo, Rustico and Procolo by G. P. Cavagna (1621).
The valuable wrought-iron gate is from the sec.
17TH CENTURY.
Capturing one’s attention is the carved and gilded wooden Communicatoio by the Ticinese Carabelli.
Then all that remains is to look up and admire the dome frescoed by G. A. Orelli in 1756, which presents the scene of the Coronation of the Virgin Mary between Saints Benedict and Scholastica, and the Titulars of the various Communities that gradually joined the primitive monastic nucleus over the centuries.