Santa Scolastica Monastery

A short distance from the Monastery of San Benedetto (St. Benedict) called "Lo Speco" (The Cave).
The monastery of S. Silvestro Papa, then SS. Benedetto and Scolastica, then beginning in the 14th century Santa Scolastica (to distinguish it from the other, which was called "San Benedetto" or "Lo Speco") which is located east of Subiaco, at 510 meters above sea level also called "protocenoby" because it is the only surviving monastery of the original 13 monasteries, while the others were destroyed by Saraceni in the 9th century.
The monastery had a period of great splendor until the 13th century and then began to decline. In the 14th century a group of European monks settled here, mostly German, for which it was easy for the two monks, also German and students of Gutemberg, to convince the monastic community in 1464 to implant the first Italian printing press, which produced important editions of Roman and medieval classics.
From the 16th century to 1872, the monastery was part of a Montecassino Benedictine congregation, from which it then became independent.
Almost nothing remains of the original building, which today is visited thanks to a series of constructions, renovations, and additions made over the course of various centuries, is very interesting but anything except uniform. It is constructed of conventional buildings that articulate around three cloisters from different eras and by the 18th-century church with beautiful Romanesque belltower.
You arrive at a little square from which you can go either to the Monastery or down to the large lodge and Museum.
The main entrance to the Monastery, modern, gives access to an entrance hall, where you'll find the shop-pharmacy and then further along, the first and largest cloister, late-Renaissance, in part reconstructed after the Second World War.
Following along the right side, at the end you pass the second cloister, 14th- century and Gothic style, a very lovely setting, irregularly shaped, with its little garden a bit disheveled, and a lovely central well. In the portico surrounding it, on the northern side, there is a beautiful portal of Gothic-church origin, which was born on teh remnants of the primitive oratory and of the following widening from the 9th century.
Still, under the portico, you'll find the entrance to the actual church, its interior redone beginning in 1769, a sober and harmonious neoclassical structure, with a Latin cross layout, work of the 26-year old Giacomo Quarenghi, successful architect from Bergamo who also became architect of the imperial Russian court and who is responsible for many of the important constructions of St. Petersburg.
From the same area from which you reach the church,  you also reach the third cloister, the most beautiful in Cosmati style, dating to the 13th century and work of Cosma and other Cosmati-style masters, constructed with materials partly originating from Nero's villa. Because of the configuration of the land, the cloister has a very singular configuration; the field is raised in respect to the surrounding portico; at the center there is a well. The second floor, on three sides, is a 16th-century added floor with large arches in local calcareous stone, which contrast with the rhythm of the short marble columns of the first floor.
The powerful Romanesque belltower that dominates all was realized in the 11th century.
Going out, you can proceed, coasting along the building in the direction of San Benedetto until reaching a large door that leads to a courtyard; from here you reach the Library, rich in the oldest printed texts and splendid illuminated manuscripts; the archive holds around 3600 parchments and thousands of different documents. The places below the Monastery, where long ago there was an oil press, restored by the administration of the Province of Rome with funds from the Jubilee in 2000, are connected to the Museum.
Like many 19th-century collections, it is very eclectic: the exhibits range from archeology to objects of daily life in the 6th century B.C., to geology etc... All was collect, put in order, and exhibited with didactic standards, very interesting to visit with children and teens.