Abbazia di Santa Maria del Monte

Santa Maria del Monte is a Benedictine abbey on Colle Spaziano above Cesena. Its Marian sanctuary preserves a substantial collection of painted votive tablets, linking monastic history with centuries of local devotion.

Why it matters

The ex-votos record gratitude for deliverance from illness, accidents and other dangers. Their scenes place religious belief within everyday life, making the collection a visual history of the communities associated with the sanctuary.

What to notice

The tablets range from early examples of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to later images of events understood by their donors as graces received. The crypt preserves the sarcophagus associated with Bishop Mauro, whose memory belongs to the origins of devotion on the hill. The abbey's elevated setting connects the church and monastic buildings with the landscape of Cesena and its plain.

Context and history

The monastic foundation developed in the early eleventh century. A concession of 1042 and a papal bull of Nicholas II in 1059 document its early Benedictine history. Frederick Barbarossa granted protection in 1177. After destruction in 1302, the arrival of a venerated Madonna statue from Montereale in 1318 strengthened the sanctuary's Marian character. Suppression and wartime damage were followed by rebuilding and renewal.