Badia di Cava

The abbey was founded in 1011 by S.Alferio Pappacarbone who was a Salerno nobleman and also a Benedictine cluniac monk Its importance through the centuries grew thanks to popes and bishops who improved its power over a number of other abbeys and churches in the whole southern Italy. In 1394 it was elected episcopate by the pope Boniface IX. In the XVI – XVIII cent. The church the novitiate and other sections of the monastery. The suppression made by it government in 1866, deprived the monks of any resource, the few who remained there oponed the college of S. Benedict ( sec. school still active ). In the Basilica one can admire polychrome marbles, frescoes and a cosmatesque ambon. In the chapter house are frescoes showing the founders of the Benedictine congregations. Here are often organised conventions and art exhibitions.