Benedictine Abbey

The ancient Benedictine Abbey was built near a Roman road at the end of the ninth century. It was burned down by the Hungarians at the beginning of the year 900, and after the first reconstruction, was devastated by the Visconti troops in 1339. After the unification of the Abbey of S. Benedetto Po in Polirone (Mn) in 1490, it was rebuilt almost from the ground and adorned by the beautiful Renaissance church and the elegant monastery (1491-1496). In 1533 it hosted the illustrious Cardinal. Reginaldo Pole (1500-59) who carried out intense diplomatic activity here to return England to the Roman Church. The abbey, suppressed by Napoleon in 1796, became private property until 1904, when the Trappist monks returned. They stayed there until 1938. In the same year it passed to Don Giovanni Calabria, born in Verona and founder of the Congregation of the Poor of the Divine Providence. Today the Abbey of Maguzzano, in addition to being a spiritual and ecumenical centre, hosts a school of iconography.