Stage 10: Mandela - Subiaco

The stage runs flat through the woods, following the course of the Aniene River, without encountering any hamlet but, taking small detours, we can pay a visit to the interesting villages of Anticoli Corrado, Marano Equo and Agosta. Our destination is Subiaco, where San Benedetto lived for thirty years, at first as a hermit, and then as the founder and abbot of small monastic communities. The extraordinary Monastery of San Benedetto, or Sacro Speco, is made up of two overlapping churches leaning against the wall of Mount Taleo. It was built in the eleventh century around the original Benedictine Hermitage, and, in the fourteenth century, enriched with paintings depicting stories from the Gospel and the life of San Benedetto. From the Sacro Speco Cave, in which San Benedetto retreated for three years in prayer, a staircase leads to a small room. Here, an anonymous artist portrayed San Francesco d’Assisi, who arrived at the Sanctuary as a pilgrim in 1224. Just below, we find the Monastery of Santa Scolastica, built on the first Benedictine settlement and several times extended. Not to be missed are the ancient belfry, even older than all the bell towers in Rome, and the magnificent Cosmatesque Cloister, which preserves in its Library 150,000 ancient volumes. Here, in 1465, Gutenberg's students printed the first book in Italy.