Editing Monte Cassino (section)

===1058–1505===
{{more citations needed section|date=June 2021}}
[[File:Nuremberg chronicles f 144r 2.jpg|thumb|[[Woodcut]] of the abbey from the late 15th-century ''[[Nuremberg Chronicle]]'' ([[folio]] 144 [[recto]])]]
Monte Cassino was rebuilt and reached the apex of its fame in the 11th century under the abbot Desiderius (abbot 1058–1087), who later became [[Pope Victor III]]. Monks caring for the patients in Monte Cassino constantly needed new medical knowledge. So they began to buy and collect medical and other books by Greek, Roman, Islamic, Egyptian, European, Jewish, and Oriental authors. As Naples is situated on the crossroad of many seaways of Europe, the Middle East and Asia, soon the monastery library was one of the richest in Europe. All the knowledge of the civilizations of all the times and nations was accumulated in the Abbey of that time. The Benedictines translated into Latin and transcribed precious manuscripts. The number of monks rose to over two hundred, and the library, the manuscripts produced in the [[scriptorium]] and the school of [[illuminated manuscript|manuscript illuminators]] became famous throughout the West. The unique [[Beneventan script]] flourished there during Desiderius' abbacy.
Monks reading and copying the medical texts learned a lot about human anatomy and methods of treatment, and then put their theoretic skills into practice at monastery hospital. By the 10–11th centuries Monte Cassino became the most famous cultural, educational, and medical center of Europe with a great library in Medicine and other sciences. Many physicians came there for medical and other knowledge. That is why the first [[Schola Medica Salernitana|High Medical School]] in the world was soon opened in nearby [[Salerno]] which is considered today to have been the earliest Institution of Higher Education in Western Europe. This school found its original base in the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino still in the 9th century and later settled down in Salerno. So, Montecassino and Benedictines played a great role in the progress of medicine and science in the Middle Ages, and with his life and work St. Benedict himself exercised a fundamental influence on the development of European civilization and culture and helped Europe to emerge from the "dark night of history" that followed the fall of the Roman empire.

The buildings of the monastery were reconstructed in the 11th century on a scale of great magnificence, artists being brought from Amalfi, Lombardy, and even [[Constantinople]] to supervise the various works. The abbey church, rebuilt and decorated with the utmost splendor, was consecrated in 1071 by [[Pope Alexander II]]. A detailed account of the abbey at this date exists in the ''Chronica monasterii Cassinensis'' by [[Leo of Ostia]] and [[Amatus of Montecassino|Amatus of Monte Cassino]] gives us our best source on the early [[Normans]] in the south.
[[File:"Montecasino" (22265553712).jpg|left|thumb|The abbey in depicted in [[Giovan Battista Pacichelli]]'s 1703 ''Il regno di Napoli in prospettiva'']]
Abbot Desiderius sent envoys to Constantinople some time after 1066 to hire expert [[Byzantine mosaic]]ists for the decoration of the rebuilt abbey church. According to chronicler [[Leo of Ostia]] the Greek artists decorated the apse, the arch and the vestibule of the basilica. Their work was admired by contemporaries but was totally destroyed in later centuries except two fragments depicting greyhounds (now in the Monte Cassino Museum). "The abbot in his wisdom decided that a great number of young monks in the monastery should be thoroughly initiated in these arts" – says the chronicler about the role of the Greeks in the revival of mosaic art in medieval Italy.

Architectural historian [[Kenneth John Conant]] believed that Desiderius' rebuilding included [[pointed arch]]es, and served as a major influence in the nascent development of [[Gothic architecture]]. Abbot [[Hugh of Cluny]] visited Monte Cassino in 1083, and five years later he began to build the third church at [[Cluny Abbey]], which then included pointed arches and became a major turning point in medieval architecture.<ref>{{Citation
 | last = Verde  | first = Tom
 | title = The Point of the Arch
 | journal = Aramco World
 | volume = May/June 2012
 | url = http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201203/the.point.of.the.arch.htm}}</ref>

An earthquake damaged the Abbey in 1349, and although the site was rebuilt it marked the beginning of a long period of decline. In 1321, [[Pope John XXII]] made the church of Monte Cassino a cathedral, and the carefully preserved independence of the monastery from episcopal interference was at an end. That situation was reversed by [[Pope Urban V]], a Benedictine, in 1367.<ref>{{cite book|editor=Tomassetti, Aloysius|title=Bullarum, diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum romanorum pontificum Taurinensis editio|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DCxOAQAAMAAJ|edition=Tomus IV|year=1859|publisher=Seb. Franco et Henrico Dalmazzo editoribus|location=Turin|language=la|pages=522–523}}</ref> In 1505 the monastery was joined with that of St. Justina of Padua.

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| image1 = Peter McIntyre, Air raid at Monte Cassino, February 1944 (16291761647).jpg
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| caption1 = Air assault on Monte Cassino, 15{{nbsp}}February{{nbsp}}1944, painted by [[Peter McIntyre (artist)|Peter McIntyre]], an [[New Zealand official war artists|official war artist]] of [[Military history of New Zealand during World War II|New Zealand during WWII]]
| image2 = Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2005-0004, Italien, Monte Cassino.jpg
| caption2 = Monte Cassino in ruins after Allied bombing in February 1944
}}