Built in 591 on the site of an ancient temple dedicated to Calchas, the Argive seer of Greek mythology, Pulsano Abbey carries a pre-Christian history beneath its medieval stones
The Abbazia di Santa Maria di Pulsano is a monastic complex situated on the Gargano promontory, in the municipality of Monte Sant’Angelo, province of Foggia, Puglia. The abbey is protected, along with the surrounding area, by the Parco Nazionale del Gargano. Its hermitages were elected Luogo del Cuore by the FAI (Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano) in 2010 with 34,118 nominations. The monastery maintains a guest house for a limited number of pilgrims seeking brief periods of retreat.
Origins
The abbey was built in 591 on the ruins of an ancient oracular pagan temple dedicated to Calchas (Calcante), the Argive seer of Greek mythology, son of Thestor, who possessed the gift of interpreting the flight of birds, a faculty bestowed upon him by Apollo. The new foundation was established on the hill of Pulsano by Pope Gregory the Great and entrusted to the monks of the order of Sant’Equizio Abate, to which Gregory’s own family, the gens Anicia, was connected. Around 912, the Cluniac order arrived at Pulsano by invitation of Walfredo, first bishop of the unified diocese of Benevento-Siponto. Around the year 1000, the abbot was Odilo of Cluny, under whose fifty-five-year leadership the number of Cluniac dependent houses grew substantially; Pulsano was among them. The monastery subsequently fell into severe decline following Saracen raids that destroyed much of the complex in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
San Giovanni da Matera and the Pulsanensian Order
In 1129 Giovanni da Matera, a pilgrim to the sanctuary of Monte Sant’Angelo, undertook the restoration of the abandoned complex together with his Congregazione Pulsanense, founding the autonomous monastic order of the poor hermits of Pulsano, known also as the Scalzi (the Barefoot). According to tradition, the reconstruction began after a Marian apparition indicated the site to Giovanni; starting with six disciples, the community grew to fifty within months. The construction of the abbey church, dedicated to the Holy Mother of God, was completed in 1177; its altar, beneath which the remains of Giovanni da Matera were placed after his death in 1139, was consecrated by Pope Alexander III during a pilgrimage to the Gargano.
From the Pulsanensian reform emerged an autonomous monastic family which, drawing strictly on the Rule of Saint Benedict and on the Eastern monastic tradition already present throughout southern Italy, established at Pulsano its mother house. At its height the order counted approximately forty dependent monasteries spread across Puglia, Basilicata, Abruzzo, Lazio, and further afield: among the most noted were San Pancrazio in Trastevere in Rome, San Michele di Guamo near Lucca, Santa Maria Intemerata near Florence, San Michele degli Scalzi in Pisa, and monasteries on the Adriatic islands of Mljet and Hvar. The order also had a female branch.
Giovanni da Matera was born in Matera and spent time at Montevergine under William of Vercelli. His uncompromising conduct brought him into conflict with powerful figures and he was eventually imprisoned, before being released through the intervention of Grimoald, Prince of Bari, who required him to give an account of his theology to establish his orthodoxy. He subsequently preached in Bari under Grimoald’s patronage. He died at Pulsano in 1139 and was buried in a cave within the abbey. In 1830 his relics were translated to Matera Cathedral, where they remain.
Gargano promontory is a wonderful nature reserve in the north of Puglia.
Later history
The Pulsanensian Order went extinct in the early fifteenth century during the pontificate of Martin V; the surviving members renounced the rule of Giovanni Abate and joined various congregations of the Benedictine order, primarily the Cistercian and Cavense branches. From the fifteenth century the abbey was administered by the Celestine monks, who protected it from the encroachments of local lords; it was simultaneously placed under the nominal authority of a cardinal commendatory who administered it from Rome. The Celestine monk Ludovico Giordani, who served as abbot, built two lateral altars in the abbey church, later destroyed, and also founded the Celestine monastery at Manfredonia.
The severe earthquake of 1646 destroyed the archive and library. The Celestines of Manfredonia continued to govern Pulsano until the promulgation of the Napoleonic code in 1806, when Joseph Bonaparte suppressed the monastic order entirely. In 1842 the local priest Nicola Bisceglia received the complex in enfiteusi from the state patrimony with the declared purpose of protecting it from the vandalism of shepherds and herdsmen. In 1966 the venerated icon of the Mother of God of Pulsano, attributed to the Italian-Byzantine school known as the Ritardatari that flourished in Puglia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was stolen and has not been recovered.
From 1991 a voluntary association, the Movimento Cristiani Pro Pulsano, worked to maintain the historical memory of the abbey. In 1997, through the intervention of Archbishop Vincenzo D’Addario, the abbey church was reopened to public worship and a new monastic community of diocesan standing was established, operating biritually in both the Latin and Byzantine rites.
The hermitages
The abbey is surrounded by a series of hermitages carved into the cliffs and used as dwellings by solitary monks. Access to many of these required the use of ropes or ladders, a condition that reflected the austere ideal of total withdrawal from the world that characterised the Pulsanensian tradition. On 8 September each year, the feast of the Madonna di Pulsano is celebrated: the faithful depart from Monte Sant’Angelo and reach the abbey on mule-back.
The Gargano
The Gargano promontory, the limestone spur that projects into the Adriatic in northern Puglia, forms one of Italy’s most distinctive natural landscapes. The Parco Nazionale del Gargano, which encompasses the abbey and its surroundings, protects a territory of forests, ravines, coastal cliffs, and wetlands, including the Foresta Umbra and the Lago di Lesina and Lago di Varano lagoons.
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Immagini:
Turismomonesantangelo , Flickr
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