La Chiesa Abbaziale di Staffarda dal Chiostro

Staffarda Abbey (''Abbazia Santa Maria di Staffarda'') is a

Cistercian The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

monastery located near

Saluzzo Saluzzo (; ) is a town and former principality in the province of Cuneo, in the Piedmont region, Italy. The city of Saluzzo is built on a hill overlooking a vast, well-cultivated plain. Iron, lead, silver, marble, slate etc. are found in the su ...

in north-west Italy; it was founded as a daughter house of

Tiglieto Abbey Tiglieto Abbey (''Badia di Tiglieto'', also known as ''Santa Maria alla Croce de Civitacula'') is a monastery in Tiglieto, Liguria, northern Italy. It was the first Cistercian abbey to be founded in Italy, and also the first outside France. The ab ...

in 1135 by Manfred I, Marquis of Saluzzo. The abbey became an important local centre for agriculture and held a flourishing market. It was placed ''

in commendam In canon law, commenda (or ''in commendam'') was a form of transferring an ecclesiastical benefice ''in trust'' to the ''custody'' of a patron. The phrase ''in commendam'' was originally applied to the provisional occupation of an ecclesiastica ...

'' to the

Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus The Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus () (abbreviated OSSML) is a Roman Catholic dynastic order of knighthood bestowed by the royal House of Savoy. It is the second-oldest order of knighthood in the world, tracing its lineage to AD 1098, a ...

in 1750. A portrait of Cesare Alessandro Scaglia di Verrua, abbot of Staffarda, painted by Antony van Dyck in about 1634, is now in the National Gallery in London. An important musical manuscript, the Codex Staffarda, dating to the 1480s or 1490s and containing reference to the

commendatory abbot A commendatory abbot () is an ecclesiastic, or sometimes a layman, who holds an abbey ''in commendam'', drawing its revenues but not exercising any authority over its inner monastic discipline. If a commendatory abbot is an ecclesiastic, however, ...

Brixianus Taparelli, is now in the National University Library of Turin.Cristina Santarelli Essay Il manoscritto musicale dell'abbazia di Staffarda. in Studi piemontesi - Volume 27 - Page 509 Centro studi piemontesi - 1998 "Conservato presso la Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino sotto la segnatura Ris. Mus. I, 27, il cosiddetto Codice di Staffarda si colloca fra le più importanti testimonianze della vita musicale pedemontana. Le vicende del codice, redatto nel XVI secolo ..." reprinted in Rinaldo Comba, Grado G. Merlo ''L'Abbazia di Staffarda e l'irradiazione cistercense nel Piemonte '' Page 339 1999 It includes polyphonic works by Renaissance composers such as

Jacob Obrecht Jacob Obrecht (also Hobrecht; 1457/8

and

Antoine Brumel Antoine Brumel (c. 1460 – 1512 or 1513) was a French composer. He was one of the first renowned French members of the Franco-Flemish School, Franco-Flemish school of the Renaissance music, Renaissance, and, after Josquin des Prez, was one of t ...

, as well as the earliest surviving example of a polyphonic Dies Irae by an otherwise unknown composer,

Engarandus Juvenis Engarandus Juvenis, "Enguerrand the Younger" (floruit, fl. 1480s–90s) is a composer, presumed to be of French origin, whose three known works are all preserved in a single codex – the Codice di Staffarda – in the Cistercian monastery of Staffa ...

References

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Storia
mauriziano.it
StaffardaStaffardaAbbazie

External links

www.cistercensi.info: Photographs of the abbey complex
Monasteries in Piedmont 1135 establishments in Europe 12th-century establishments in Italy Cistercian monasteries in Italy Christian monasteries established in the 1130s {{Piedmont-geo-stub