Abbey Morimondo

Here the world dies. Here the world rises. We must die to be reborn. Those who do not understand this are living their lives by stealing others life.  The magnificence of Morimondo church is given by the total simplicity and a sense of order . it is an order that is not comparable to the architectural perfection.


Man must remember of his imperfection and must be able to see it resurrected. The Abbey differs from all other Cistercians buildings of the twelfth century. Morimondo is an example of architecture already evolved into the Gothic style. Moreover , the magnitude of Morimondo is due to the presence of eight spans, unlike normal abbeys that are much smaller.

The cloister is a monastic complex with the usual division of environments: the chapter  maintains all its original features and the dining room with the kitchen occur in a gorgeous shape of the seventeenth century. Another peculiarity of the Abbey is to be built on several floors near a dip.
A remarkable sign of the intense spirituality is evidenced by flourishing activities of the Scriptorium, with the aim of building a monastic library. The construction of the church began in 1182, after the building of the monastery.

The daily life of the monks was focused on observing worship and following the abbot. It 'a life where people share duties and labors, where community lives the Gospel in full.

 Morimondo held its first community of 12 monks and their abbot.  The monks chosed  the most suitable place to erect the new monastery. They needed to build a community: the presence of water for crops and livestock breeding, and a forest as a source of firewood needed to heat or cook and to erect the first architectural structures was there.
The construction site wasn’t only made by the monks. Local workers were hired and worked under the guidance of the monks, who architecturally realized what it had to reflect in their spirituality. The monks gave birth to new production centers called "Grangie": a construction close to the abbey with the function of deposit for the harvest, but at the same time it was also a farm with  houses, land and pastures. With the help of laymen and farmers, it soon became a living centre with its own sustainability.  The Grangie had great autonomy and was composed by those who decided to live in poverty and observing worship to the abbacy. Such independence recalls an anticipation of the vision of the modern economy and politics.

Labour  was not only for food and for trade, but it was also to express charity for travelers and pilgrims who came asking for  help and food.
there were other tasks  to serve the community: the cellarer was the one who, with the kindness of a father,  had to oversee the prosperity of the community. He  took care of  accounts, did the goods inventory,  kept peaceful relations with the grange, and arranged what was  needed in the monastery ( from food to the purchase of agricultural tools, to maintenance and repairs in the monastery and in the grange, and treat the cost of construction).

The abbey is poor in architectural features, but it is full of symbols. The highest part of the left radial crape is a clock that carries the 'symbol of the Flower of Life',a symbol also found at the entrance of the cloister and repeated many timeson the pillars of the nave.
On a capitol of the first left  span it is possible to observe a  see a head of an Aries. There are as well 2 octagonal columns, while others are round. Number 8 is a recurrent number in this abbey, and it symbolizes a sense of spiritual re birth as well as a passage from the profane world to a lower initiatiopn one. The Cistercian system of Abbeys revolutionized  Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,either in spiritual, technological, agricultural, cultural, architectural and artistic point of view.