Abbey of Saint Columbanus

Bobbio Abbey (Italian: Abbazia di San Colombano) is a monastery founded by Irish Saint Columbanus in 614, around which later grew up the town of Bobbio, in the province of Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is dedicated to Saint Columbanus. It was famous as a centre of resistance to Arianism and as one of the greatest libraries in the Middle Ages, and was the original on which the monastery in Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose was based, together with Sacra di San Michele. The abbey was dissolved under the French administration in 1803, although many of the buildings remain in other uses.

The background to the foundation of the abbey was the Lombard invasion of Italy in 568. The Lombard king Agilulf married the devout Roman Catholic Theodelinda in 590 and under her influence and that of the Irish missionary Columbanus, he was persuaded to accept conversion to Christianity. As a base for the conversion of the Lombard people Agilulf gave Columbanus a ruined church and wasted lands known as Ebovium, which, before the Lombards seized them, had formed part of the lands of the papacy. Columbanus particularly wanted this secluded place, for while enthusiastic in the instruction of the Lombards he preferred solitude for his monks and himself. Next to this little church, which was dedicated to Saint Peter, a monastery was soon built. The abbey at its foundation followed the Rule of St. Columbanus, based on the monastic practices of Celtic Christianity.

Columbanus was buried on 23 November 615, but was followed by successors of high calibre in Attala (d. 627) and Bertulf (d. 640), who steered the new monastery through the threats from militant Arianism under King Rotharis (636–652).

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