Torba Monastery

Torba Abbey, otherwise Torba Monastery (Italian: monastero di Torba, abbadia di Torba) is a former Benedictine nunnery in Torba, a frazione of Gornate Olona, Lombardy, Italy, in the Castelseprio Archaeological Park. This in turn forms part of the serial site "Longobards in Italy, Places of Power (568–774 A.D.)", comprising seven sites of especial importance for Lombard arts in architecture, pictures and sculpture, entered on the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites in June 2011.

The first nucleus of the Castelseprio complex, of which Torba is part, originated under the Romans in the fifth century A.D. as part of one of the military outposts built to defend against barbarian incursions along the south-western face of the Alps. The area around the river Olona where Torba was founded, the Seprio (originally called Sibrium), was a place of some strategic importance in the Roman period, partly because of its water supply, partly because of its position on an important axis of communication across the Alps. A castrum or fortress was built here, the origin of the present Castelseprio. One of its outliers was a look-out station and tower, at what is now Torba.

The castrum was used over the next few centuries by the Goths, the Byzantines and the Lombards. During the long period of the pax longobarda the group of buildings at Torba lost its military function and acquired a religious one, thanks to the settlement here in the 8th century of a group of Benedictine nuns who had the monastery built, adding to the original structures further buildings to accommodate the cells, the refectory and the oratory, as well as a portico of three arches to shelter travellers and pilgrims, and in the 11th century a new small church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. During the Frankish period the Seprio became the seat of a count, thus acquiring additional agricultural importance. In the following centuries it became a battleground for some of the most powerful Milanese families, especially the Della Torre and the Visconti in the 13th century: in 1287 Ottone Visconti, Archbishop of Milan, in order to stop his rivals using the place against him, ordered the demolition of the castrum of Castelseprio, with the exception of the religious buildings. At Torba the nunnery included the Roman tower, which thus survived.

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Wikipedia