Staffarda Abbey (''Abbazia Santa Maria di Staffarda'') is a
Cistercian monastery located near
Saluzzo
Saluzzo (; pms, Salusse ) 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 fo ...
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 ...
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'' to the
Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus 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 commandatory abbot 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
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 of the Renaissance, and, after Josquin des Prez, was one of the most influential composers of his gene ...
, as well as the earliest surviving example of a polyphonic
Dies Irae by an otherwise unknown composer,
Engarandus Juvenis Engarandus Juvenis, "Enguerrand the Younger" ( 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 Staffarda, It ...
.
References
*http://www.piemontefeel.org/EN/Page/t01/view_html?idp=43
*https://archive.today/20030311025010/http://www.mauriziano.it/arte/monumenti/staffard/storia.htm
*https://web.archive.org/web/20070503182652/http://www.piemonte-emozioni.it/cultura/eng/edifici_religiosi/edifici_culto/staffarda.shtml
*https://web.archive.org/web/20060511175517/http://www.ingranda.it/castelli/pagine/Staffarda.asp
*https://web.archive.org/web/20070928181327/http://www.comune.revello.cn.it/staffarda.htm?a5
*https://web.archive.org/web/20110718084550/http://www.cistercensi.info/abbazie/abbazie.asp?ab=1081&lin=en
External links
www.cistercensi.info: Photographs of the abbey complex
* http://www.freewebs.com/pinocarita/staffardaabbey.htm
Monasteries in Piedmont
1135 establishments in Europe
12th-century establishments in Italy
Religious organizations established in the 1130s
Cistercian monasteries in Italy
Christian monasteries established in the 12th century
{{Piedmont-geo-stub