Sant'Antonio in Polesine is a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

monastic complex of the

Order of Saint Benedict The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

s located in

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

, Italy and dedicated to

Anthony the Great Anthony the Great (; ; ; ; – 17 January 356) was a Christian monk from Egypt, revered since his death as a saint. He is distinguished from other saints named Anthony, such as , by various epithets: , , , , , and . For his importance among t ...

. Administratively, it is part of the

deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residence of ...

of Ferrara, part of the

Archdiocese of Ferrara-Comacchio The Archdiocese of Ferrara-Comacchio () is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church. It has existed since 1986, when the diocese of Comacchio was combined with the historical archdiocese of Ferrara. It is a suffragan of the archdiocese ...

History

The name "in Polesine" does not refer to the area of

Polesine Polesine (; ; ) is a geographic and historic area in the north-east of Italy whose limits varied through centuries; it had also been known as Polesine of Rovigo for some time. Nowadays it corresponds with the province of Rovigo in the viewpoint ...

, but to its original situation, high ground surrounded by water. The monastery, founded in the early Middle Ages by

Augustinians Augustinians are members of several religious orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, written about 400 A.D. by Augustine of Hippo. There are two distinct types of Augustinians in Catholic religious orders dating back to the 12th–13 ...

hermits, stood on an island in the middle of the Po River."Monastery of Sant'antonio in Polesine", Emilia Romagna Turismo
/ref> Beatrice II d’Este, daughter of marquis Azzo Novello and a Benedictine nun, received the monastery from her father as a gift for her community. Around 1257, Beatrice moved into the convent, where she died in 1264 to be beatified in 1270."Convent of St. Anthony in Polesine", Siti Unesco del' Adriatico
Since then, the monastery has been under the patronage of the

House of Este The House of Este ( , , ) is a European dynasty of North Italian origin whose members ruled parts of Italy and Germany for many centuries. The original House of Este's elder branch, which is known as the House of Welf, included dukes of Bavaria ...

Buildings

Only the convent church is open to the public. The church is in

baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

style, with a 17th-century

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

ed ceiling by Francesco Ferrari. The nuns' church has side chapels with frescoes of the school of

Giotto Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto, was an List of Italian painters, Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the International Gothic, Gothic and Italian Ren ...

—on the left, ''Storie dell'infanzia di Gesù e della Vita della Vergine'' done between 1315 and 1320. On the right is ''Storie della Passione''—and a central chapel with frescoes of multiple periods, including an ''Annunciazione'' of Domenico Panetti (15th century) and a ceiling with 16th-century

grotesques Since at least the 18th century (in French and German, as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...

. The presence of pagan images in an ecclesiastical setting, bears witness to the close ties between the monastery and the court, where such decorations were fashionable in the late 1600s. There is also a sculpted and gilt

altarpiece An altarpiece is a painting or sculpture, including relief, of religious subject matter made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, ...

depicting the ''Flagellazione'' by Nicolò Roselli (16th century). The complex also includes a

cloister A cloister (from Latin , "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open Arcade (architecture), arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle (architecture), quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cat ...

and a monumental

tomb A tomb ( ''tumbos'') or sepulchre () is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called '' immurement'', alth ...

of the founder, Beatrice.

Notes

External links

{{Coord, 44, 49, 36, N, 11, 37, 28, E, region:IT_type:landmark_source:kolossus-itwiki, display=title Benedictine monasteries in Italy Monasteries in Emilia-Romagna Ferrara