Abbey of Leno

The Abbey of Leno, or Badia leonense, was an ancient Benedictine monastic complex founded in 758 by the Lombard king Desiderius in the territory of the present-day town of Leno, in the Lower Brescian region. It was demolished by order of the Vicinia of Leno in 1783, with authorization from the Senate of Venice, so that the materials could be used in the construction of the new parish church and the villa of the Dossi family. Today only stone fragments of the ancient abbey remain, largely preserved in the Brescian museum of Santa Giulia, while burial mounds were found on site as a result of archaeological excavations held in 2003 by the Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage of Lombardy.

The monastery arose in the 8th century, at a time when Italian monasticism was flourishing. The monks who lived there were specially brought in from Montecassino so that they could spread the Benedictine rule in that area as well. The abbots were bestowed with numerous royal and papal concessions that increased the prestige of the Lenese monastery during the Middle Ages and made it an important cultural, economic, religious and, for the surrounding municipalities, political center. The abbey reached the peak of its development in the 11th century, which was followed by a gradual decline of the monastic complex and its prestige. With the introduction of the commendation in 1479, a second period of the monastery's existence began, characterized by the new type of jurisdiction of the commendatory abbots, but which nonetheless saw the continuation of the downward spiral that would stop only in 1783, the year of the demolition of the monastic complex. Over the centuries, the abbey church as well as the monastery itself were rebuilt several times following fires and other serious damage endured, with the result that its architectural structure became increasingly distant from the original Desiderian one.

The years preceding the foundation of the Leno monastery were marked by the struggle for the Lombard throne, sparked by the death of Aistulf, between Desiderius, duke of Tuscia, and Ratchis, Aistulf's brother. The duke, at first at a disadvantage, sought the support of the Franks and the papacy by promising the latter territories in Emilia and the Marches. To endear himself even more to the Papal State, he promoted important monastic initiatives, especially in the North, allocating large amounts of money to the various monastic orders and also founding new religious buildings, as in the case of the Abbey of San Benedetto in Leno and the monastery of Santa Giulia in Brescia. The Abbey of Leno would have sprung up on the site of the town of the same name, which had begun to be established thanks mainly to the building of a parish church, dedicated to the Baptist; the construction work ended shortly after the accession to the throne of Desiderius (758), who, in addition to attending the inauguration ceremony in the company of his consort and a large group of bishops, provided it with a substantial real estate patrimony, which included property scattered throughout eastern Lombardy, on Lake Como and 58 towns or fiefdoms (including San Martino dall'Argine) located in the Brescia, Cremona, Milan and Mantua areas. The monastery was built next to a pre-existing church, dedicated to the Savior, the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Michael, in which the friars would officiate masses and preserve relics. These, which had been brought to the Brescia area by a group of twelve monks, initiators of the Lenese monastic experience and coming directly from Monte Cassino, included the radium of the order's initiating saint, Benedict, and the remains of Saints Vitalis and Martialis, donated by the pope to Desiderius and donated by him to the new monastery.

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