Benedectine Monasteries of Subiaco , clic sull'icona benedettina per tornare alla home
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A refectory is one of the fundamental places in a monastery, therefore it was one of first places to be built at St. Scholastica's, together with a kitchen. The "Chronicle" of Mirzio reports that in 1605 the ancient refectory was destroyed and rebuilt; it wasn't "narrow and uncomfortable" anymore but "more spacious and suitable", after removing a central column of the ancient monastery. The refectory is on the west side of the Cosmatan cloister.
Once the dormitory was on it, but was completely rebuilt elsewhere after many earthquakes. The present refectory, which goes back to 1605, has a big hall with a barrel vault, which takes up the room of the ancient dormitory. The entrance of the refectory is through a lobby, which, on the eastern wall, has a cipollin-marble door in the Renaissance style, with decorations in a particular German taste, typical of other Italian monasteries. On the western wall are two Gothic windows, which from 1924 replace the XVIIth-century rectangular window.
The entrance of the lobby is through a stairway which in ancient times joined the dormitory with the refectory and the church. From the Cosmatan cloister one entered the refectory through a five-arch ambulatory: only one of these arches is a round arch while the other ones are pointed arches, with different crosses. The floor here is so lower than in the cloister that the impost of the arches is in the east, above the pillars of Cosma. The pyramidal corbels of the imposts are an example of the Latium Gothic style.
During the restaurations of the 1915 two little doors with lunettes and stone architraves were reopened in the southern passageway.