Abbey of Santa Maria di Staffarda

Among the great monuments of the Piedmontese Middle Ages is certainly the Abbey of Santa Maria di Staffarda di Revello, in the province of Cuneo. The building is located in a plain just 9 kilometres from Saluzzo, set in a beautiful landscape framed by a wide circle of mountains, surmounted by the imposing and majestic "King of Stone", Monviso. The complex preserves the Romanesque-Gothic style and the architectural simplicity typical of the Cistercian order. The cloister, partly surrounded by a coloured portico with small columns, represents the centre of the monastic life, with the chapter house, the refectory and the ancient wash-house. Outside, there is the guesthouse, where pilgrims were accommodated, the covered market, where commerce took place, and to the west, almost like a fence, a long series of buildings that make up the real agricultural part of Staffarda, for the most part still in activity with cattle breeding and cereal cultivation typical of the area. The Benedictine Cistercian Abbey was founded between 1122 and 1138 on some land that Marquis Manfredo I of Saluzzo had donated to the monks of the Cistercian Order at the beginning of the 12th century. The basilica-type church (dedicated to Santa Maria) has a nave and two aisles with three apses and is built in brick. The celebrity of the building is due above all to the grandiose harmony of the cloister, even if it suffered serious damage in the battle of 1690 (against the French of Catinat) with the disappearance of the portico of the southern arm and part of the eastern one. The chapter house is very beautiful, divided into nine bays by four central columns that support the cross vaults, with two graceful ogival three-light windows that open at the sides of the entrance. On the south side, there is the monks' refectory, a rectangular room divided longitudinally into three sections by columns; the environment has been modified over time, also because of the destruction of 1690 (on the wall towards the east, there are remains of a fresco depicting the Last Supper. Magnificent is the vast environment of the guest quarters, in the special building to the south of the convent, which has been preserved intact in its two naves, in the four mighty columns of stone ashlars. Almost in front of it there is the medieval building with arcades of the market, whose mass still today confirms the productive importance of Staffarda.