A couple of weeks ago I visited with friends the Abbey of Fossanova, near Priverno, around 80 Km south of Rome. We arrived at ten in the morning and our party of five were the only visitors, and yet this Cistercian Abbey is one of the most important monuments in the whole of Italy. It was not my first visit: I saw it for the first time in the 1960’s and came back to it almost every year except for the gap when my wife was down with Alzheimer’s.
I am sure though that most of my readers will by now have glanced at the view of the nave shown here and must be asking themselves what on earth I am talking about; surely, they must be thinking, this is like most large churches. And they would be right, because a photograph of Fossanova reveals as much about it as a picture of George Clooney’s jacket does about the nature of this actor.
What is wrong of the photos of Fossanova is that what you see in them is the walls, which are in this building no more than an involucrum to contain the space and the light within. Remember that the protagonists of any building interior are, in photographs, the walls which here are a mere necessity to display the real thing, the space and the light. So, gentle reader, if you want to know what Fossanova is like there is nothing you can do except to go there, open the west door, walk ten paces inside and look: and look, until you have tears in your eyes due to the emotion that you now understand this extraordinary building.
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