Chiaravalle Abbey, central nave
Four miles southeast of Milan stands the impressive Cistercian Benedictine monastery complex of Chiaravalle. The "Abbazia di Chiaravalle was founded in 1135 by San Bernado Abbot of Clairvaux: The Italianized version gave rise to the Abbey's historic name: Chiaravalle.The aim of the Cistercian order was to go back to the genuine Spirit of the Rule of Saint Benedict based on "ora e labora" that is the pursuit of God through work and prayer. The monks lived a life of prayer in complete solitude immersed in a spirit of material poverty and the asceticism of hard manual labour.
The "Abbazia di Chiaravalle" was a very important reference point, from Medieval times onwards, as far as the agricultural colonization of the Milanese lowland was concerned. Input from Chiaravalle gave rise to productive activities contributing to the reclamation of swampy marshlands and initiating more advanced farming methods, as for example the creation of water meadows to increase production. The latter technique makes use of resurgent water which is also available in winter. The temperature of this water supply never goes down below 10° which prevents the soil cooling down too much permitting vegetation to grow in the winter season as well and increases the yield making it possible to implement the cutting of forage seven times a year. Often as many as nine harvests of animal fodder can be obtained.
In their Churches the Cistercians dispensed with ostentation and excessive expense preferring fundamental simplicity and moderation in the décor. The construction of individual bell towers was considered superfluous and at Chiaravalle the elegant solution of a single spire inserted in the main body of the church can be admired. The Abbey unites French construction typologies and traditional Lombard Romanesque tradition: for example the use of brick and on the inside an arcade of round arches resting on low cylindrical pillars.
Looked at from afar the church seems a perfect long cross shape with sturdy buttresses standing out from each side, a prominent transept and the surround of the cupola from which the high tapering tower with tiers of small loggias gradually becoming smaller as the impressive soaring bell-tower rises. The contrast between the red of the bricks and the white of the eighty small marble columns is striking. The tower rises 52 metres from the tiburium or drum and is affectionately called "ciribiciaccola" by the Milanese.
The entrance can be found in the 16th century tower flanked by two small late gothic churches. On the left is the little chapel of St. Bernard (1412) in fired brick, once reserved for women who at that time were not allowed to enter the Abbey Church. Inside there are still traces of frescoes attributed to Callisto Piazza (XVIth century). On the opposite side is another chapel dedicated to St. Bernard built in 1762 where an altar-piece depicting the "Coronation of the Virgin with Saints Benedict and Bernard by Bernardino Gatti called Il Soiaro (1572) painted for the high altar of the Abbey Church but moved in 1952 can be admired. The chapel is now incorporated in the long building used as a guest house. At the end of the large square is the hut shaped façade of the Church with a twin lancet and an oeil-de-boeuf window high up. Jutting out from the façade is a seventeenth century porch under which a 16th century Romanesque main portal with portrayals of saints sculpted on the door gives access to the Church. Inside a nave and two side aisles, frescoed by Fiammenghini, divided by sturdy cylindrical pillars can be found. In the centre of the Church is a richly decorated XVIIth wooden choir carved by Carlo Garavaglia. At the top of the steps leading to the Abbot's apartment is the splendid fresco of a Madonna by Bernadino Luini (1512) known as the "Madonna of the Buonanotte", while others by different great masters enhance the inside of the tiburium. On the right of the Church, part of the beautiful Gothic thirteenth century cloister can be found. It was rebuilt using the surviving side nearest the Church as a model, another half a side lined with pointed arches resting on twin columns some with capitals and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures is also original. The columns recalling knots are typical of Cistercian monastic architecture and are symbolic of one of the principal values of the Religious Order: unity.
Above the entrance door is a faded, weathered fresco by Gaudenzio Ferrari Enthroned Virgin with the Holy Child honoured by the Cistercians and nearby on the right a plaque with the Abbey's coat of arms decorated with a stork and a pastoral staff attesting the foundation date (11th of February 1135).
Opening off the reconstructed sides of the cloister are the fourteenth-century refectory and the Chapter House designed in the late 15th century by Bramante with three graffiti from that period and frescoes attributed to the Flemish school of painters.
After an extended phase of deterioration followed the Napoleonic suppression of the Religious Orders and the expulsion of the monks, the complex was restored between the end of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries, and again after the second world war.
