INTRODUCTION: 7 
Che fa nascere i fiori e i frutti santi 
Qui @ Maccario, qui ® Romoaldo: 
Qui son li frati miei, che dentro 4 chiostri 
Fermar li piedi, ¢ tennero ’I cor saldo". 
This monastery partook of the vicissitudes of the 
south of Italy. Sixty years after its foundation it 
was totally destroyed by Zoto, the Lombard duke of 
Benevento ; the abbot and monks fled to Rome, and 
were permitted by Pelagius the second to build a 
monastery near the Lateran. After an absence o 
one hundred and thirty years, their original _—s 
tion was rebuilt in its primitive splendour”. It 
was afterwards frequently plundered by the Lom- 
bard princes, and the Saracens. In 884 it was 
burned by the Saracens, and saint Bertharius the 
abbot was slain. The monks escaped to Teano, and 
from thence to Capua, where they resided - sixty 
under Rodolf, they attempted to get possession of — 
the place, but were defeated by the monks ©. 
" Dante, Pardiso, canto xxii, stanza 37. 
: Mabillon, vol, i. Gian, vol. i. p. age 
'§ Tbid. vol. ii. p. 645. 670. ; vol. v. p. 1 
14 Ibid. vol. iii. p- 250, 481. Chron. Ete - vita Abbatis 
Desiderii, p, 413 
© Tbid. vol. iv. > 469. 
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