POMPOSA, ABBEY OF

Former Benedictine abbey four miles from Codigoro in the Province of Ferrara and Diocese of Comacchio (Emilia), Italy. The remains of an inscription date the existence of the primitive church from the 7th century, but written records go back only to the 9th century. A letter of Pope John VIII (874) attests that the monastery came directly under the authority of the Holy See. Later it passed under the temporal jurisdiction of the archbishops of Ravenna, until Emperor Otto III made it a royal abbey. Its power increased with imperial and papal privileges and with donations from princes and private persons alike. From the 11th century on, Pomposa held large estates of cultivated land, as well as salt and fishing marshes. The abbot, as a prince of the Empire, exercised wide ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction, and gave judgment according to the statutes of the abbey. It was a center of cultural activity as early as the 11th century; peter damian wrote part of his works there, guido of arezzo spent his youth at the abbey composing his musical system, and Emperor Otto II and the poets Dante and Tasso were its guests. In the 16th century increasingly bad climatic conditions and earthquakes obliged the monks to transfer to Ferrara, where the Duke of Este had offered land for a new monastery (San Benedetto). Pomposa itself continued to be used as a secular parish.

The numerous codices and manuscripts from the abbey's archives and library were dispersed when the abbey was suppressed during the Napoleonic period. The chief monuments remaining at Pomposa today are the basilica, the oldest building, with splendid mosaics and frescoes; the bell tower (11th century) in the Lombard style; and the Palazzo della Ragione, where the abbots administered justice. After the Napoleonic suppression it became private property and was turned into a farm. In the last few decades, however, considerable restoration has been undertaken.

Bibliography: p. federici, Rerum Pomposianarum historia (Rome 1781); v.2 in MS at Monte Cassino. g. mercati, "Il catalogo della biblioteca di Pomposa," Studi e documenti di storia e diritto 16 (1896) 143–177. m. roberti, Pomposa (Ferrara 1906). p. f. kehr, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum. Italia Pontificia, 8 v. (Berlin 1906–35) 5:177–187. m. salmi, L'Abbazia di Pomposa (Rome 1935).

[s. olivieri]