Badia San Savino, Romanesque abbey in Montione, Cascina, Italy

Badia San Savino is a fortified Romanesque abbey complex in Montione, Cascina, measuring 56 by 67.70 metres and standing on an artificial hillock (motta) raised against Arno floods. It has two levels: service rooms (stores, stables, cellars) open on the west and south sides, while a steep stone vaulted ramp leads up to the monks' quarters. A crenellated roofline is still recognisable despite later roofs and small windows.

Three Lombard brothers, Gumberto, Ildiberto and Gumbardo, founded the monastery on 30 April 780; Gumberto became its first abbot under the Benedictine rule. A flood of the Arno between 1115 and 1122 destroyed the original building at Ceragiolo, and Abbot Guidone had it rebuilt on the present site, documented by a deed of 10 January 1122. The abbey remained dependent on Camaldoli until 1326, when its abbots gained independence.

The complex is still called "Badia", from the Latin abbatia, and since 1795 the former farm has belonged to the descendants of a Pisan landowning family, while the monks' cells were turned into flats. In the courtyard beside the church you can see the grain pits, a well and the cistern at the centre of the vegetable garden. On the wall of a house on the south side, friezes of clear Eastern origin recall the crusades to the Holy Land.

The abbey stands on an artificial mound (Motta) raised to protect it from Arno floods. Access to the upper level is via a steep stone ramp covered by a vault. The former monks' cells are now private apartments, so the monumental entrance, the stairway to the church and the courtyard with its grain pits, well and cistern are the parts visible to visitors.

On the wall of a house on the south side are friezes of clear Eastern origin, which recall the crusades to the Holy Land. In the courtyard next to the church are grain pits, a well and the cistern at the centre of the vegetable garden. The monumental entrance with its staircase still shows, in the vault, the machicolations and the positions of the old roll-up gates.