Monastero di San Felice, Former Benedictine monastery in Pavia, Italy.
Monastero di San Felice is a former Benedictine monastery in Pavia with a church featuring three apses. The interior contains a crypt with white marble reliquary arks and a cloister supported by 30 marble columns.
The monastery was founded during the Lombard period around 760 and received donations from King Desiderius and Queen Ansa. After centuries of religious importance, it was suppressed in 1785.
The monastery was commonly called "della Regina", probably after a Lombard queen, and only took the name San Felice around 1000 when the saint's relic was placed in the church. In 1611 Abbess Bianca Felicita Parata had an epigraph on the north wall transcribed, recording building works ordered by Emperor Otto I.
The buildings now house departments of the University of Pavia, making it accessible as a working campus. Visitors should expect that active academic areas may have limitations on exploration.
Æthelswith, sister of Alfred the Great and wife of Burgred of Mercia, died at Pavia in 888 and was buried here in 890, not among the eighth-century tombs found in 1996. Those eight burials, some frescoed, lie in the university hall; one bears the name of abbess Ariperga, another held a nun with a gilded bronze ring and leather shoes.
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