Monastero di Santa Maria a Rosano, Benedictine monastery in Rignano sull'Arno, Italy

Monastero di Santa Maria a Rosano is a Benedictine monastery in Rignano sull'Arno, built in the Romanesque style with a three-nave church divided by square pillars and ending in a semicircular apse. A Renaissance cloister connects to the church and forms an enclosed courtyard on one side of the complex.

The monastery's founding in 780 is recorded in a 16th-century inscription on the church portal, though documents only begin in the early 11th century. In 1040 it became an allodial property of the Counts Guidi, and in 1099 Berta, daughter of Count Guido, was elected abbess and began a larger church, consecrated on 25 March 1130, a year after her death. Florentine forces destroyed the monastery in 1143 during the war against the Guidi, and it was promptly rebuilt; in 1204 the Guidi lost the patronage to the Da Quona.

The Benedictine nuns who live here follow a daily rhythm of Gregorian chant and Latin prayer at fixed hours. Visitors who arrive at the right time of day may hear the chants from beyond the walls.

The monastery sits in Rignano sull'Arno, close to Pontassieve and Bagno a Ripoli, and access for visitors is limited since the community is still active. It is worth checking ahead to find out when the site can be visited.

The church preserves a Romanesque altar frontal of white and green marble intarsia, perhaps from the 1130s, with a fenestrella confessionis at its centre for relics. It was moved from the presbytery to the crypt during the 1960s restorations, and only the front survives; the back was reworked.