BOBBIO
CIVITA COLUMBANI

In Bobbio, Colombanus found only a half-ruined church, dedicated to St. Peter, and restored it. The nascent monastery was rapidly populated: already in 643 it had about one hundred and fifty monks. Around the monastic nucleus there were the first houses, civil houses. The Abbey of Bobbio, with its Library that in 982 will reach 700 codices, its Scriptorium which from the seventh to the ninth century became the major center of book production in northern Italy, quickly becomes a religious and cultural reference point in the Middle Ages. The monastery, at the height of its expansion, owned properties in the Trebbia valley, the Staffora valley, the Tidone valley, the d’Aveto valley, in Liguria, in Monferrato and in the Langhe, it reaches the gates of Turin, around Lake Garda, from Salò to Bardolino, on the Mantua Lakes, in Piacenza, Ravenna, Genoa, Lucca and Pavia. At the beginning of the year 1000 Bobbio was created bishopric and city by Emperor Henry, and this contributed to giving further prestige and autonomy to the village founded by Saint Columban, at that time the Cathedral was built which was completed at the end of the eleventh century. The episcopal complex with the adjoining bishop’s palace and the seminary will become the second vital center of the town together with the monastic center. From that moment on, the small town of Bobbio became a monastic and episcopal city. Even today, the attentive visitor will not be able to miss the number of churches and spaces linked to ecclesial life that make this small Apennine village a condensation of art, faith and spirituality, so much so that it is considered a small Assisi in the heart of the Ligurian Emilian Apennines.