The west wing of the monastery is still lived in: private homes sit inside a complex that documents record from 1141, their windows looking out over the wooded plateau of Monte Pierno. The abbey of Santa Maria di Pierno was founded where the chroniclers wrote that there was nothing at all, in loco horroris et vastae solitudinis, and legend dates the church to 1139 and to Saint William of Vercelli, said to have wanted it after a wooden statue of the Madonna was found on that very mountain. The documents tell something less novelistic and more solid: from 1141 bishop Roger I granted the church to the abbey of Goleto, the large women's monastery at Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi, and Pierno housed Benedictine nuns and oblate monks under the protection of the lords of Vitalba.
What to see
The first serious building campaign dates from the end of the 12th century: it was run by Gilberto da Balvano, the local feudal lord, who brought in the architect Sarolo and craftsmen from Muro Lucano. The underlying structure survives from that campaign, reworked by centuries of collapses and rebuildings. In 1514 pope Leo X raised the sanctuary to the rank of abbey and handed its patronage to the Caracciolo, feudal lords of the Vulture and Melfi country; in 1531 the complex passed to the Doria princes. Then came the decline: in the early 17th century, while the dioceses of Melfi and Muro Lucano argued over jurisdiction, the abbey revenues had run out and Pierno was left with one friar as custodian, one deacon as server and one priest as abbot.
Uphill from the church, the excavations begun in 1997 have brought the old abbey back to light. The buildings stood on two levels: the upper one, at the same height as the church floor, had a corridor and a rectangular hall; the lower one, just as large and vaulted, was reached by a stone staircase. Outside, two burials of the 14th century came to light, probably of monks, and beneath all of it the remains of a smaller but similar structure from the pre-Norman period.
Visiting
The sanctuary is about ten kilometres from the town, on a plateau inside the Bosco Santa Croce, chestnut, beech and fir woods where hares, foxes and wild boar live: you get there by car, and the drive is the long part of the visit. Besides the church you can still make out the square monastery block, with its courtyard in the middle, and the area that was the garden. The busiest day of the year is 15 August, feast of the Madonna di Pierno.
Our editors' tip
Before going into the church, walk round to the uphill side where the excavations are: from there you can see how much bigger the complex was than the building standing today, and you understand why part of the monastery served as the sacristan's lodging and, perhaps, as rooms for travellers and pilgrims. And if you hear people talking about Buffalo, it is not a mistake: in the church of Sant'Antonio, in New York State, there is a copy of the statue that emigrants from San Fele have carried in procession since 1941.