Maguzzano Abbey

Of Benedictine origins, the abbey complex consists of the church dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta and a cloister surrounded by a large portico supported by elegant sixteenth-century columns. Present near a Roman road at the end of the 9th century, the Benedictine “Abatiola” was set on fire by the Hungarians at the beginning of the 20th century, and later devastated by the Visconti troops in 1339. After the unification with the Abbey of S. Benedetto Po in Polirone (Mn) in 1490, it was rebuilt and embellished with the beautiful Renaissance church and the elegant cloister (1491-1496). The Abbey dominates a suggestive landscape that descends from the hills to the shores of Lake Garda.

The abbey, of Benedictine origins, today belongs to the Community of San Giovanni Calabria which has brought faith and spirituality back to this place where art harmonises with the activities of a very active ecumenical centre.
The abbey complex is made up of the church dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta with harmonious Renaissance lines inside which, on the main altar, is the altarpiece depicting the Assumption of the Virgin, a work by Alessandro Bonvicino known as Moretto e bottega (1552).
Noteworthy is the cloister surrounded by a large portico supported by elegant sixteenth-century columns. In the spring of 1553 Cardinal Reginald Pole retired there.
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