Venerable Benedict of Nursia

Benedict was born in Nursia in central Italy and sent to study in Rome, but he left the schools and his inheritance to live as a hermit. For three years he lived in a cave at Subiaco, fed by a monk named Romanus, who let bread down to him on a rope with a little bell. Disciples gathered, and he founded monasteries there and later, c. 529, on Monte Cassino, where he built a church of St John the Baptist on the site of a temple of Apollo.

There he wrote his Rule for monks, which became the basis of monastic life in the West. His life is known from the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great. He died c. 547 at Monte Cassino, in the church after receiving Communion, with his hands raised in prayer.