History

The monastery of S. Salvatore in Brescia was founded in 757 by the Lombard King Desiderius and his wife Queen Ansa. Later it became better known as Sta Giulia. Its first abbess was Desiderius’ and Ansa’s daughter Anselberga. It attracted the daughters, sisters and nieces of the most elevated aristocratic family both in the Lombard kingdom and, after its end in 774, under the rule of the Carolingians in Italy, then that of the Emperor Berengar. Emperor Lothar’s daughter Gisla, then his son Louis II’s daughter of the same name, as well as Berengar’s daughter, were nuns and abbesses there, and several princesses and queens were in charge of the affairs of the abbey.

While the authority of the abbesses was in theory restricted to the monastery, in practice they wielded considerable economic, political and social influences on account of both the enormous amount of property they owned, and of their social and political status in relation to the rulers and powerful men with whom they were associated.

Moreover, the monastery was an important cultural centre, producing painting, metalwork and books, including a Necrology (Book of the Dead for whom the nuns prayed to preserve the memory of the family), a rare and valuable document allowing a knowledge of the individual nuns rarely found at this period.

The monastery continued as one of Italy’s main female houses until its dissolution in the 17^th century.