Monastero di Torba – FAI

A corner of the Middle Ages in the silence and woods of the Varesotto.
The story of the Torba complex is an ancient one that originates in the 5th century A.D., when the walls of a military outpost against the threat of the barbarians were built near the village of Castelseprio. Even today, the guard tower remains as evidence of the original function of the castrum, which was also carried out by the Goths, Byzantines and Lombards and then changed over time.
From a defensive stronghold, Torba became a religious centre with the settlement of a group of Benedictine nuns who built the monastery and, later, the small church in the 8th century. For about seven centuries, the secluded female community inhabited this place, handing down the frescoes in the tower, hieratic, with an almost mysterious aura, as a legacy of their lasting passage.
At the end of the 15th century, the Benedictine nuns moved away and a slow decline began for Torba, which led the complex to turn into a farm and, at the beginning of the 19th century, to lose its religious function and gradually slip into a state of decay that was only interrupted in 1976 thanks to the FAI. Today, this thousand-year-old site with an important past - not by chance included in the 2011 UNESCO World Heritage List The Lombards in Italy. I luoghi del potere (568-774 A.D.) - lives again in the light of the continuous findings from the Longobard era, which constitute just one of the surprises that the Monastery, and its territory rich in art and nature treasures, offer to those who go in search of places off the beaten track.
The Monastery of Torba is one of the stages of the Via Francisca del Lucomagno, the path that crosses the Italian territory for over 100 km and touches numerous places of interest.