Immersed in the green of the Marche’s countryside, built from the remains of the ancient Roman city of Urbs Salvia, the Chiaravalle Abbey in Fiastra is one of the most extraordinary testimonies of Cistercian architecture in Italy. Witnessing an unprecedented agricultural and economic development, surviving centuries of tumult and destruction unscathed, and even used as an internment camp for Jewish prisoners during WWII, the abbey of Fiastra has only recently, one thousand years since its foundation, become once again home to the Benedictine order and the Cistercian monks who observe it.