Abbazia di San Basilide
Lesignano de' Bagni

The abbey stands on an ancient road that reached Tuscany from the city of Parma, through the Lagastrello
pass and the monastery of S. Salvatore and S. Bartolomeo di Linari, an important stopping place for travelers and pilgrims.
Founded between 1097 and 1106 by the reformed Benedictine congregation of Vallombrosa, the abbey was ruled by this monastic family until 1485. The Abbey of San Basilide replicates the organization of the spaces and the architectural forms of the other abbeys of the same order and therefore constitutes the prototype of the Vallombrosan foundation, with the church with a T-shaped plan oriented to the east and the square cloister on the southern side of the church .
The abbey church, built at the beginning of the 12th century in small blocks of squared stone, consists of a single nave covered with trusses with a protruding transept and a semicircular apse. On the front of the church was added, again in the twelfth century, a portico with two arches and an upper loggia, with capitals depicting the symbols of the evangelists.
Inside the church, simple and devoid of decorations, note the pulpit for the proclamation of the Word made in the thickness of the left side wall and the double staircase in front of the altar that descends to the crypt, where the remains of St. Basilides are kept.
On the southern side of the church there is the cloister, now partly incorporated into subsequent buildings and not open to visitors, with the refectory (south side), the chapter house, the sepulchral crypt for the abbots and the access to the church reserved for monks (side East).
The foundation of the abbey is linked to the figure of Bernardo degli Uberti, abbot of Vallombrosa, cardinal and apostolic legate of Pope Pasquale II, whose appointment as bishop of Parma in 1106 marks the passage of the city from supporting the Empire to loyalty to the Papacy .