In the heart of one of the most modern area of Rome, along the Laurentina street, the "Tre Fontane" abbey is a place of history, art and, above all, faith.
Here, on 29th June of year 67, the Apostle Paul was martyrised with a sword, that severed his head. Three times Paul's head touched the floor, and three were the miraculous sources that gushed from that contact.
Here, after some centuries, a group of monks from Cilicia – St. Paul's native country – founded a monastery, in wich were preserved the precious relics of the martyr Anastasius the Persian.
It was here that St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the great Cistercian abbot who lived in the twelfth century, had a vision of a ladder through which the souls of the dead ascended into heaven accompanied by the prayers of the living: the Scala Coeli.
And here the monks of St. Bernard, arrived in 1140, built a magnificent abbey, enriched over the centuries by extraordinary works of art. Here, finally, Pope Pius IX in 1868 established a community of Trappists. And Trappists are the religious who are still living there.