This mendicant order was that of the Emeritani, somewhat mysterious monks of the Ordo Fratrum Sancti Augustini, who founded churches and monasteries when the Franciscans and Dominicans did the same. The pilgrims who came to Rieti and went to Rome needed assistance and the Hermits provided it, hosting them as a gift of God’s love under these vaults. The pilgrims traveled at the expense of their sins, and had as the objective of their uncomfortable journey, the City of David, that of the Great King, Nazareth and Bethlehem, Capernaum, the Mount of Beatitudes and the Sea of ​​Tiberias.

The Order of the Hermits, later to become the Augustinians, was born from the merger ordered by the Bull Licet Ecclesiae catholicae, of Pope Alexander IV. The new religious community gathered the friars of the Hermits of Giovanni Bono (Augustinian rule, 1225), the Hermits of Tuscia, the Hermits of San Guglielmo (Benedictine rule), the Hermits of Brettino (Augustinian rule, 1228), the Hermits of Monte Favale (Benedictine rule), and other minor congregations in the Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, who wear the black habit, consisting of a scapular, cowl and tunic, with a hood and wide sleeves; cinched at the waist by a leather belt with a buckle. This style of dress dates back to the 13th century, the years of the foundation of the Rieti temple. According to a widespread legend, it was Saint Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine, who spread that type of habit, because she had dreamed of the Madonna dressed in that way after the death of her holy husband, Joseph. Because of the leather belt, the Augustinian friars were also known in the ecclesiastical world as the “cintati”.

In that 13th century, Rieti, umbilicus Italiae, was affected by a long period of prosperity in which the population grew in number, the increase in hands increased the work and there was an interesting economic prosperity. The roads were improved and trade multiplied and relations with nearby cities increased, especially with Rome. Culture flourished, all due to the vivifying presence of the Pontiffs and their Papal Court, who very often resided in the austere Papal Palace built and expanded next to the Cathedral of Santa Maria and which Boniface VIII strengthened after the earthquake of 1298, with the arch that bears his name and which gives directly onto Via Cintia. The Papal Court was numerous with cardinals, bishops and monsignors who lived in the city for long periods, doctors, theologians, men of letters, artists and musicians.

Starting roughly from the mid-fourteenth century, the Mendicant Orders were the protagonists of a real building-religious competition, engaging in the construction of the churches and convents of St. Francis, that of the Hermits of St. Augustine and finally of the Dominicans, who erected their temple and monastery giving them the name of the founder of the so-called Order of Preachers, precisely St. Dominic, who was canonized in Rieti by Pope Gregory IX, on 13 July 1234, at the Basilica of St. Mary.

These imposing buildings, due to their size and majesty, still dominate the entire historic center. These churches have returned today to play that role of ecclesiastical and community life that is necessary and decisive, together with the great religious initiatives and international cultural events of considerable value that they host under their naves, after all three churches were recently restored, with the use of significant financial resources by the State, the Lazio Region, and the Commissioner for the works of the earthquake, which occurred with serious consequences in September 1997.

Ottorino Pasquetti