Abbadia San Salvatore - Abbadia San Salvatore

Ratchis, King of the Langobards (aka "Lombards") and so one of the successors of King Liutprand, may have founded the convent ~750. He was a pious man and after being overthrown by his brother Aistulf, entered the entered the abbey of Montecassino.

The church, consecrated in 1035, was built over this large crypt, so the crypt probably existed already in Langobardian, pre-Romanesque time. It has 36 (!) sculpted columns.

Here is one of the capitals, decorated with heads of bulls.

"Sacred bulls" have a very long ancestry. They can be found in the Indus Valley, in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Crete... The Hebrews worshiped an idol of the "Golden Calf", the Romans had the Mithraic mysteries, not to talk about Spain..