The role played by the monastic communities in building western culture is the heart of this work. a reference point for historians and scholars.In the Italian geographical maps, as in the entire European continent, toponyms still abound and refer to ancient names of abbeys, convents, priories and hermitages. Places where so many monastic colonies sprang up and often flourished for centuries. Carthusians and Cistercians, just to mention two well-known orders, proceeded to continue thework of improving agricultural and cultural “land” prepared by the Benedictines and Augustinian monks. From Italy to France, from Spain to Portugal, from Great Britain to Germany, to far Scandinavia, the main abbeys have played an irreplaceable role in handing down the ancient knowledge through codes and manuscripts, often finely illuminated, while spreading at the same time new practices that have helped to build the foundations of our being and feel European today. The texts are accompanied by detailed color and black and white images, that show details that would otherwise be impossibile to understand.