Monte Pirchiriano. Arduin was then holding his court at Avigliana,
a small town near S. Ambrogio, even now singularly little altered,
and full of mediaeval remains; he not only gave his consent, but
volunteered to sell a site to the monastery, so as to ensure it
against future disturbance.

The first church of Giovanni Vincenzo had been built upon whatever
little space could be found upon the top of the mountain, without,
so far as I can gather, enlarging the ground artificially. The
present church--the one, that is to say, built by Hugh de
Montboissier about A.D. 1000--rests almost entirely upon stone
piers and masonry. The rock has been masked by a lofty granite
wall of several feet in thickness, which presents something of a
keep-like appearance. The spectator naturally imagines that there
are rooms, &c., behind this wall, whereas in point of fact there is
nothing but the staircase leading up to the floor of the church.
Arches spring from this masking wall, and are continued thence
until the rock is reached; it is on the level surface thus obtained
that the church rests. The true floor, therefore, does not begin
till near what appears from the outside to be the top of the
building.

There is some uncertainty as to the exact date of the foundation of
the monastery, but Claretta {11} inclines decidedly to the date
999, as against 966, the one assigned by Mabillon and Torraneo.
Claretta relies on the discovery, by Provana, of a document in the
royal archives which seems to place the matter beyond dispute. The
first abbot was undoubtedly Avverto or Arveo, who established the
rules of the Benedictine Order in his monastery. "In the seven
hours of daily work prescribed by the Benedictine rule," writes