The International Center for Monastic Studies (CISM) is founded on the ancient concepts of Philosophia, Scientia et Vita, and is based on three pillars of research aimed at the knowledge, recovery and enhancement of a rich common heritage, and not only monastic, which acts as a link between different cultures now without borders.
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Why monastery and monastic rather than convent and conventual?
"A Monastery is a common building where a community of monks or nuns lives, under the authority of an abbot or an abbess. Monasteries do not constitute a religious order: each of them can be a separate community, or be part of confederations, with some coordination and mutual aid functions.
However, Monastery is not synonymous with Convent.
The latter was introduced with the advent of the mendicant orders, whose monks are called "Friars" and "Sisters", that is, brothers or sisters. [...] St. Francis [of Assisi] gave birth to the first Conventual Orders "(from www.sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it)
The complex of San Giorgio in Vado was born as a monastery and although for about 300 years it was the seat of a specific religious order, such as the Observant Friars Minor of San Francesco, in many historical documents it is referred to as a monastery and therefore the definition of monastery remains.
