With these words, Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) began his life of Saint Benedict of Nursia. His famous Dialogues on the Life and the Miracles of the Italian Fathers (written c. 593–594) – Dialogues for short – is our earliest witness to Benedict's character, actions, and influence. It is also our only witness. As Gert Melville has argued, ‘what Gregory's contemporaries knew of Benedict, what many generations afterward knew, and indeed what we know of Benedict today we know from this one text alone’. This includes even his very existence. For without this late-sixth-century account, ‘no “Benedictine” monasticism could ever have been established’. And, it follows, the abbey of Monte Cassino would never have been founded.

This opening chapter introduces a few key features of Benedict's life and death. It does not attempt a full summary of his actions or defence of his spiritual credentials; it rather considers the historical process by which Benedict became known as Monte Cassino's ‘animus’ and ‘anchor’ – the abbey's spirit and foundation. This line of enquiry means asking how his influence spread, shaped, and fostered the abbey's reputation as a centre of spiritual, religious, and intellectual culture. Understanding this historical representation (or imprint) is key to our larger historiographical operation. Because to comprehend the abbey's spiritual and historical esteem – in the Middle Ages and the modern world alike – requires first a look at the man behind its foundation and rise to prominence. It becomes immediately clear that one cannot exist without the other.