Fossanova Abbey is located in the municipality of Priverno in the province of Latina and takes its name from a sewer which in the early days of the small village of Priverno was called Fossa Nova. The abbey is a perfect example of the early Italian Gothic style, indeed more precisely of a visible form of transition from Romanesque to Gothic; the interior is bare or almost bare of frescoes according to the austere memento mori of the Cistercian monks. Declared a "national monument" in 1874, the Fossanova Abbey is the oldest example of Gothic-Cistercian art in Italy and, together with the Casamari Abbey, one of its highest expressions. The complex was born at the end of 1100 from the transformation of a pre-existing Benedictine monastery. The abbey complex known as a reconstruction of the Benedictine one is made up of the cloister, the fulcrum of the entire organism, the church of Santa Maria, the Chapter Hall with the monks' dormitories above, the refectory, the kitchen and the dormitories of the lay brothers. The pilgrims' house, the cemetery and the infirmary complete the ensemble. Consecrated in 1208, it preserves the bare architecture, the magnificent rose window and lantern and the finely sculpted capitals, testifying to the pre-eminent role exercised in the area. The buildings of the monumental complex are fenced so as to appear as a village, furthermore enriched by the remains of a Roman villa from the 1st century BC, visible right in front of the church. In one of the abbey premises, the monks' products are sold, from food to wines and liqueurs. In the infirmary there is the room where St. Thomas Aquinas lived, prayed and meditated in the last days of his life and where he died in 1274; still today the simple empty tomb is preserved in the church (the body was transferred by the Dominicans to Toulouse at the end of the 14th century) made up of a rectangular marble or travertine slab.