SUBIACO (anc. Sublaqueum), a town of Italy, picturesquely situated on the Anio, 1,339 ft. above sea-level. The town's population in 1931 was 8,804. It was so called from its position under the three artificial lakes constructed in the gorge of the Anio in connection with the aqueduct of the Anio Novus, which had its intake at the lower end of the lowest of them (the Simbruina stagna of Tacitus). On the banks of this lake Nero constructed a villa, in the remains of which was found the beautiful headless statue of a youth kneeling, now in the Museo delle Terme at Rome. The lakes ceased to exist, the last dam being washed away in 1305. In 494 St. Benedict retired as a hermit to a cave (Sacro Speco) above the lakes of the Anio. In 505, probably, he founded the first of his twelve monasteries. The church dedicated to S. Scholastica, S. Benedict's sister, was erected in 981. In 1053 it was restored and a campanile built, which still exists; and in the middle of the 13th century the church was rebuilt in the Gothic style. Other buildings grew up round it ; the cloister on the right is a fine Romanesque arcaded court with twisted columns and Cosmatesque (13th cent.) mosaics, the south side by Lorenzo Cosmati, the other three sides by his sons (c. 1227-1243). See BENEDICTINES.
Arnold Pannartz and Conrad Schweinheim, two German eccles iastics, set up here the first printing press in Italy, issuing an edi tion of Donatus (1464), followed by one of Cicero (1465) and of Lactantius (1465). Copies of the Lactantius, of the Augustine
of 1467, printed not here but in Rome, and of other rare incunab ula are preserved here. Still more interesting is the monas tery of the Sacro Speco, higher up the hill. The Grotta dei Pas tori has frescoes of the 9th century, while the Sacro Speco, or cave of St. Benedict, contains frescoes of the 13th, and so does the lower church, the latter having been in part repainted in the latter half of that century by an unknown master Conxolus. The upper church contains scenes from the life of Christ by a Sienese master of the end of the 14th century, to whom is also attributable a remarkable fresco of the triumph of death and some tury work, and in the chapel of S. Gregory a portrait of St. Francis of Assisi (who was perhaps here in 1218), probably painted be fore 1228, as it lacks the halo and the stigmata. The whole group of buildings is constructed against the rocky sides of the gorge, part of it on massive substructions. The town contains various buildings constructed by Pius VI., who as cardinal was com mendatory abbot of Subiaco. It is crowned by a mediaeval castle constructed originally by Gregory VII.
See P. Egidi, G. Giovannoni, F. Hermanin, V. Federici, I Monasteri di Subiaco (Rome, 1904) ; A. Colasanti, L'Aniene (Bergamo, 1906).
(T. A.) SUBJECT: see TERM, JUDGMENT and LOGIC.