The present monastery was built in the early 18th century after an earthquake had nearly leveled the former 13th-century monastery founded by Pietro Angelerio da Isernia, subsequently elected Pope
Celestine V. Pietro Angelerio had been a
hermit at the Mountain, at what is now the
Eremo di San Onofrio in Monte Morrone. For centuries, this was the main abbey of the
Celestine order, a
Benedictine order offshoot. By the 19th century, the abbey was deconsecrated, functioning more recently as a prison. In the last decades, restoration has proceeded and it now serves as a Museum The site has carried a number of names,
Abbazia di Santo Spirito al Morrone with its church of
Santo Spirito;
Badia Morronese; or the
Abbazia di Santo Spirito a Sulmona. The first buildings at the site arose by 1293, and were both enlarged over the centuries and devastated by earthquakes in
1456 and catastrophically in
1706. This led to major reconstruction in the present
Baroque-style. With the Napoleonic suppression of the monastic orders, in 1807 the convent became host of the
Collegio dei tre Abruzzi and an
Ospizio di mendicità (poorhouse), till it was made into a prison until well into the 20th century. The Abbey was taken over by the
Wehrmacht during World War 2 and used as a prison and site of execution for captured members of the
Italian resistance. A memorial plaque commemorates local shepherd Michele del Greco, who was executed on December 22, 1943 for helping allied POW's. ==Church of the Holy Spirit==