The abbey was founded in 1179 as a subsidiary of the Abbey of Fossanova in Lazio, in the line of the Abbey of Clairvaux. The church was consecrated on 24 October 1179 and the abbey was governed by Cistercian monks until the suppression of the religious orders in the Kingdom of Naples by Joseph Bonaparte in 1807. As abbeys daughters had Santa Maria of the arc in Sicily, the Holy Spirit of the valley in Puglia, Santa Maria Incoronata in Puglia and the Abbey of Saints Vito and except in Abruzzo.