Probatus

Probatus (Italian: Provato) was the Abbot of Farfa from 770 until 781, and the first abbot native to the Sabina.^[1] He steered the abbey through the fall of the Kingdom of the Lombards, trying to prevent the disastrous aggression of its last king, and kept it from falling under the jurisdiction of either the Papacy or the Papal States. With the benefit of his local connections he oversaw a great expansion of the abbey's properties through grants and purchases, and also rationalised its holdings to create a robust base for an early medieval monastic community.

^ Marios Costambeys, Power and Patronage in the Early Medieval Italy: Local Society, Italian Politics, and the Abbey of Farfa, c. 700–900 (Cambridge: 2007), 158, notes the "practical advantage that his personal contacts and knowledge gave him in navigating the choppy waters of central Italian politics in the third quarter of the eighth century."

[1] Marios Costambeys, Power and Patronage in the Early Medieval Italy: Local Society, Italian Politics, and the Abbey of Farfa, c. 700–900 (Cambridge: 2007), 158, notes the "practical advantage that his personal contacts and knowledge gave him in navigating the choppy waters of central Italian politics in the third quarter of the eighth century."

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