This late Romanesque-style environment served as an entrance ‘atrium’ or, as it was called in Benedictine monasteries, a ‘Galilea’. It was a sorting place from which one could access the different abbey areas, beyond which it was not possible to go, due to the cloister. Entering from the male cloister and looking at the hall in a clockwise direction, on the left, we find the internal staircase connecting with the above chapel of S. Luca, the Gothic portal giving access to the original church of SS. Salvatore (built by S. Guglielmo himself), a small portal leading to the outdoor cemetery area, and finally a large, now walled-up portal that once led to the female monastery. The most important element of this environment is certainly the red stone sarcophagus, probably used for the burial of abbess Agnese. It is not easy to understand the original function of this place. It was not born as a place of worship (Lower Chapel) with a cemetery function, as some historians claim; it would have served from the beginning as a ‘Galilea’; it is a typical environment of many Benedictine monasteries and was also called ‘Paradiso’. The lower atrium essentially constitutes the foundation of the Chapel of S. Luca above; it has the same two bays separated by two monolithic columns, each with a capital from which the cross vaults depart. The columns and peripheral half-columns amount to twelve, a reference to the twelve apostles. Try to compare the floor plans of the two overlapping rooms; what do you notice? By going up to the upper floor, in the chapel of S. Luca, you will see the temporal leap between the Romanesque and Gothic styles.