Cistercian monastery - the abbey in Wąchock, located in south-eastern Poland, close to the Sventokshinskih mountains. The monastery was founded in 1179 by the bishop of Krakow Gideon. Monastery found a precious monument of Romanesque architecture in Poland.

In 1218, Pope Honorius III issued a bull, protecting the abbey. In 1241 the temple was built in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Florian. Twenty years later, the monastery was captured by the Mongols, property was looted, and some monks were killed. The monastery was restored Boleslaw the Chaste in 1260 and consecrated bishop of Krakow in 1270.

Abbey flourished over the next few centuries from agriculture, income from the mining industry. In the middle of the seventeenth century in the monastery was reconstructed after a fire. In 1656 the Abbey was attacked by Prince George Rakoczy of Transylvania, which almost completely destroyed the building. Restoration work was carried out in 1659.

In the mid-eighteenth-century interior of the church was decorated with frescoes, the work of Anthony Fratskevich and Balthazar Fontana.

In 1819, Pope Pius VII dissolved the Abbey, the Cistercian monks left the house, the building was closed. The monks returned to the monastery in Wąchock only in 1951, after which in some areas has been a museum.