Anselm (died in 805) the Duke of Forum Julii, (modern Friuli), in the northeastern part of Lombard Italy, left the world at the height of his secular career, and in 750 built a monastery at Fanano , a place given to him by Aistulf, King of the Lombards, who had married Anselm's sister Gisaltruda. Two years later he built the monastery of Nonantula , a short distance northeast of Modena, which Aistulf endowed. Anselm went to Rome, where Pope Stephen III invested him with the habit of St Benedict, gave him some relics of St Sylvester and appointed him Abbot of Nonantula . Anselm founded many hospices where the poor and the sick were sheltered and cared for by monks.

Desiderius, who succeeded Aistulf as King of the Lombards in 756, banished Anselm from Nonantula in favor of his own protegé. Anselm spent the seven years of his exile at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, but returned to Nonantula after Desiderius was made prisoner by Charlemagne in 774. Until 1083 Nonantula was an imperial monastery, and after Anselm's time its discipline often suffered from imperial interference in the election of abbots.

Having been abbot for fifty years, Anselm died at Nonantula in 805, where the commune still honors him as patron. He is venerated as a saint on March 3.