Sanctuary

"This is the sanctuary. It was built by my great-grandfather to honor the memory of the Assassin Order and protect its secrets."

―Mario Auditore to his nephew Ezio, 1478.^[src]^-[m]

The Sanctuary was a secret chamber located beneath the Villa Auditore in Monteriggioni, used by the Assassin Order during the Renaissance and modern times.

The Sanctuary was accessed primarily through an entrance hidden behind a bookshelf in Mario Auditore's study in the Villa.

Statues[edit | edit source]

The Sanctuary's most notable feature was its statues of seven legendary Assassins, who had "guarded the freedom of humanity when it was most threatened."^[1]

Six of these statues each had corresponding seals at their base, which had to be collected and returned in order to unlock the gate in front of the seventh statue of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad. This seventh statue also held the unbreakable armor set fashioned by Altaïr using the knowledge he had gained from an Apple of Eden.^[1]

These statues represented:

Qulan Gal
Atop this pedestal stands a statue of Qulan Gal, the male Mongolian assassin. He used a bow and arrow to shoot Genghis Khan's horse.
Darius
Atop this pedestal stands a statue of Darius, the male Persian assassin. He used his hidden blade to kill Xerxes.
Wei Yu
Atop this pedestal stands a statue of Wei Yu, the male Chinese Assassin. He used a spear to kill the first Chinese Emperor, Qin Shi Huang.
Amunet
Atop this pedestal stands a statue of Amunet, the female Egyptian assassin. She killed Cleopatra with a snake.
Iltani
Atop this pedestal stands a statue of Iltani, the female Babylonian assassin. She poisoned Alexander the Great.
Leonius
Atop this pedestal stands a statue of Leonius, the male Roman assassin. He stabbed Caligula with a dagger.
Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad

History[edit | edit source]

Early history[edit | edit source]

The Sanctuary was constructed at some point during the 14th century by Domenico Auditore, an Italian Assassin and the founder of the House of Auditore. It served as a tribute to some of the greatest Assassins in history and was also used to store the Armor of Altaïr, locked behind a gate which could only be unlocked using the seals from the six Assassin Tombs hidden across Italy.^[1]

At some point in his youth, Mario Auditore, Domenico's great-grandson, visited the Sanctuary and learned about the tombs. Although he sought them out, he was unable to find any and ultimately gave up on his search.^[1]

In 1478, as Mario's nephew Ezio was becoming more devoted to the Assassin cause, Mario sought to further educate him about their family's history and ties to the Brotherhood and showed him the Sanctuary. After explaining its history and purpose, Mario encouraged Ezio to find the six Assassin Tombs and retrieve their seals in order to unlock the chamber holding the Armor of Altaïr, which he was more than willing to give to his nephew.^[1]

Between 1478 and 1497,^[2] Ezio located and explored all six tombs, retrieving their seals. He later returned to the Sanctuary and placed the seals in the corresponding slots, allowing him to claim Altaïr's unbreakable armor.^[1]

Siege of Monteriggioni[edit | edit source]

During the Fall of Monteriggioni on 2 January 1500, the Sanctuary was used as a temporary haven for survivors fleeing the attack, in which a passageway behind the statue of Altaïr served as an escape route for Ezio, his family, and several hundred of the townspeople.^[3]

This hidden door led them into the tunnels underneath Monteriggioni, which were also connected to the Auditore Family Crypt, and ultimately allowed Ezio and the others to escape to safety.^[3]

In 1509, Seraphina, a member of the Cult of Hermes who had infiltrated Monteriggioni, used the Sanctuary's secret passageway to flee the town after stealing several precious Auditore relics and making a failed attempt on Ezio's life.^[4] The Assassin pursued her and her accomplices into the Sanctuary and through the underground tunnels, but Seraphina ultimately managed to escape.^[5]

Modern times[edit | edit source]

"Whoa, they built this place to last. No signs of structural damage, and no cell signal either. This place is perfect."

―Rebecca Crane, upon entering the Sanctuary in 2012.^[src]^-[m]

Centuries later, in September 2012, Ezio's descendant Desmond Miles relived his genetic memories in the Animus and learned about the Sanctuary.^[1] After their hideout in Rome was discovered and raided by Abstergo Industries, Desmond and his team decided to travel to Monteriggioni and use the Sanctuary as their new hideout, since all other Assassin refuges in Italy had similarly been compromised.^[6]

With the entrance to the Sanctuary sealed from the other side, Desmond and Lucy Stillman followed a Bleeding Effect-induced projection of Ezio, tracing the escape route he had used after the 1500 siege. This allowed them to enter the Sanctuary through the secret passageway behind Altaïr's statue, whereupon they unlocked the bookcase entrance to grant Rebecca Crane and Shaun Hastings access to the chamber.^[6]

After conducting reconnaissance, Rebecca concluded that its underground structure provided ideal protection against Abstergo's cell phone surveillance. However, as the Sanctuary lacked electricity, Desmond was tasked with navigating Monteriggioni to restore power. Once the safehouse was operational, the Assassins resumed their search for Ezio's Apple of Eden, having Desmond continue to explore his memories in the Animus.^[6]

On October 10, upon discovering that Ezio had hidden the Apple in the Colosseum Vault in Rome, the team realized that the door protecting the artifact required a voice password to open. After Desmond used his Eagle Vision to find a series of numbers left by Ezio in the Sanctuary, Shaun deciphered them and deduced that they corresponded to the 72 names of God. With confidence, he claimed that the password was "72", whereupon the team left Monteriggioni and traveled to Rome.^[6]

Trivia[edit | edit source]

The circular grate in the courtyard at the back of the Auditore Family Villa was actually the top of the Sanctuary, which allowed light in. The Sanctuary could not be viewed from the outside, however.
- In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, the grate at the top of the Sanctuary appeared broken from the inside, even though when viewed from the outside, it appeared undamaged.
In Assassin's Creed II, all of the statues could be examined to gain information about the Assassin, with the exception being Altaïr's statue. In Brotherhood, only the statue of Altaïr could be interacted with, resulting in a short cutscene that involved Desmond using a stereotypical Italian accent, and Rebecca scolding his "racism." This process could have been repeated until Sequence 6, though without Rebecca's reply.
Although all of the Assassin statues, other than Altaïr's, had the small skull mechanisms that opened the entrances of the Assassin Tombs, they could not be interacted with.
- In Brotherhood, the skull mechanisms have been removed from the statues during the siege of Monteriggioni, but reappear in modern Monteriggioni.
Desmond could interact with his teammates or certain items in the Sanctuary during each memory sequence, triggering a variety of conversations.
Although Mario refers to the individuals depicted in the Sanctuary's statues as members of the Assassin Order, only Altaïr and Qulan Gal were Assassins. All the others lived centuries before Hassan-i Sabbāh's reformation of the Hidden Ones into the Assassin Order, with Darius, Iltani, and Wei Yu even preceding the establishment of the Hidden Ones.