When Cassiodorus retires from Rome’s political life, he establishes on his property a monastery school called the Vivarium. In this school, monks and hermits have an opportunity to learn how to perfect their vocation through a rigorous study of scripture, scriptural commentaries, Latin and Greek, grammar and rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy, philosophy, and even copying and contemplating both scripture and commentaries.
In the Vampire Chronicles, after Cassiodorus dies, the spirit of Gremt is so inspired by the promptings of Pandora that he, along with the vampire Teskhamen and Teskhamen’s ghost-fledgling Hesketh, begins the Talamasca Order, based on the disciplines of the Vivarium. Every Talamasca Motherhouse is very similar to a Vivarium school, where members gather information, study rigorously, and pursue absolute truth.
The Vivarium appears in Pandora (1998) and Prince Lestat (2014). For more perspectives on the Vivarium in the Vampire Chronicles, read the Alphabettery entries Cassiodorus, Gremt Stryker Knollys, Hesketh, Pandora, Talamasca Order, and Teskhamen.