santuario, arcivescovile, Santuario Arcivescovile Maria SS.ma di Porto Salvo

This Baroque church, founded in 1680, stands as a single-nave sanctuary with a history shaped by both devotion and disaster. Damaged by the great earthquake of 1908, it was enlarged five years later through the offerings of the faithful. At the high altar hangs a seventeenth-century oil painting of the Madonna di Porto Salvo, a sacred image that draws pilgrims each year.

The main festival occurs on the last Saturday and Sunday of April. Yet the more striking tradition unfolds on 25 March, when the painting is carried from the sanctuary to the ancient hilltop borgo of Pentidattilo. There it remains venerated until the last Saturday of April, when thousands of devotees accompany it back in procession. The following Sunday morning, the celebration culminates at the sanctuary. This annual journey, from coast to mountain village and back again, preserves a bond between the church and its surrounding landscape, a ritual that has outlasted earthquakes and centuries.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.