santuario, basilica, Santuario Basilica di San Biagio

On the rocky spur of Monte San Biagio, where the old fortified settlement of Maratea once stood, this early Christian basilica holds a curious and persistent claim to the miraculous. It is the custodian of the relics of Saint Blaise, a physician and bishop-martyr from Sebaste, whose remains arrived here in 732. Their journey to Rome was interrupted by a storm, and Maratea became their final resting place.

The church’s fame, however, rests on a stranger phenomenon. From its marble walls and columns, a yellowish liquid, the so-called “manna”, is said to seep. Believers collected this watery, slightly tinted moisture, using it to treat the sick. The miracle was authenticated by a papal bull in 1563. Raised to the dignity of a minor basilica in 1941, the sanctuary remains a place where the sacred is felt in the very fabric of the stone, and the saint is honoured with not one, but two annual festivals.

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