santuario, diocesano, Madonna della Neve

On the summit of Monte della Neve, this diocesan sanctuary is dedicated to the Madonna della Neve, its name echoing the mountain’s own. The church’s origins are uncertain, though it may have stood at some remove from the ruins of an earlier little church in the wooded zone called Santa Maria, facing Monte Trepidane and below Monte Pietra del Cisso. Over the centuries it was enlarged and altered; the most recent restoration was completed in 2009. Today a staircase leads up to the forecourt before the main doorway. The building is a Baroque church of a type common across southern Italy, where such mountain sanctuaries often replaced or absorbed older, humbler sites of devotion. The result is a place that feels both weathered and renewed, its history written in stone and silence.

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