santuario, diocesano, Maria SS.ma di Carbonara

In the deep quiet of the valley at Curti di Giffoni Valle Piana, the Santuario di Maria SS.ma di Carbonara rises with a stillness that feels almost deliberate. This is a place whose foundation is tangled in miracle and parchment. A notarial act from 1490 records the convent’s founding by the noblewoman Fiorella Falivena, though a Florentine archive suggests it may have existed as early as 1420. The heart of the sanctuary is a Byzantine-style icon of the Madonna, its features suggesting a date before the year 1000. Legend tells how a charcoal-burner found the image in a crevice on Monte Leggio and carried it to the village. The people began a church on that spot, but one night, so the story goes, the entire structure was mysteriously moved to its present site. Sheltered by the mountains and remote from the town, the monastery and church long served as a refuge for the faithful. In 2016, the archbishop raised it to a diocesan sanctuary.

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