santuario, diocesano, Santuario Diocesano Abbazia Santa Maria La Sanità

On the slopes of Monte Corno, in the Basilicata countryside near Pisticci, stands the Abbey of Santa Maria La Sanità. It was built from the foundations around 1087, on the ruins of an older Greek-Byzantine monastic settlement from about the year 1000. The patrons were Rodolfo and Emma Maccabeo, Norman nobles, who entrusted the new abbey to Benedictine monks following the rule of ora et labora, prayer and work.

The Benedictines of Taranto later took charge for a time, tending the place as if it were their own. In 1987, the abbey was declared a diocesan sanctuary. The main feast here falls in the week before the last Sunday of April. Still known simply as the Abbey, this sanctuary is a layered piece of southern Italian history: Norman stone over Byzantine foundations, with a long, quiet Benedictine thread running through.

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