santuario, mariano, diocesano, Santuario Mariano Diocesano della Beata Vergine di Monte Mauro

The Santuario Mariano Diocesano della Beata Vergine di Monte Mauro stands above a thousand metres, on a rocky, vegetated summit some five kilometres from Pescopagano. Below, the Guana stream runs towards the Ofanto. This is a Norman-era church, probably from the eleventh century, though much rebuilt. Such mountain sanctuaries were often raised in remote places, marking the landscape with faith as much as with stone.

The Virgin here is also called the Madonna di Mauriello, after a vanished hamlet where an earlier chapel may have stood. A monument to the Immaculate Virgin, on a three-metre base, was inaugurated in 1988. The main feast falls on the last Sunday of May. In 1976, the church was declared a diocesan sanctuary; in February 2025, it was elevated further, to a "Marian Diocesan Sanctuary". The altar incorporates polychrome marbles from the eighteenth century. A place of long devotion, shaped by altitude and history.

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