santuario, Santuario Maria SS.ma del Carmine

At the edge of Palmi, the Carmelites built a church in the 1540s, outside the city walls. Of that original structure, only the floor plan remains. The present sanctuary, a single nave, was rebuilt after the devastating earthquakes of 1894 and 1908. In the 1930s it was embellished with stuccoes, frescoes, oil paintings, and gold-leaf decoration. The high altar, an eighteenth-century piece, holds a striking full-length wooden sculpture of the Madonna del Carmine, carved in 1782 by Domenico De Lorenzo, surrounded by cherubs.

The sanctuary’s principal feast is on 16 November, commemorating a miraculous intervention during the 1894 earthquake. At the evening procession, the statue is suddenly rushed along the final stretch of road, at the very spot where the faithful were caught by the tremors, to the cry of ‘figghiolifujimu’, ‘run, children’. The sacred image is ‘lowered’ on 30 October, followed by the ‘sixteen days of the miracle’ of prayer, catechesis, and a Marian vigil. In 1994, the church was raised to a sanctuary, a beacon of devotion and a centre of Carmelite spirituality.

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