Sanctuary of Our Lady of Montallegro

About

The basilica sanctuary of Our Lady of Montallegro is a place of Catholic worship located in the hamlet of Montallegro in the municipality of Rapallo, in the metropolitan city of Genoa. The building is located on a hill about 612 m above sea level. Considered to be among the main Marian shrines in the metropolitan area of Genoa and Liguria, it was built by the people of Rapallo between 1557 and 1558, together with the adjoining pilgrims' shelter, after the apparition of the Virgin Mary to the peasant Giovanni Chichizola on July 2, 1557, according to tradition. The current marble façade is the result of the restoration work carried out by the Milanese architect Luigi Rovelli in 1896, inaugurated with a solemn ceremony on June 21 of the same year. Our Lady of Montallegro has been the patron saint of the City of Rapallo since 1739, the year in which she was elected as patron saint of the Rapallo community, its captaincy and the parishes of Santa Margherita Ligure. This recognition is reproduced on the municipal coat of arms, which bears, since November 28, 1948, the Marian monogram, formed by the intertwined letters M and A, placed between the two griffins supporting the royal crown. Together...

According to local tradition, the Virgin appeared in the early afternoon of Friday, July 2, 1557, to the farmer Giovanni Chichizola, a native of San Giacomo di Canevale, a hamlet of the municipality of Coreglia Ligure, who was returning from the fruit and vegetable market in Genoa. Having reached the Rapallo hinterland, in the wooded properties of the Ghibelline Della Torre family, at the height of Mount Letho (known by the locals as “mount of death” because of the numerous raids of brigands), the man - fatigued by the long journey on foot and exhausted by the heat - fell asleep near a rocky spur.

Suddenly, he was awakened by a glow: to the peasant appeared a "lady dressed in blue and white and looking graceful and kind," as he textually reported later to the first commoners and the civil and religious authorities who had rushed to the mountain. The woman uttered only a few words, which for the Rapallo Christian community still resonate vividly:

To give proof of the “miraculous apparition,” Our Lady left as a gift to the farmer a small painting of Byzantine art depicting the Dormitio Mariae, to be given to the Rapallese community. After the sudden disappearance of the "Beautiful Lady," fresh and pure water also began to flow from the same rock where the apparition had occurred.

Having recovered from the exceptional religious event, the farmer from Canevale then undertook the path back to the village of Rapallo to announce to the inhabitants the message entrusted to him by the Virgin Mary, and then recount what had happened. He reached the citadel trying to attract the attention of the Rapallo inhabitants, but they, troubled by the clashes between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions, initially disregarded the news and the words of the peasant who appeared in their eyes as a "dreamer" or a "fanatic." Discouraged and feeling disbelieved, Chichizola asked to speak with the local parish priest, the only religious authority who could believe him.

The parish priest, believing the words of the peasant (who was also heard and questioned by the civil authorities of the local municipality), went with a group of the faithful to the alleged site of the apparition, where they were able to ascertain the presence of the aforementioned Byzantine image, near the sudden and gushing spring of water. As evening approached, the parish priest decided to take the image to Rapallo, to a safer place in the Basilica of Saints Gervasius and Protasius. The next morning, however, the tablet was found on Mount Letho. The parish priest, followed by the clergy and the authorities, went to the place of the event and, in a solemn and religious ceremony, the icon was transported to the village of Rapallo, where it was locked in a cabinet in the parish church. The next day there was great astonishment at the sudden disappearance of the small painting and its discovery on the mountain where the image of Our Lady, now celebrated by the people and "officialized" by the clergy of Rapallo, was to be kept and venerated.

The following is what he wrote in one of the two minutes drawn up on August 6, 1558 by the Vicar of the Archdiocese of Genoa, Monsignor Egidio Falceta, who had been appointed by Archbishop Gerolamo Sauli to investigate the case:

- It is well known, and we ourselves saw and were present at the events, the many and stupendous miracles that the glorious and immaculate Virgin performed in the place commonly called "Mount" in the diocese of Genoa, about three miles from Rapallo. There, according to pious belief, the Virgin appeared and then a small table was found with the image of the glorious Virgin at the time of her Assumption. This is the testimony of those who, tormented by demons, were freed from them, the blind saw again, the lame walked miraculously, many who were paralyzed went up there, took refuge with the Virgin, returned free from all evil by her virtue...

The stages of the construction of the sanctuary

As religious worship of Our Lady of Montallegro and the Byzantine icon spread, it soon became necessary to build a suitable place of prayer and shelter for the ever-increasing influx of pilgrims. A hospice for pilgrims and clergy was built before the actual church, although between 1557 and 1558 the inhabitants had already built a small temple to preserve and display the small image.

The construction of a new sanctuary was soon begun, with the support and work of the people of Rapallo themselves, under the direction of the Comacine master Tommasino Lagomaggiore, who, with no small effort to transport the materials up the hill, completed the first architectural version of the sanctuary, with a single nave, in 1559. At the same time, efforts were made to build the cobbled mule track between the village of San Bartolomeo di Borzoli and Mount Letho, an uphill wooded path about 4 km long.

The suppressed monastery of Valle Christi, located in the Rapallo hamlet of San Massimo, was united to the new sanctuary by a papal bull of Gregory XIII in 1572, while the parish of Saints Gervasius and Protasius was definitively entrusted with the management of the temple by archiepiscopal decree of Monsignor Antonio Maria Sauli on March 8, 1589, despite the request submitted by the nearby parish community of San Maurizio di Monti.

During the apostolic visitation in 1582 of the bishop of Novara, Monsignor Francesco Bossi, some changes to the church were ordered, requested by the bishop himself. During the works, the altar was enlarged, a larger sacred stone was placed on it and a larger cover was placed to protect it from dust. However, the first and most substantial expansion of the sanctuary was carried out in 1640, which also allowed the placement of the new side altars. This is how the temple acquired its present dimensions: 25 meters long, 11 meters wide and 12 meters high.

In 1772 the nearby guesthouse was enlarged, while in 1867 the artistic renovation of the church's interior took place, under the direction of master Descalzo from Chiavari, with the addition of new stucco, pilasters and capitals by Swiss architect Pietro Delucchi. The Rapallo painter Francesco Boero, on the other hand, was responsible for the creation of the four frescoes in the vault reproducing the main events related to the Byzantine painting, while the Genoese Nicolò Barabino was the creator of the large fresco in the semi-dome depicting the Apparition of Our Lady of Montallegro to Chichizola.

In 1882 the Milanese architect Luigi Rovelli was the designer of the new high altar, donated by Gianbattista Merello from Zoagli, which was incorporated along with the pre-existing altarpiece, and Rovelli himself created the new facade in Lombard Gothic style (completed on June 21, 1896) and the adjoining pointed bell tower (30 m high) in 1907 and which in 1946 was equipped with the eight bells. In the same years the new and wider staircase accessing the square of the sanctuary was built, then renovated in 1982.

Other works of architectural significance were later completed during the 20th century. Among them was the completion of the road in 1932, which in about 11 kilometers, tracing a route to Coreglia Ligure and then to the Fontanabuona valley (through the Crocetta pass) passing through the hamlet of San Maurizio di Monti, allowed motorized vehicles to reach the site; the creation of the new polychrome stained-glass windows (1937-1938); the laying of the fourteen ceramic Stations of the Cross, in 1941, along the path to Monte Rosa; the new Pilgrim's House in 1948; the bronze doors (1957) and the new slate paving of the square between 1992 and 1994.

Since December 20, 2009, a rack-and-pinion elevator has connected the roadway to the sanctuary square above, effectively eliminating the existing architectural barriers that made it difficult to access the religious building.

Popular devotion to Our Lady of Montallegro was soon transformed from a religious spirit to an official and civil recognition of the Rapallo community. There were as many as fifteen gatherings that the Magnificent Community of Rapallo convened in the various religious sites belonging to the jurisdiction of the captaincy of the same name, with the exception of the centers of Santa Margherita (center), Portofino and the district of Oltremonte (area of the central Fontanabuona valley).

A total of 1,922 heads of families from the parish territories of Rapallo, Santa Maria del Campo, San Massimo, San Pietro di Novella, Sant'Andrea di Foggia, San Martino di Noceto, San Quirico d'Assereto, San Maurizio di Monti, San Michele di Pagana, San Giacomo di Corte, San Siro, Zoagli, Sant'Ambrogio della Costa and Semorile voted - with only 6 votes against - for the election of Our Lady of Montallegro as patroness of the city and the captaincy. To the votes in favor was added the formal assent of the clergy of Rapallo and the religious communities of the monasteries and convents of St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Clare of Montefalco, and the Capuchins of Santa Margherita Ligure.

This choice was confirmed by the members of the Magnificent Community of Rapallo: