Montenero

SANCTUARY OF MADONNA OF MONTENERO .

The foundation of the sanctuary of Montenero is tying to a miraculous event: the recovery in the 1345 with the Ardenza river of an image of the Virgo on behalf of a shepherd, to which was commanded to bring the icon to the mountain and the place where is become too heavy to be subsequently transported. The precious image, attributed to the Pisan painter James of Michael said the Gera, was guarded at first from Augustinian hermits, to then be definitely systematized in the church from the XV century. in the 1668 the theatines undertaked give a complex amplification of jobs and the building was favored with portico and of entry atrium, where the Filippo Maria painter cockerels painted within pompous frames of stucco Marian histories; it was carried out the wooden ceiling when they were integrated seven paint on cloth of the same artist. Subsequently, it was carried out all the new presbyterial area from the rich paves to marmoreal salesclerk. In it was welcomed the altar in esteemed marbles and the glory in marble, work of Giovanni Antonio Cybei, concluded in the 1755, when an angel vortex and cherubs hold up the tabernacle from which is gone away a halo gilded. Between the 1771 and the 1773 Giuliano Traballesi frescoed the imposing dome with a crowning of the Virgo. Currently the sanctuary is straight from the Benedictine father of the congregation of Vallombrosa, well-grounded from Saint Giovanni Gualberto toward the 1036.