Pontificio Santuario della Beata Vergine del Santo Rosario di Pompei

The Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Holy Rosary is the focal point of modern Pompei. Founded by Bartolo Longo around a revered image of the Virgin, the basilica grew alongside the charitable institutions he established in the town.

Why it matters

Bartolo Longo, a lawyer from Latiano, arrived in the Valle di Pompei in 1872 to manage the estates of Countess Marianna Farnararo De Fusco. After returning to the Catholic faith, he helped establish a shrine for an image of the Virgin entrusted to him by Sister Maria Concetta De Litala. The first stone was laid on 8 May 1876. Longo's charitable works included schools, an orphanage, a hospice for children of prisoners and a congregation of Dominican sisters. Pope Leo XIV canonised him on 19 October 2025.

What to notice

The image of Our Lady of the Rosary stands above the high altar. The decorated tribune was installed in 1887 and the icon was moved to its present position in 1939. A 1965 restoration attributed the painting to a seventeenth-century artist of Luca Giordano's school; Pope Paul VI crowned it that year. The church's dome bears Angelo Landi's fresco of the vision of Saint Dominic, while Vincenzo Paliotti painted the nave's Coronation of the Virgin in 1888.

The travertine façade, completed in 1901, is crowned by Gaetano Chiaromonte's marble statue of Our Lady of the Rosary. The 80-metre bell tower, designed by Aristide Leonori and built from 1912 to 1925, contains eight bells cast from bronze cannons. The shrine museum, reopened in 2023, displays about two thousand objects and ex-votos.

Context and history

Architect Antonio Cua designed the church, built between 1876 and 1891. Under Archbishop Antonio Anastasio Rossi, Spirito Maria Chiapetta expanded it from a single-aisle Latin-cross plan to the three-aisled interior completed between 1934 and 1939. Bartolo Longo wrote the Supplica prayer in 1883; its first public recitation drew a large pilgrimage to Pompei that October. The prayer remains associated with the shrine's religious tradition. Three bronze doors added in 2021, 2023 and 2024 commemorate the founder and the shrine's papal history.