Santuario di Nostra Signora di Montallegro

Above Rapallo, a white neo-Gothic basilica preserves a small Byzantine icon that tradition says appeared to a peasant on 2 July 1557 and became part of the town's religious history. The sanctuary overlooks the Tigullio Gulf.

Why it matters

The sanctuary of Nostra Signora di Montallegro stands at 612 metres on Monte Ponzema above Rapallo. According to the sanctuary's tradition, the Virgin appeared to Giovanni Chichizola, a countryman from Canevale, in the summer of 1557. The story became part of Rapallo's civic identity, and the sanctuary was raised to the dignity of a minor basilica by Pius XII in 1942.

What to notice

The sanctuary's small poplar-wood icon, about 18 by 15 centimetres, depicts the Dormition of the Virgin and is kept above the high altar. Studies cited after a restoration place its Byzantine painting in the eleventh or twelfth century, while the sanctuary's own tradition credits it to much earlier hands. A silver ex-voto dated 26 December 1574 is the oldest preserved in the sanctuary; it was left by Nicolò De Allegretis, captain of a Ragusan ship that vowed to the Virgin during a storm off the Cinque Terre. Barabino's fresco decorates the main altar vault. The sanctuary's forecourt overlooks the Tigullio Gulf and the Portofino promontory.

Context and history

The account recorded by the sanctuary is precise about its beginning: on Friday 2 July 1557, Chichizola, returning on foot from selling his goods in Genoa, rested on Monte Leto and woke to find a tavolina near a spring, showing the Transito of the Virgin. The mountain took the name Monte Allegro, and a church rose on the site almost immediately; the building was enlarged in 1640, with the side altars added in the decades that followed. Tradition adds a detail that fixed the sanctuary's autonomy: twice, when the icon was carried down to Rapallo, it was found back on the hill, so the city stopped trying to keep it below.

The sea gave the sanctuary its most curious treasures. Ships put into Rapallo in distress and paid their vows: the Ragusan plate of 1574 is associated with an eighteen-month dispute before the Senate of Genoa, in which the Republic of Ragusa claimed the icon itself. The icon was surrendered — and, the faithful say, reappeared on the hill, after which no one pressed the claim again. The present white, neo-Gothic appearance is the result of later rebuilding of the sixteenth-century sanctuary, and the papal decree of 5 August 1942 gave the church its basilica rank.