Sanctuary Madonna del Covolo in Crespano del Grappa
CRESPANO DEL GRAPPA (TV)
Sanctuary of the Madonna del Covolo
Address: Via Madonna del Covolo 148
The Sanctuary of the Madonna di Crespano, surrounded by greenery, with its Palladian lines.
The Sanctuary is located at 600 meters, on the slopes of Monte Grappa. Towards the middle of the 12th century, the Madonna appeared to a deaf-mute shepherdess of Crespano who, alone grazing with sheep, during a storm she had taken refuge in a cave (hence the name Covolo), where she was praying. The Virgin spoke to her and told her to go to Crespano to tell everyone that she wanted a chapel in that place. The girl, whom she had heard for the first time in her life, acquired her voice and hearing to do as she was ordered. The first chapel dates back to 1300 and was enlarged in 1541 and 1605.
Statue of the Madonna del Covolo,
work of an unknown author of the seventeenth century
The current construction is the work of the architect Antonio Canova di Possagno who built the new Sanctuary of Covolo from 1804 to 1809, preserving the ancient church set to the north in the rock and building at noon an elegant rotunda with an atrium supported by eight columns of Ionic style.
In 1844 the current road was built thanks to the contribution of numerous groups of volunteers from dozens of towns between the Brenta and Piave rivers. On Good Friday of the following year, a boulder detached from the mountain and fell on the Sanctuary, destroying the sacristy and presbytery.
The statue of the Madonna was recovered at the bottom of the intact valley.
In the Valley known as the Madonna, just south of the Sanctuary, is the source of the Tre Busi: this water, which has always been an object of great devotion, flowed to facilitate the construction of the first chapel.
The fifteen capitals of the Mysteries of the Rosary were built in 1943 along the three kilometers that rise from Crespano towards Covolo.
On the triangular pediment of the facade there is a fresco depicting the apparition of the Virgin to the shepherdess. The entrance has a walnut portal, the work of the Crespanese Fermo Scudo. Inside, in the dome of the rotunda, we find the painting of the Glory of Angels by the priest Delmetrio Alpago.
We find decorations of angels representing the Mysteries of the Rosary. In the choir, after the four columns, it is possible to admire, at the top, the fresco of Alpago which represents the complete temple seen from the valley, with the Virgin blessing Crespano and the Nativity of the Virgin, considered his masterpiece. Also illustrated are symbols representing the four Marian religious orders: the Dominicans, the Servites, the Carmelites, the Trinitarians.
The decorations are almost all from the first decade of the 20th century. On the main altar is the statue of the Virgin which remained prodigiously intact after the collapse of the walls in 1845. On 8 September 1923 she was solemnly crowned.
Calendar: The Annunciation is celebrated with solemnity on 25 March; on Easter Monday; the last day of May, the festival of roses; on August 15, the Assumption; on 8 September, the nativity of the Virgin Mary, as well as the patronal feast; November 21, Madonna della Salute and December 8, the Immaculate Conception.
Note:
Diocese of Padua Tel. 0423 / 53.206
Next to the Sanctuary is the Santa Maria del Covolo House of Spirituality, managed by the Servants of Maria Addolorata of Chioggia (tel. 0423.53.044).
article by Cristina Siccardi for the website www.donbosco-torino.itFacebookTwitterWhatsAppShare