Our Lady of the Crown Sanctuary is an antique Italian church constructed into the rocks above a cliff
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Crown, built several centuries ago on the slope of Monte Baldo’s vertical rock, appears to float in the air.
This one-of-a-kind shrine is a remarkable illustration of complicated architectural calculations and a person’s compelling yearning to worship away from the hustle and bustle of the world, surrounded by beautiful nature.
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Crown (Santuario Madonna della Corona) is a sacred location of amazing beauty and spiritual force located 45 km from Verona in northern Italy.
This strange church looks to float above the ground, yet this is an optical illusion.
In truth, the temple is built in the depth of Mount Baldo’s steep cliff at an elevation of 775 metres above the Adige Valley, not far from Lake Garda.
Such strangeness and inaccessibility are due to a critical necessity, for it was this fact that spared her from the repeated raids of robbers and hostilities that frequently took place at the foot of the mountain in those distant days.
The history of this odd temple, according to the editorial staff of Novate.Ru, dates back to the 11th century, when there was a tiny skite on this site.
Only in the 13th century did they begin to erect a full-fledged monastery and a modest chapel of the Most Holy Theotokos on a rocky ledge, further deepening the vertical wall. The skite depicts monks’ cells located away from the monastery in a more remote location.
The most difficult aspect of this remarkable structure was that all of the materials had to be hand transported to a significant height along a narrow and twisting mountain road.
However, the monks eventually completed this laborious effort, and with the miraculous appearance of the statue of Addolorata (Our Lady of Sorrows), discovered on the edge of the cliff on June 24, 1522, the chapel began to be renovated, resulting in the creation of a spectacular church known as Madonna della Scala.
The church got its peculiar name from the shape of the mountains that hang over the sanctuary like a true crown. The only means to get here had to be improved with the church, because the rosary of pilgrims that rush to these precious places of prayer has not dried up since then.
