Madonna of Monserrato shrine



Madonna of Monserrato shrine is a really evocative place of worship near Porto Azzurro. To reach the shrine you have to go through the county road from Porto Azzurro city center to Rio Marina and Rio dell’Elba for 1 kilometer and then to take the left. From here on there is a dirt road and you have to go by foot till the shrine.

It was built in 1606 by the Spanish governor José Pronce de Léon, who wanted to reproduce the Montserrat shrine in Barcelona during the Spanish domain in Longone gulf. It is on an upland that you can reach through a steep street. It is surrounded by the Calcare valley, today Monserrato valley. The valley is characterized by precipitous rock walls. Those rocks are covered by the Mediterranean scrub and in the middle there is the shrine in a magic and fascinating place.

For a long period, this shrine was inhabited by monks and it is a center of pilgrimage still today. From the little terrace of the shrine you can see, surrounded by cypresses, the Barbarossa beach.

From the architectonic point of view, the shrine has a main door with a broken tympanum on the top with an open rectangular window. The structure of the shrine is an irregular rectangle including the sacristy and covered by a classic dome. On top of the dome there is a lantern and on its side a bell gable. The façade is bare, with Spanish Baroque decorations.

The shrine is call after a Madonna statue. Inside is bare and there are no frescos or ornaments. There is, though, an altarpiece depicting the Nuestra Señora Morena, a copy of the famous one in Montserrat shrine.

Its’ a XVII century painting by an unknown artist and representing a seated Mary, with wide red and light blue drapery, with Jesus on her womb.

On the 8th of September there are the official celebrations of the shrine, and on this occasion the shrine is open to visitors for one week.

 

 

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