NapoliForMe site uses only technical cookies to proper navigation. For more information on the cookies used by this site, consult the
cookie policy.
By selecting "Accept" or continue browsing by accessing any element, you agree the cookies use.
The sanctuary of Santa Maria di Campiglione in Caivano (from the late antique Latin campilia, "rural") is one of the oldest in the diocese of Aversa. The original structure of the church shows that the foundation dates back to the Paleochristian age, before the papacy of Gregory the Great (590-604 AD) and is the readaptation of an even older Roman structure. But according to a legend, the sanctuary was rebuilt after a miraculous event. In 1483, a widow from Caivano, whose innocent son was accused of a murder and sentenced to be hanged, invoked the help of the Madonna, lighting a votive lamp every evening in front of the fresco in the apse. Divine intervention is manifested as the woman prays before the icon: the Virgin removes her head from the wall, consenting to the prayer, and at the same moment, a messenger reaches the square where the execution is about to take place and delivers the act of grace that saves the young man from the gallows. In fact, as was often usual in the artistic technique of the time, in the painting the face of the Madonna is made on a wooden support and therefore, given the thickness of the material, the head of the figure appears slightly detached from the wall. The fresco with the miraculous icon (Our Lady among the twelve Apostles and Christ in an almond tree carried by angels) made the sanctuary famous throughout Campania, attracting believers and pilgrims and becoming a focus of faith. Dated 1419, the fresco is the work of a Neapolitan painter influenced by the painting of the time, but reproducing a model from the Byzantine era. Subjected to transformations and reconstructions over the centuries, testifying to an uninterrupted devotion, the 2002 restoration revealed at least two other previous drafts of the 15th-century fresco: the recovered fragments depicting a curtain in the lower part of the apse belong to the oldest layer.
place
Santuario Maria Santissima di Campiglione, Via Clanio, Parco Verde, Caivano, Napoli, Campania, 80024, Italia - Caivano