Patron saint festival In 200 days
Saint Maximus, patron beside the Shrine of San Gabriele
📅 Every year, on the first Sunday of May
Isola del Gran Sasso d'Italia celebrates Saint Maximus on the first Sunday of May, in the church dedicated to him.
The old centre stands on a cone of debris where the rivers Ruzzo and Mavone meet, at the foot of the Gran Sasso, and the name most likely comes from that position among the waters. The best document the town owns is from 1419: the Statutes of the Università dell'Isola, the oldest so far found in the province of Teramo and the only text from the area written in the vernacular. A few decades later, in 1495, six hundred foot soldiers from L'Aquila invaded and the place was annexed to the county of L'Aquila by a formal act of capitulation.
In 1526 the Valle Siciliana was handed to Ferdinando de Alarcón, its first marquis: the same Spanish family that turns up all over the south. In 1821 the Carboneria had fifty-two members here; in 1843 the English writer and illustrator Edward Lear passed through and painted the village; and only in 1863 did the comune take the name Isola del Gran Sasso d'Italia. Above the houses stands the sanctuary of San Gabriele dell'Addolorata, grown up around a convent that tradition ascribes to Francis of Assisi, and which now draws more than a million pilgrims a year.
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Isola del Gran Sasso d'Italia 1
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Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Isola del Gran Sasso d'Italia
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Isola del Gran Sasso d'Italia, but an easy day trip away.
chiesa dei Santi Gervasio e Protasio 📍 Belluno · 12 km A thirteenth-century church in Belluno divided in two by a wall, between the faithful and the enclosed nuns. basilica cattedrale di San Martino 📍 Belluno · 14 km Belluno's cathedral, rebuilt by Tullio Lombardo in the sixteenth century, with Juvarra's bell tower. chiesa di San Rocco 📍 Belluno · 14 km Belluno's votive church, born of the plague of 1530, in Castellavazzo stone, with a canvas by Gaspare Diziani. chiesa di Santo Stefano 📍 Belluno · 14 km The Servites' Gothic church in Belluno, in white and red stone, with Brustolon's angels and a 24-hour clock. chiesa di Sant'Aronne 📍 Belluno · 16 km The parish church of Cusighe, in Belluno, with an altarpiece by Girolamo Denti and a Last Supper by Paris Bordon. chiesa di San Liberale 📍 Belluno · 16 km A very old little church on the hill of Pedeserva, in Belluno, with a stone-slab roof and a crypt.