On the night of 7 October 1976 the statue of the Madonna disappeared from the sanctuary, a marble of 1512. It turned up four years later at Villa Wanda in Arezzo, the house of Licio Gelli: the sculpture had been reworked to make it unrecognisable, and the man who recognised it was a resident of Rotonda who saw photographs of it in a magazine. Before going home, the Madonna was put on show at Castel Sant'Angelo until 3 October 1981.
What to see
The sanctuary stands a kilometre south of the town and is Byzantine in origin, but the building you see today is the reconstruction of 1558, raised in thanksgiving: during an outbreak of plague the Madonna is said to have appeared to a shepherd girl. The statue, though, is of 1512, older than the church that holds it, which says that people came here to pray before that.
There is a stone portal at the entrance. Inside, two round marble bas-reliefs of the seventeenth century, with gilt wood decoration, and the Madonna back in her place after her forced tour of Italy.
Visiting
Part of the complex has not done the work of a church for a long time. Between the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century an orphanage was housed here for a short spell; then the diocesan seminary moved in; today part of the building holds the headquarters of the Pollino national park. You come for the Madonna and find the office that administers the mountains around her.
Our editors' tip
Ask about the statue of whoever you find in the church. Rotonda got it back after five years and people tell the story gladly: the theft in the night, the silence, the photograph in the magazine, the Roman showcase and the return. It is a village story that ran through one of the murkiest affairs of the Republic.