From the first Sunday of May to the first Sunday of September the statue of the Black Madonna stays up here, on the summit of the Sacro Monte at 1725 metres; for the other eight months the sanctuary is without her, because the figure goes down to the town and climbs back only the following summer. The earliest document naming this church dates from 1393: a deed by which Tommaso Bono Iurno, from Viggiano, left it ten grani pro luminaris, money to keep the lamps burning. The story handed down here is older still, and speaks of an image venerated at Grumentum, hidden in a hollow in the mountain when the town was destroyed and found again because unexplained fires kept flaring on the summit.
What to see
The hollow of the legend is still visible behind the high altar: everything else grew around that one point. The building, the regional sanctuary of Basilicata, is not after architectural effect; what counts is the position, on a ridge the wind never leaves alone, and the statue, carved according to tradition in the 6th century for the cathedral of Grumentum.
What followed is a sequence of official recognitions. In 1618 the bishop of Marsico Nuovo, Timoteo Caselli, recorded in his ad limina visit that Santa Maria del Monte supported itself on its own income; in 1890 Leo XIII crowned the Madonna del Monte Patrona e Regina of Lucania, and on 11 December 1965 Paul VI confirmed the title and raised the sanctuary to a minor basilica. The Viggiano procession also found its way into the pages of Christ Stopped at Eboli, the book by Carlo Levi.
Visiting
The summit is reached on foot and no other way. The asphalt road stops at the Piana di Bonocore, the highest point of the mountain served by a public road, where there is a car park and an untested spring; from there a steep paved path climbs for about 2 km. From the first Sunday of May to the first Sunday of September the sanctuary opens every day from dawn to dusk, and at night the path up from Bonocore stays lit. In the same months a small refuge beside the church offers free drinking water and shelter from the rain.
Our editors' tip
If you can manage it, come on the Saturday before the first Sunday of September: that is the day of the pilgrim's procession, the one that opens the statue's descent to the town. If you climb out of season instead, start from the Antico Tratturo della Madonna Nera at Alli, opened in August 2021, and walk in reverse the route pilgrims have taken for centuries.