On 15 August 1811 Sophie Blanchard, who had taken off from Milan in a balloon, was carried off by the air currents and had to make an emergency landing near here. Montebruno still marks it with a festival of balloons and hang-gliders.
The village has 217 residents on the left bank of the Trebbia, inside the Antola park. The Doria bridge, medieval in origin, leads on foot to the sanctuary of Nostra Signora; in the convent beside it is the farming museum of the upper Trebbia valley.
The patron is the Nativity of Mary and the feast falls on 8 September. The sanctuary of Nostra Signora di Montebruno, of the late fifteenth century, is tied to a Marian apparition that tradition dates to 1478: that is what makes the Sophie Blanchard story so memorable here.
When her balloon came down in the Friccea wood, the farmers and shepherds who ran to it believed they were seeing the Virgin herself, precisely because that apparition was still in local memory. She had left Milan at eight in the evening of 15 August 1811, for the celebrations in honour of Napoleon; the wind carried her ninety miles in an hour, over the Apennines, and fearing she would be pushed out to open sea she attempted a rapid descent. It was the son of mayor Barbieri who worked out that it was a balloon, and the mayor took her into his own house.
santuario di Nostra Signora di Montebruno · Museo della cultura contadina Alta Val Trebbia
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Next up: The Nativity of Mary, patron, and the French balloonist's emergency landing in 1811, Wednesday 8 September
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📅 Every year, on 8 September
Montebruno celebrates the Nativity of Mary on 8 September, in the 15th-century Gothic sanctuary; it was precisely on 15 August 1811 that French aeronaut Sophie Blanchard, having set off from Milan, had to make an emergency landing nearby due to strong updrafts.
santuario di Nostra Signora di Montebruno The sanctuary born of the 1478 apparition, with a statue found on a beech tree and a Last Supper by an unknown 
Museo della cultura contadina Alta Val Trebbia Ethnographic museum in the convent beside the sanctuary: tools, furniture and objects of Trebbia valley farmer Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Montebruno, but an easy day trip away.
