In 1480, according to a story told in Lerici for centuries, three fishermen — Colotto, Giacopello and Muzio — recovered from the Maralunga cliff a painting made of three panels showing the Virgin and Child, most likely washed into the water from a shipwreck. That panel is now the patron of the town and has stood here since 1810, in the church of Saint Francis of Assisi, which for this reason is also the sanctuary of Our Lady of Maralunga. The building, however, is not the one that saw the discovery: the fourteenth-century church, put up in open country when all the others stood close to the sea, was pulled down in 1632 and raised again in four years. On 26 July 1636 the doors opened to the faithful with work still under way; consecration came in September, at the hands of Giovanni Domenico Spinola, bishop of Luni-Sarzana.
What to see
On the forecourt stands a cross-bearing column that almost certainly belonged to the demolished building; on the right side of the facade, in the pink stone of Liguria, an inscription records the consecration. Inside there is a single wide nave resting on six pillars, under a very high ceiling frescoed by Luigi Agretti in 1932. Niches along the walls hold eighteenth-century marble altars, late Ligurian baroque.
The paintings are first rate. Domenico Fiasella, the painter from Sarzana, signed and dated 1659 the Madonna and Child with Saints Bernardino and Francis, brought from the adjoining oratory of the Disciplinati and counted among his masterpieces; the Saint Augustine hesitating between the blood of Christ and the milk of the Virgin is also his. In the presbytery the Assumption of the Virgin carries the date 1657 and is by Jan Miel, with David and Solomon among the figures below. To the left of the high altar hangs the large fifteenth-century Crucifix, repainted several times, said by tradition to have been carried here from the destroyed church of Santa Marta in the old village. The baptismal font in Carrara marble bears the date 1448 and comes from the oratory of San Bernardino; the organ was built by the Agati firm of Pistoia in 1841.
Visiting
The church is in via Matteotti, just above the harbour of Lerici, and is a working parish of the Media Val di Magra vicariate, diocese of La Spezia-Sarzana-Brugnato: opening mainly follows the times of services, which are more frequent in summer. The Madonna of Maralunga is in the chapel dedicated to her, inside the marble frame fitted in the middle of the nineteenth century; the panel is in fact double, two images of the Virgin and Child divided by a column, and no one has ever put a name to the painter. Beneath the painting, hidden by the frame, runs an inscription that should record the finding, but not all the words can be read.
Our editors' tip
We suggest looking for the altarpiece attributed to Paolo Gerolamo Piola: among the saints is Erasmus, protector of seafarers, and behind him the painter set the Maralunga headland, still recognisable from the coast. It is the shortest way to understand how far this church belongs to fishermen rather than to summer visitors. If the chance comes up, ask to see the silver medallion of Saint Erasmus and the cope given by the local Botti family.