The design of the Castelpetroso sanctuary passed from father to son and then to grandson: the engineer Francesco Gualandi began it, his son Giuseppe carried it on, and the grandson, who bore his grandfather's name again, brought it to an end. The foundation stone was laid on 28 September 1890; consecration came on 21 September 1975. In between lie two world wars, a chronic shortage of money, and perimeter walls closed only in 1950.
It all started with the apparitions. On 22 March 1888, at a place called Cesa tra Santi on the slopes of Monte Patalecchia, two shepherdesses, Serafina and Bibiana, said they had seen the Sorrowful Virgin. The church was deliberately built further downhill than the apparition site, so that pilgrims could reach it. In 1973 Paul VI proclaimed Our Lady of Sorrows of Castelpetroso patron of Molise; John Paul II came up here on 19 March 1995, and Pope Francis on 5 July 2014, to meet the young people of Abruzzo and Molise.
What to see
The façade is held between two square bell towers and divided into three sections of equal height, each closed by a triangular gable: a four-light window at the centre, three-light windows at the sides. Below are three splayed portals with mosaic lunettes — Christ on the cross between Mary and John in the middle, the Annunciation and the Coronation of the Virgin at the sides — and bronze doors carrying Old and New Testament scenes. Ten bells from the Marinelli foundry of Agnone hang in the towers. Above, the octagonal dome rises on a tall drum, its lantern reaching 52 metres.
The interior is centrally planned: an octagonal hall under the dome, an ambulatory with cross vaults, and chapels opening off the circuit. Counting the main chapel, which faces the entrance and stands on a raised floor, there are seven — as many as the swords that pierce the heart of Our Lady of Sorrows. Each of the six side chapels has a polychrome marble altar and a canvas by Amedeo Trivisonno showing one of Mary's sorrows; the Resurrection and the Assumption in the narthex are his too.
Our editors' tip
In the main chapel, inside a richly worked neo-Gothic marble aedicule known as the Throne, stands the cult image: two painted wooden figures, the Virgin half-kneeling beside the body of Christ laid on the ground. The present group dates from 1963 and remakes the original by Nicola Santillo. Give it a few minutes — everything else here exists because of it.