The sanctuary stands on via Regina Margherita, in the middle of the working-class quarter of Borgo Macra. At its origin is a precise story: on the afternoon of 16 July 1493, along the banks of the Macra, the Virgin is said to have appeared to a deaf-mute shepherd named Giò Antonio Chiavassa. The young man is said to have been healed in hearing and speech; he went into town to give the news, and the local notables had the icon painted on walnut wood that the sanctuary still keeps.
What to see
Devotion grew quickly and by 1494 the Carmelite fathers had raised a convent on the site of the apparition; it was suppressed and turned into a farmstead in 1802, during the Napoleonic occupation. The exact spot can still be recognised: on the western side of the former convent a painting recounting the episode survives.
Visiting
The sanctuary's history runs through three solemn vows made by the town council to be freed from as many scourges. The first, of 1742, concerned a plague striking the cattle, and an oval painting to the right of the altar remains in memory of it. The second was for the drought that in the summer of 1753 had left Racconigi without rain for more than two months. The third, of 1835, was against the cholera that was claiming victims every day.
Our editors' tip
It helps to know that the sanctuary came afterwards, not before: the Blessed Virgin of Graces was venerated in the small church of San Michele and the Madonna della Neve, and it was precisely those three episodes, held miraculous by the people, that spread the devotion beyond Racconigi and made a larger building necessary. The church you visit is the consequence of a story, not its beginning.