The sanctuary of the Madonna dell'Adonai is near Brucoli, a hamlet of Augusta, and belongs to the archdiocese of Syracuse. According to old testimonies, taken up by writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is thought to be an early Christian oratory: the Hebrew title given to the Madonna, Mater Adonai, mother of my Lord, is said to point to this as well. Tradition has it founded in the first half of the third century by a Christian named Publius, in one of the underground chambers of the so-called caves of the Greek, used as burial places and then, during the persecutions, as a refuge and place of worship by the Christians of Leontinoi.
What to see
The heart of the sanctuary is the cave, the largest of the group, dedicated to the Mater Adonai. The venerated image shows the Madonna seated on a wreath of clouds, holding the Child, who grips a cross with his right hand and with his left rests his sceptre on the world. It is not, contrary to what is believed, a Black Madonna, and scholars have so far been unable to give it a firm date; tradition attributes the painted figures to St Agatho, bishop of Lipari.
After its rediscovery the cave was enlarged, and a masonry forebuilding was put up in front of it. Next to the little church, in the seventeenth century, a small convent was built, where a group of Spanish soldiers who had given up military life founded a lay community.
Visiting
After the earthquake of 1990 the sanctuary was restored and made safe, with works that began in 2006 and dragged on. Opening and service times should be checked on the spot.
Our editors' tip
All trace of the oratory was lost for about a thousand years: what remained was the memory of a cave with an image of the Madonna that nobody could find. Legend attributes its rediscovery, between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to a herdsman who went into the cave to get back a cow that had become trapped. Survivors later told that in the earthquake of 1693, which destroyed Augusta, it was the only church in the territory to remain unharmed.
