Sanctuary of Macereto - The Origin of The Sanctuary

The Origin of The Sanctuary

The plateau of Macereto had long been an important place of cultural and social significance. Quite apart from the battles that Visso, Camerino, Nursini and others waged here, the highlands were home to the shepherds. The moving of the sheep between grazing lands in the territories of Mounts Sibillini, to the territories of Visso and Norcia, and above all, in the Roman plains, goes back to prehistory. This practice, taking place between the end of September and the beginning of May (when the winter snows have melted) is described by Varrone (in Rerum Rusticarum) and Columella (De re rustica). As this was an area that seemed to exist somehow sans frontiers, the delineation between Umbria and The Marche was rarely enforced, allowing these itinerant people to move with comparative freedom . People would come from the rural districts would only see one another at these occasions.

In the Macereto plain, flocks could come and graze without encroaching on each other. This led to the instigation of an annual summer sheep fair, which continues even to this day. These fairs (fiere) were connected to religious festivals and originated when people would traditionally travel great distances to a particular place to celebrate a saint’s day for instance. “The basis of fiere, which lasted several days, was the difficulty and danger of travelling. They originated from the festivals of various saints when the faithful met in some temple or sanctuary: sellers of every type of merchandise would go to these gatherings. The term fiera derives from ferie – giorno di festa (feast-day). Peaking in the 14th-16th centuries, commerce developed with the rise of the free communes. Usually a fiera was given a spacious field outside the town walls with roofing for animals, barracks for the merchants and their merchandise….The altopiano of Macereto was much travelled on account of the road running from the Marche to the Kingdom of Naples. From then on and with the increasing flow of pilgrims, the fiera assumed great religious importance through the numerous gatherings of people from Umbria and the Marche….The Macereto fairs were particularly useful for those involved with the sheep business.” The shepherds who travelled from Visso, Ussita and Cupi had originally marked out the roads in this wonderful natural resource, which became the major routes through the mountains. By the trecento the track that ran from Fiastra, through Cupi, past Macereto and then down to Visso had become so established that wheeled vehicles, and the traditional sleds in winter, were able to navigate it without too much trouble. But it was at Macereto that everyone would gather, the Castle that was built there had its origins in this traffic and would have offered a social and cultural hub for travelers from Ussita, as well as for shepherds and inhabitants of the little group of dwellings around the castle. It is without doubt that a small shrine would have already existed at the spot before the ‘miracle’, tended by the shepherds who would have not been able to get to a town to take part in a Mass. There are a hundred and sixty-three officially recognized sanctuaries in The Marche alone, most of which are positioned, not so much where an actual miracle occurred but normally in “areas of particular worship that strengthened with time”. In a part of the world where primitive beliefs were still very much a part of life, the Church had achieved considerable success by tying these ‘pagan’ attitudes with conventional religious practices.