Convent and Church
The sanctuary is a Basilian convent – one of the few which have survived in Calabria. The church has three naves; the central nave has the classic honeycomb ceiling decorated with solid gold leaf. The arches, resting on solid pillars, have been magnificently stuccoed by local craftsmen, while the scenes painted around the walls describe the life and miracles of the Virgin Mary.
The original statue of the Madonna was carved in tufa by a Sicilian artist in the 16th century and is coloured, with staring black and white eyes which follow the viewer. The second statue of the Madonna of the Mountains is kept in a niche in white marble. Every year, on September 2, her feast day, the statue is carried in procession by a great number of people. Every fifty years a very special event takes place at Polsi: the crowning of the statue of the Madonna on the main altar. The golden crowns were first placed on the heads of the Madonna and Child in 1860, when the father superior, Domenico Fera, to celebrate the threehundredth anniversary of the arrival of the statue in the Sanctuary in 1560.
Read more about this topic: Sanctuary Of Our Lady Of Polsi
Famous quotes containing the words convent and/or church:
“The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
And sang within the bloody wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid siftings fall
To stain the stiff dishonored shroud.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Jesus: Senor, the widow Gomez delivered a son this morning, a boy.
Guthrie McCabe: Bully for the widow Gomez.
Jesus: But Senor, it has been more than a year ago since Senor Antonio Gomez has been buried in the church house.
McCabe: Well, theres some men ya just cant trust to stay where you put em.”
—Frank S. Nugent (19081965)