{"id":3805,"date":"2025-11-28T14:14:54","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T14:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ilcamminodellapace.it\/point-of-interest\/basilica-of-st-michael-archangel-monte-santangelo\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T14:14:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T14:14:54","slug":"basilica-of-st-michael-archangel-monte-santangelo","status":"publish","type":"point-of-interest","link":"https:\/\/ilcamminodellapace.it\/en\/point-of-interest\/basilica-of-st-michael-archangel-monte-santangelo\/","title":{"rendered":"Basilica of St. Michael Archangel – Monte Sant’Angelo"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to hagiographic legend, the first apparition occurred in the cave on the Gargano around 490 AD: the Archangel showed himself to the shepherd Gargano while he was searching for a bull that had gotten lost in the woods of the promontory, and a few days later he appeared a second time to Bishop Lorenzo Maiorano, to whom he ordered the cave to be reserved forever for his worship. The monumentalization of the place was soon part of the Byzantine project of consolidating political power in the Daunia area, but it was the Lombards who gave it great prominence, especially from May 663, when Grimoaldo of Benevento’s army routed Constant II’s Byzantines right at the foot of the Gargano, in the Siponto area. From this time veneration spreads throughout the peninsula. The cave was also held in high esteem in later centuries, particularly in the Norman-Swabian period (Emperor Frederick II made a gift of a precious silver cross to the shrine), but with the advent of Charles of Anjou and the Angevins, the karst complex radically changed its face and took on the physiognomy of a true place of worship and pilgrimage. The sovereign initiated the construction of the mighty octagonal bell tower beginning in 1274, then gave impetus to the construction of an atrium and a long flight of steps leading down to the grotto, consisting of five ramps covered by barrel vaults, allowing pilgrims to descend and then ascend in an orderly manner; work continued throughout the 13th and 14th centuries (the right portal, of access to the steps, bears the date 1395), however, additions and renovations followed until the modern age (the upper entrance atrium was redone in 1865). On the lower level, at the end of the stone ramps along which the centuries-old traces left by pilgrims remain, through the “Porta del Toro” one enters a second atrium, where a magnificent portal leads into the sanctuary proper; having crossed the massive bronze doors, worked in Constantinople in 1076, one enters the “cave of the apparition,” which is preceded by a monumental nave with cross vaults, also made in the Angevin age, at the end of which is the baroque chapel of the SS. Sacrament, from 1690. Extraordinary works of art are preserved in the shrine: the statue of St. Michael the Archangel, on the high altar, is the work of Sansovino and dates from the early 1500s; the episcopal chair dates from 1050, the time of Bishop Leo Garganico; the Madonna of Constantinople, within an aedicule, is a stone sculpture from the 12th\/13th century; the sculptures of the Trinity, St. Sebastian and another small St. Michael (placed within the “well”), on the other hand, are from the 15th century. The adjoining devotional museum houses numerous votive offerings and other depictions dating from various periods, including a gilded copper foil icon depicting the Archangel, datable to the 9th\/10th century,while the crypts contain notable fragments of medieval sculpture, portions of pulpits, early medieval plutei slabs, and the very rare Longobard-era inscriptions from the primitive shrine, datable from the 7th century onward. The basilica is now protected as a UNESCO heritage site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3807,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"poi_category":[38],"tipologia_poi":[39],"class_list":["post-3805","point-of-interest","type-point-of-interest","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","poi_category-historic-buildings","tipologia_poi-historic-buildings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilcamminodellapace.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/point-of-interest\/3805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilcamminodellapace.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/point-of-interest"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilcamminodellapace.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/point-of-interest"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilcamminodellapace.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilcamminodellapace.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"poi_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilcamminodellapace.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/poi_category?post=3805"},{"taxonomy":"tipologia_poi","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilcamminodellapace.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tipologia_poi?post=3805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}