"Madonna dell'Olmo" Sanctuary

It was built in 1486, erected to commemorate the miracle of an apparition of the Blessed Virgin on May 22nd 1484. The Virgin shining in a cloud of light with the Child on her hands settled on an elm appearing to a humble shepherdess and showed her desire for a construction of a chapel in that place in his honor. The people of Casacastalda immediately began working on the construction of the chapel that was built between 1485 and 1486, after which the present church was built between 1510 and 1515 as an extension of the original chapel. The trunk of the elm was preserved inside the walled church in a perimeter wall. The interior frescoes are from the Umbra school of 1400 and for the most part they are devotional to witness the attachment of the community to the Virgin, most of them are attributed to Matteo da Gualdo and others executed in the years 1486-88. Some frescoes unfortunately there are incomplete joints and represent the appearance with particular verism, among them stands out one located in the right wall of the altar and was brought to light in 1935 by dr. Gaetano Sensi. The painting depicts the Madonna of the elm in a background of light and at her feet the shepherdess in the act of humble prayer, also in the scene is visible the Castaldi Castle as it was at that time, in the margin of the painting you can still read the date of the apparition. In 1949 there were substantial restoration works, more or less consonant, which took over the whole church and redone the façade which was decorated with three polychrome panels, composed of Gualdese ceramic tiles, which depict the miraculous apparition, St. Elizabeth and St. Francis (Pauper et Humilis). The façade is surmounted by a two-light window with bells, one of which is dated 1515. In the small square in front of the church there is a statue of Madonna with Child, made of white marble by the Indian sculptor Ananta Kumar Sarkar in 1984, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Marian event. The feast of the Shrine celebrates the last Sunday of August preceded by a religious, cultural and recreational triduum.