This post is different from all the others I’ve written on this travel blog. Castel Santa Maria, for me, is a sacred place, one I love like nowhere else in the world.
My family comes from this tiny village in the Umbrian Apennines, between Norcia and Cascia. It was my very first trip, at two months old, and it’s where I want to be buried, at the end of everything.
It’s my refuge, the place I go to recharge whenever I can. It’s here that I fell in love and where I spent some of the most beautiful moments of my life. The first time I brought the person I love here we were just friends, but I’ll never forget when they took my hand and said:
“Thank you for showing me this place.”
It was an ordinary weekend in April and we’d decided to spend two days outdoors with some friends, a small fire and plenty of stories to tell. During the night, the snow had turned everything white, making the valley even more beautiful!
But what is there to see in Castello?
Do you want to know why it’s so special?
Let me tell you right away.
Off we go!
Castel Santa Maria: stories of earthquakes
Imagine venturing into the Umbrian Apennines.
A cool summer breeze blows while the sun makes its slow way across the sky. As far as the eye can see there’s nothing but unspoiled nature, green as only the Umbrian woods can be. Eagles and buzzards fly overhead; on the ground the hares watch you, curious, like silent sentinels.
Now imagine coming upon a few houses perched on the top of a hill, tiny compared to the giants that surround and protect it like a secret casket.
Here, in this lonely, remote spot in the heart of Umbria, a small village stood from the dawn of civilisation.
No one knows exactly when people first settled on the hill. The first certain records date to the Middle Ages, when it was already a castro (castle) under the control of Norcia.
But why did they settle right here?
The first inhabitants of Castel Santa Maria were no fools and chose wisely. The hill on which the village stood is in fact the lowest vantage point from which you can watch over the whole surrounding area: winters are harsh in the mountains, and choosing a higher spot would have meant an even harder life.
Just think that from the top of the mountain your gaze reaches all the way to Norcia.
But there’s another reason!
Around the mountain of Castello there’s a large green valley that will remind you of the famous Castelluccio di Norcia, only smaller.
In Castel Santa Maria people lived off farming and shepherding, and from the records I’ve found you get the sense that the centuries all passed much the same, at least until 1703.
As we’ve learned in recent years, Umbria is a highly seismic land: it was precisely the 1703 earthquake, which devastated the whole Valnerina, that destroyed the castle. It’s said it killed 25 of the 75 inhabitants, forcing the villagers to rebuild the town a little lower down.
In 1979 another earthquake razed it to the ground, this time for good.
After two such terrible earthquakes anyone would have given up, but not the Umbrians: they have thick skin and the unshakeable spirit of their mountains.
Some elders of the village told me that my grandfather was among those who fought for the reconstruction. He’d been living in Rome for years by then, but his roots were there and he wouldn’t let them vanish.
The village was rebuilt on the neighbouring hill, because it was no longer possible to build on the mountain that had sheltered it for so many centuries.
With the Norcia earthquake of 2016, even the new anti-seismic houses were damaged: and once again the time to rebuild had come.
Now let me explain why.
The Madonna della Neve in Castel Santa Maria
In the little shepherds’ village there was a treasure of enormous value to the local people: an octagonal-plan sanctuary, built taking inspiration from a design Bramante had made for St Peter’s. It was dedicated to the Madonna della Neve (Our Lady of the Snow), because in Castel Santa Maria too, up in the mountains, a miracle had happened.
A man, caught in a blizzard, had been trapped beneath the frozen blanket of snow. The villagers managed to free him only three days later and found him, incredibly, still alive: the traveller had devoted himself to the Madonna and prayed at length, and his life was spared.
Thanks to this miracle, at the foot of the village the building of the Madonna della Neve church began in 1565. The labour was local and the work was extraordinarily carried out thanks to popular donations.
The eight interior niches were frescoed by the local painters, the Angelucci da Mevale, between 1570 and 1584. The church survived various earthquakes, including that of 1703, but did not escape the tremor of 19 September 1979, which destroyed four of its eight sides and blew off the roof.
Some say it was restoration work that made the vault too heavy and caused its collapse. What we know for certain is that the church remained for decades in a state of substantial abandonment.
The Madonna della Neve was my degree thesis, and probably one of the reasons I decided to study art history: I wanted to stop monuments like this from being left to the elements. I wanted its story to be told again, so much so that even Repubblica wrote about it.
Why Castel Santa Maria is an incredible place
Certainly because I’m attached to the village and the people who come here, but I think much of its charm is due to the fact that there’s nothing around.
Or perhaps it would be better to say that around it there’s everything.
The village is set in the green of the Sibillini Mountains National Park: there are wheat fields, hares, foxes, wild boar, wolves and deer; there are eagles, buzzards, hawks, hedgehogs and moles. There’s fresh air and there are wonderful storms, magical sunsets and nights full of stars.
The night of San Lorenzo, in Castel Santa Maria, is a sight unique in the world: the sky is so dark you can even see the Milky Way.
In Castel Santa Maria there is nature, a nature unchanged for centuries, full of charm, energy and beauty. That, I think, is why I love those mountains so much.
The dream of rebuilding the Madonna della Neve
For some years now I’ve been devoting myself heart and soul to one of the greatest dreams of my life: rebuilding the Madonna della Neve.
Rebuilding the church today, after the Norcia earthquake, may seem pointless, but it’s quite the opposite. At a time when so many churches of the Valnerina have been destroyed, giving new life to a work of art can help create tourism across the whole area, not to mention the symbolic meaning it would take on.
It would bring the village back to life, could create work, and would once again become a place of gathering, prayer and pilgrimage, as it has been for centuries.
But isn’t it more important to give a home back to those who’ve lost one?
Of course it is: and that’s why we’re devoting ourselves to this project with our own strength alone, without wanting to take any funding away from the reconstruction of Norcia and the neighbouring towns.
And you, have you ever had a place of the heart so special that you’d want to devote your life to saving it?
