Descrizione
To reach the Sanctuary of Beato Sante, a few kilometers from the historic center of Mombaroccio, you need to enter the surrounding forest and take a road that, in the middle of autumn, offers an evocative and fairytale image of itself, with a carpet of yellow, orange and brownish leaves that you can hear creaking at every step.
The foundation of the Sanctuary dates back to 1223, by the Franciscan friars, who still take care of it today. “The church and convent of Blessed Sante are a complex of great importance for the civil, religious and architectural history of the Marche”, wrote Pope Nicholas IV in the thirteenth century and today we can only confirm these words, because the Sanctuary is really an important reference for the faithful, as well as representing an artistic and cultural center.
The architectural complex is the result of seven centuries of interventions and the mixture of different styles, which have made it unique and particular. The east side shows itself with the traditional architectural shape that gives space to the main nave and on which stands the majestic and original bell tower, with its white stone capitals. The stone portico of Sant’Ippolito, the beautiful door of the 1300s in larch wood, the representations under the portico give us the image of a unique architectural complex of its kind.
The interior of the church houses the Chapel of Beato Sante, built in the eighteenth century, which preserves the mortal remains of the Blessed. Here we also find a canvas attributed to Favini and frescoes by Ciro Pavisa, such as the aforementioned “Miracle of the cherries”.
But what role is attributed to Blessed Sante, what actions made him so important for Mombaroccio? Giansante Brancorsini: this was the name of the twenty-seven-year-old who, in 1370, knocked on the doors of the convent of the church of Santa Maria di Scotaneto and asked the Father Guardian to welcome him into the convent as a sign of penance for a sin he had committed and whose remorse had tormented him for a year: in self-defense, he had involuntarily struck to death a relative who, seized by a fit of madness, was about to kill him.
Blessed Sante, it is said, was the protagonist of three singular episodes that made people cry out for a miracle: after blessing it, he made fertile an oak that had been sterile for years that produced an incredible amount of acorns on which a small cross was engraved; he tamed a wild wolf that he had met on the way back to the convent and that was about to tear him to pieces and finally, to the disbelief of all the friars who lived with him, in the middle of winter he managed to have cherries produced by the convent tree.
