Last minute Itinerari Poggiodomo

The ''Madonna della stella'', the hermitage of Poggiodomo

The hermitage Santa Croce in Valle, today called Madonna della Stella, is a very charming place. It was built in 1337 by the friars Andrea da Cascia and Giovanni da Norcia, hermits of the Order of Saint Augustine, who were given a piece of land in the Valle Noce, belonging to the near church Chiesa di San Benedetto so that they could carry out their intension to live there in absolute seclusion. The aisleless church was partly built by excavating the rocks, as were just built several other cells by using natural gorges and completing them with walls. The hermitage was equipped with an oven and a refectory, an apparent sign for the presence of a considerable and growing group of monks. In the course of the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th century the hermitage was lived in only sporadically and then left definitely (maybe because of the earthquake, that shook the Valnerina in 1703). In April 1833 it was rediscovered by two kids of the nearby village Roccatamburo, who found the ruins of the antique church. After its rediscovery the hermitage became the centre of miraculous apparitions which drove the believers to fill the valleys with chants, prayers, processions and devout offerings which before all sparked off a dispute between the different parish churches for the administration competence. After the restoration in 1833 the hermitage was left in custody to some friars who lived there voluntarily, like Vincenzo Zolfanelli of Fabriano, who was buried in the church and commemorated with a memorial tablet, and Luigi Crescenzi of Poggioprimocaso, hermit from 1919 to 1949, when he died as a result of a fall from the high square in front of the monastic cells.