- Feb 5, 2002
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One thousand or so years ago, reclusive monastics once hid themselves away from the secular world by traversing a thin shelf of rocky cliffside at Mount Baldo masiff, north of Verona, in today’s Italy. Here, crowned by steep cliffs to the north, west, and south, and adjacent valley side to the east, a hermitage hanging on the side of a cliff afforded them a spiritual place for tranquil reflection.
Today, the hermitage no longer stands. In its place, as if floating midway between Heaven and Earth, the glorious gothic façade and tower of a minor basilica seem to defy the very laws of gravity. Nested on a narrow perch, the Sanctuary of Madonna della Corona emerges half-hewn from the living rock.
Many things have changed at this holy spot in the mountains over the last several centuries. The once precarious and steep stair up the cliff has been modernized for tourists and religious pilgrims alike. A new route from atop Mount Baldo has been furnished, along with a steep flight of stairs from the larger town of Spiazzi above, from which shuttles now ferry visitors to and fro. The sanctuary itself underwent a major rebuilding and expansion in the 1970s.
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