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SANCTUARY OF MOMPILIERI

The Sanctuary of Mompilieri, threatened and partly damaged from the eruption of the 1537, it has been completely buried from the eruption of mount Etna on 11 March 1669. In fact in the territory of Mascalucia the place of Mompilieri doesn't exist more having been destroyed. The casting incandescent lava reached the height of 11 meters burying and liquefying houses and stones, leaving intact prodigiously, only the marmoreal statue of Our Lady. Built immediately after the recovery of the statue of the Sciara Madonna it happened on August 18 1704, the first August 1923 the Cardinal Nava, Archbishop of Catania, erected canonically at Sanctuary the Oratory of Mompilieri, with the intention to raise it to the levels of the other big sanctuaries in the world. The Church is situated in the territory of Mascalucia, a small village at 18 kilometres from Catania and 5 from Belpasso and from Nicolosi.

Also this Sanctuary as all the history of the Etneo territory is tied up at the "Etna Mountain" and to its eruptions. The date of the construction of the ancient church is not exactly known, devoted dedicated to the Madonna of the Announced and placed little far by the actual church. But by the pontifical bull of the 1382, that speaks about the succession of priest, in Mompilieri, of the priest Francis Mostacioso, we could deduce that the ancient church of the Announced reascends at 1100 - 1200 ad., perhaps like place of the Templars, seen that in the Etneo territory they possessed of the wide piece of ground of ground. From the written left from the priest Don Anthony Of Urso chaplain of Mompilieri and of Massa-Annunziata, dated 25 October 1688, one reads that our main Church better called of the Announced it was almost at the beginning of the village country from the north. The above Church of the Announced it had three aisles and the vault had supported from columns of Sciara stones. The large door of the church turned towards east and it was near the road that went down to Nicolosi. He in the main altar had set the image of the Announced and above an other altar the image of the Our Lady Maria of the Graces with the Holy Child in her arm.

Of the celestial beauty of the above-said statue like the other two of the Announced (work of Antonello Gagini, the biggest Sicilian sculptor of the century) and of the Archangel Gabriello, never found, different historians speak about him, between them the Tedeschi in the "Storia degli incendi dell'Etna," the Prelodato Mass in "Sicilia in Prospettiva" printed in 1709, the Recupero in the "Storia dell'Etna," Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, in the "Historia et Meteorologia incendi Aetnae, 1669."

About the recovery of the image of the Virgo of the Graces, found again on August 18 1704 the Prelodato Massa, in "Sicilia in prospettive" as he writes: "...In 1704 with new enthusiasm and vigour caught again the escavation of other points facilitated from the devotion toward the Virgin Mother and from the impulses of person which for celestial inspiration assured not to fall short of expectations"And so to empty the operation, the image of the Holy Virgo of the Graces has been found again above an altar in the main buried Church than the Announced, at the depth of 8 meters of thick and hard rock. It is August 18th 1704, thirty-five years after the eruption and he had placed in the built Church (the actual sanctuary) above the ancient church. From the date of his prodigious recovery the Madonna of the Graces of Mompilieri, denominated later Madonna of the Sciara, it is object of cult from part of the believers that they hasten each year to celebrate the fortunate event. Inserted in a natural incomparable scenery, that in spring it seem to be resplendent of the gold of the brooms in flower scattered in all the zone, the small Sanctuary rises in a true oasis of peace. From the top of his square, from which you rise a large staircase rises with a lava stone altar to the centre, the surrounding areas are perceived, on which the eye spaces, beyond the roofs of the houses, in distance, sheds until to the near Catania and to the Ionio sea.