The Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grondici is located in a really evocative panoramic position near Tavernelle, a village in the district of Panicale.
It was built in the 15th century to protect a Madonna painted on a votive shrine that according to legend, revived a child.
The word “grondici”, meaning “under-eaves” identifies the part of the roof protruding from the external wall of a building, the eaves.
The medieval theology thought that the souls of children who died without having been baptised would go to limbo and, consequently, they could not be buried in hallowed ground. Parents whose children were dying unbaptised would bring them to the Sanctuary, in the hope that they could still give some signs of life and receive both the Sacrament of Baptism and a religious burial. If this didn’t happen, the child was buried under the eaves; the name of Madonna delle Grondici developed over time from here.
The temple, totally renovated in recent years, was guided by hermits until the beginning of the 20th century. Inside it’s possible to admire “Virgin on the Throne between the Saints Sebastiano and Rocco”, artwork of Gregorio Gregori, the Teutonic (1295), who resided in Castel della Pieve.
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