Church of the Madonna delle Lacrime

Santuario della Madonna delle Lacrime, Trevi

The shrine was built on the site of the rural home of a certain Diotallevi di Antonio, who, in 1483, for devotional purposes, painted a Madonna and child with St Francis

The evening of August 5th 1485, someone saw the face of the Madonna weep tears of blood. Following the miraculous event, it was decided that a shrine would be built in memory of the event, with funds given by the municipality and several Trevi families. It was finished in 1522 and became an important place of worship of the Virgin Mary.


The facade includes a Renaissance portal (1495-1498), by the Venetian Giovanni di Giampietro.
The interior, in the form of a single-nave Latin cross, houses numerous chapels, two of which are decorated by two of the most important Umbrian painters of the Renaissance: Perugino and Lo Spagna. The first painted the Cappella del Presepio in 1521 which depicts, in the style typical of the painter, the Adoration of the Magi with Saints Peter and Paul on either side.

 

The Cappella di San Francesco contains the Deposition of Christ by Lo Spagna, painted between 1518 and 1520. The scene, derived from the famous panel created by Raphael in 1507 for the Cappella Baglioni of San Francesco al Prato in Perugia, is surmounted by a lunette with St Augustine with Devotees and Angels and surrounded by the figures of Saints Ubaldo and Joseph.
Alternating with the chapels are fine sepulchral monuments carved in caciolfa stone, belonging to members of the Valenti family. The family was also responsible for the construction of the polychrome marble altar of the Madonna delle Lacrime, intended to accommodate the image of the Virgin in whose honour the shrine was built.

The church, which is open every day of the week, is managed by the Sisters of the Holy Family of Trevi.

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