Santa Maria della Croce Sanctuary: A Renaissance Marian Basilica in Crema
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Italian, Venetian
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Sanctuary
On this page18 sections
History
Santa Maria della Croce Sanctuary is a Roman Catholic Marian sanctuary and minor basilica in Crema, Italy, built by the Renaissance civilization around the reported apparition of the Virgin Mary to Caterina degli Uberti. Construction took place approximately between 1490 and 1500, about one kilometre from Crema’s historic centre on the road to Bergamo.
The apparition and the first sanctuary
The sanctuary’s origin is linked to Caterina degli Uberti, a member of a wealthy Crema family. She married Bartolomeo Pederbelli, known as Il Contaglio, on 13 February 1489. Pederbelli was a fugitive from Bergamo who had been expelled from his province. Disputes concerning Caterina’s dowry later damaged relations between him and her family.
On the night of 2 April 1490, Il Contaglio either persuaded or forced Caterina to accompany him towards Bergamo. At the Novelletto wood, about a mile outside Crema, he attacked her with a sword. The blow severed her right hand and part of her arm, and the sword broke during the assault. He then struck her with a dagger, which apparently slid along her clothing and caused a contusion near her left shoulder blade. He fled with her belongings and four gold rings, and nothing further was known of him.
Gravely wounded, Caterina is said to have called upon the Virgin so that she could receive the sacraments. A poorly dressed woman appeared, identified herself as the one Caterina had invoked, and took her to a nearby farmhouse for initial care. Since the city gates were closed, Caterina reached Crema only the next morning. After examination by a physician and questioning by a Venetian magistrate known as the Judge of Malefice, she received the sacraments from Filippo, a priest of San Benedetto parish, and died.
A small wooden cross was placed at the scene of the attack. On 3 May 1490, an eleven-year-old boy, traditionally identified as the son of Francesco Marazzi, was brought to Novelletto because a serious foot condition prevented him from standing independently. After prayers, he was said to walk again, and approximately forty other miraculous cures were associated with that day. On 4 May, a solemn procession reached the site, where a small altar was erected and a relief of the Madonna and Child, donated by the Milanese Gianfranco Cotta, was installed.
Many people reportedly saw the image shed tears on 5 May, while about eighty unexplained cures were associated with the occasion. The city council then decreed that a building should rise at the site of the apparition. Further miracles were said to occur on 18 May and 2 June. On 18 June, the Venetian podestà of Crema, Nicolò Priuli, witnessed what was described as a luminous circle. An iridescent ring appeared around the sun and seemed to descend towards the earth three times. Although Priuli was initially sceptical and worried about public disorder, he later became one of the principal supporters of the sanctuary’s construction.
Renaissance construction and wartime damage
Giovanni Battagio of Lodi designed the sanctuary. He had trained in the Milanese architectural milieu and was a pupil of Bramante, the major Italian Renaissance architect whose ideas influenced his work. Around 1500, Battagio broke with the administrators directing the building works. Giovanni Montanaro then continued the project and modified the upper gallery.
The building was seriously affected during the 1514 siege of Crema. A coalition involving the Duchy of Milan, the Spanish Empire, and the Swiss Confederation besieged the city for four months, while Renzo da Ceri directed its defence. He ordered the surroundings of Crema cleared but spared the sanctuary, which was already advanced in construction, and converted it into a fort. The siege caused serious damage. War and the plague that followed delayed completion, and the first interior decorations began around 1541.
Parish, Carmelite, and civic development
In 1585, the sanctuary was placed under the parish of Pianengo. In 1593, the Venetian podestà Nicola Vendramin commissioned a road connecting Porta Serio with the church. Known for many years as the Vendramina road, it was widened and lined with trees in 1810.
The Venetian doge Domenico Contarini authorised an annual fair on 25 March, the Feast of the Annunciation, on 14 November 1664. The first fair took place in 1666, and the tradition continues. In 1694, the sanctuary was entrusted to the Discalced Carmelites, a reformed branch of the Carmelite order that followed stricter observance. They began the adjoining convent in 1706 and added the bell tower in 1710.
The Discalced Carmelites left Crema in 1810 during the suppressions carried out under Napoleonic rule. As a neighbourhood developed around the sanctuary, Bishop Tommaso Ronna established the parish of Santa Maria della Croce in 1828. Its first priest, Agostino Cremonesi, took possession on 2 May 1830. Monsignor Giuseppe Sanguettola solemnly crowned the Virgin’s head on 4 September 1837.
Modern recognition and restoration
From 26 April 1869, records describe movements of the eyes of the terracotta image in connection with the earlier reports of tears. The priests Silvio della Noce, Paolo Stramezzi, and Bartolomeo Borsieri signed testimony as witnesses. The side roofs were altered in 1904, and the original terracotta pavement was replaced in 1914.
Pope Pius XII granted the sanctuary the title and dignity of minor basilica through a papal bull dated 18 April 1958. The elevation was promoted by Bishop Placido Maria Cambiaghi and Provost Francesco Piantelli. A general restoration was carried out between 1985 and 1988. In 1990, for the five-hundredth anniversary of the apparition, the sculptor Mario Toffetti made new bronze portals. Pope John Paul II prayed in the crypt on 20 June 1992. In recent years, responsibility for the sanctuary has been entrusted to the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, whose members combine contemplative religious life with apostolic service.
The sanctuary’s religious calendar retains several observances connected with its history. These include the fair on 25 March, the apparition feast on 3 April, the commemoration of the reported eye movement on 26 April, and the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross with the commemoration of the first reported cure on 3 May. Other observances recall the luminous circle on 18 June, the Feast of the Transfiguration on 6 August in association with the laying of the first stone, the coronation on 4 September, and the consecration of the church on the Sunday after Mary’s Nativity.
Remains
Santa Maria della Croce is a Renaissance building based on a Greek-cross plan, in which the four arms are approximately equal in length. Its central body is circular on the outside and octagonal within, and is joined to four smaller bodies. The main structure rises about 35 metres, while the smaller bodies are approximately 15 metres high. Exposed brick defines the exterior, whose geometric arrangement gives the sanctuary a strongly articulated profile.
Exterior and central structure
Central body
The central exterior is divided into four vertical orders. The lowest has pilasters with entablatures and recessed panels. Above it, a gallery with single-light windows forms the second level. The elaborate third order contains triple arches that create large double-light windows with decorated parapets. Montanaro changed the fourth order into a low loggia, or open gallery, with closely spaced columns and trefoil arches.
Side bodies and portals
Each of the four side bodies has an octagonal outline created by cutting back the corners of a square. The western body contains the principal portal, while secondary portals occupy the northern and southern sides. All three entrances have triangular pediments. The oblique sides contain rectangular and circular geometric designs or blind doors with circular pediments. Their upper sections connect the central gallery with the drums of the smaller bodies, forming angular transitional elements.
Roofs and bell tower
The smaller bodies originally had tiled roofs. In 1904, through a bequest from the priest Filippo Samanni, these coverings were replaced by copper cupolas following a project by Emilio Gussalli and Luca Beltrami. Period prints suggest that small cupolas may also have existed earlier.
The detached bell tower is approximately as high as the main body, including its lantern, the raised structure above a dome or tower. Its base measures about four metres square and has rusticated bands. Higher levels contain blind windows, corner pilasters, oval motifs, and a clock on the north and south sides. The belfry, the chamber containing the bells, has single-light, round-headed openings. Above it, a multilevel entablature supports an octagonal upper body with further round-headed openings and an onion-shaped roof.
Interior and eastern body
Central space
Inside, the central body is octagonal. The smaller bodies open onto its straight sides, while semicircular chapels occupy the oblique sides. Large columns on high pedestals mark the corners and support an entablature. Above it stands an eight-sided drum, the architectural zone supporting the dome, with double-light windows and the dome above.
Main altar and Assumption
The eastern body has two levels. Its elevated main altar came from Crema Cathedral and is reached by two staircases, each with thirteen steps in red Verona marble. The richly carved altar has a central lapis-lazuli oval and a gilded-bronze tabernacle. Above it hangs Benedetto Rusconi’s large painting of the Assumption, known as Il Diana. Giacomo de Marchi supplied the altarpiece frame, which was gilded by Nicolò Salserio Bianchi, Tommaso Civerchio, and Vincenzo Civerchio. Rusconi also painted the wooden lunette above it, showing God the Father.
Crypt and apparition relief
The lower level of the eastern body is a rectangular crypt with a pavilion vault and lunettes showing the apostles. Its altar, made in 1750 by the Paduan Pietro Danieletti, stands with a wooden niche containing a polychrome terracotta relief of the Madonna and Child, copied from a model attributed to Antonio Rossellino.
The crypt’s decoration presents the apparition to Caterina degli Uberti. At the centre, statues show Caterina with her amputated hand and in an attitude of invocation, facing the Virgin. An angel between them holds a copy of Il Contaglio’s sword. The original sword associated with the attack is preserved in the sanctuary.
Chapels and paintings
Altars around the central space
The four oblique sides of the central space contain recessed altars. Giovan Battista Castello decorated their walls and vaults with stucco in 1585. Niches in the side walls contain female figures, while columns, entablatures, and triangular pediments frame the altars and altarpieces. The splayed areas of the vaults contain rectangular and oval fresco motifs.
The principal altarpieces were produced between 1575 and 1580. Antonio Campi painted the Nativity, also called the Adoration of the Shepherds. Bernardino Campi painted the Adoration of the Magi and the Pieta, or Deposition. Carlo Urbino painted the Way to Calvary and frescoed the walls and vault of its chapel. Aurelio Gatti frescoed the other three chapels.
Smaller bodies
The smaller bodies have square internal plans with corner piers that recall the Greek-cross design. Much of their decoration dates from the eighteenth-century Carmelite period. The 1802 earthquake at Soncino seriously damaged their cupolas, leading to interventions during the nineteenth century.
Giacomo Parravicino, known as Gianolo, decorated the northern body in 1721 with scenes from the stories of Moses. Its small dome contains Eugenio Giuseppe Conti’s 1898 fresco of the Flight into Egypt. The southern body has 1762 frescoes by Giuseppe and Giovanni Antonio Torricelli depicting the stories of King David, while Angelo Bacchetta painted its dome with the Assumption of Mary in 1870.
Entrance, drum, and dome
The western body contains the main entrance vestibule, whose coffered vault is accompanied by holy-water stoups and twentieth-century statues of the Sacred Heart and Saint Maximilian Kolbe. A Verona-marble baptistery stands against the north wall beneath Tommaso Pombioli’s Baptism of Christ. Above the entrance is an organ, probably made in the mid-nineteenth century by the Bernasconi company of Varese, set within an elaborate wooden structure.
The drum is divided into two levels. In 1702, Parravicino painted the lower level with the mystical visions of Saint Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Spanish Carmelite reformer, mystic, and writer, among prophets and sibyls. Paired windows illuminate the upper level. The dome is divided into eight segments containing Parravicino’s frescoes of the Triumph of the Cross, where Christ’s Passion is carried into glory by angels and putti. The brothers Girolamo and Giovan Battista Grandi added secondary decorations.
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