The Most Beautiful Pilgrimage Sites in Italy
5 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful pilgrimage sites in Italy are Santa Maria dell'Isola Monastery, Sanctuary of Oropa and Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua. The list covers 5 pilgrimage sites. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Italy has been a land of pilgrimage since the early Christian centuries, and beyond Rome and Assisi it is dotted with sanctuaries built where a miraculous image was found or a vision reported. Many were raised on deliberately dramatic sites, on cliffs, rocks and hilltops, so that the climb or the view became part of the act of devotion.
Santa Maria dell'Isola stands on a rocky promontory rising from the sea below Tropea in Calabria, its small church reached by a stairway cut into the rock and framed by turquoise water. The Madonna della Corona Sanctuary near Spiazzi, in the Veneto, is built into a sheer cliff face of Monte Baldo high above the Adige valley, as if suspended between rock and sky. The Sanctuary of Vicoforte in Piedmont, begun in the 1590s around a venerated image of the Virgin, is crowned by the largest elliptical dome in the world, completed in the 18th century by Francesco Gallo.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santa Maria dell'Isola Monastery | Pilgrimage site | |
| 2 | Sanctuary of Oropa | Pilgrimage site | |
| 3 | Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua | Pilgrimage site | |
| 4 | Madonna della Corona Sanctuary (Spiazzi) | Pilgrimage site | |
| 5 | Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of Mondovi | Pilgrimage site |
01 Santa Maria dell'Isola Monastery
Santuario di Santa Maria dell'Isola
Italy · 17.9 km from Vibo Valentia38.680° N 15.896° E
Walter Della Schiava · CC BY-SA 3.0 An 18th-century sculpture of the Holy Family stands in the altar niche. On the feast of the Assumption it is carried out to sea on a decorated fishing boat, followed by a flotilla, along the coast between Zambrone and Capo Vaticano. Local tradition holds that a wooden statue of the Virgin arrived from the East in the age of Iconoclasm and proved too tall for its niche in the rock; when a carpenter set his saw to its legs his arms were paralysed, and the bishop and the mayor who had ordered the work died on the spot.
Did you know? Under the Benedictines the church was dedicated to Santa Maria del Presepe, Holy Mary of the Nativity crib.
02 Sanctuary of Oropa
Santuario di Oropa
Italy45.628° N 7.979° E
Alfiere33 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Above the courtyards a path climbs through the Sacro Monte di Oropa, a sequence of chapels begun in the 17th century whose painted terracotta figures tell the life of the Virgin. Together with eight other devotional mountains of Piedmont and Lombardy it forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The road up from Biella is also a celebrated climb of the Giro d'Italia, where Marco Pantani won a stage in 1999 after losing time to a dropped chain.
Did you know? The Upper Basilica took 75 years to build, from its first stone in 1885 to its consecration in 1960.
03 Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua
Basilica di Sant'Antonio di Padova
Italy · 34.3 km from Venice45.401° N 11.881° E
Image by sferrario1968 from Pixabay The basilica is also a treasury of 14th-century painting. Opposite the saint's chapel, the Chapel of St James, commissioned in the 1370s by Bonifacio Lupi, is covered with Altichiero da Zevio's frescoes of the life of St James and a large Crucifixion, and the Chapel of Blessed Luca Belludi holds frescoes by Giusto de' Menabuoi; both are part of the UNESCO site of Padua's 14th-century fresco cycles, inscribed in 2021. Elsewhere are a 1396 statue of the Madonna Mora, named for her dark hair and complexion, a 14th-century fresco of the Madonna del Pilastro, and the tomb of Gattamelata himself.
04 Madonna della Corona Sanctuary (Spiazzi)
Santuario della Madonna della Corona
Italy · 25.5 km from Verona45.650° N 10.856° E
Misasar · CC BY-SA 4.0 The church was rebuilt several times on the same cramped shelf: a new building was raised about four metres above the old one between 1625 and 1685, a Gothic façade was added in 1899 by Giuseppe Magagnotti, and between 1975 and 1978 the architect Guido Tisato reconstructed the whole sanctuary on its ledge. The shrine became a minor basilica in 1982, and Pope John Paul II came here in 1988. Pilgrims still arrive the traditional way, climbing the Sentiero della Speranza, the Path of Hope, from Brentino Belluno on the valley floor.
Did you know? In 1437 the shrine passed to the Knights of Malta, who in 1625 rebuilt the church and made it a true sanctuary.
05 Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of Mondovi
Santuario di Vicoforte
Italy44.363° N 7.863° E
Mattis · CC BY-SA 3.0 It was resumed in 1728 by the Mondovì architect Francesco Gallo, encouraged by Filippo Juvarra, who devised the daring elliptical cupola and closed it in 1732. Between 1746 and the early 1750s the painters Mattia Bortoloni and Felice Biella decorated it with a vast cycle on the theme of salvation. The bell towers and three façades, designed by Camillo Riccio, were completed only in 1884. The church holds the rank of minor basilica and contains a monument to Margherita of Savoy carved by Giuseppe Gaggini in the early eighteenth century; in December 2017 the remains of King Victor Emmanuel III and Queen Elena of Italy were brought here from Alexandria and Montpellier and laid to rest together.
Did you know? Tradition names the hunter whose shot holed the image; he confessed on his deathbed and left his arquebus to a local parish, and the gun later passed to the sanctuary.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful pilgrimage sites in Italy?
- On our list, Santa Maria dell'Isola Monastery ranks first, followed by Sanctuary of Oropa and Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua.
- How was the Madonna della Corona Sanctuary built into the cliff?
- The church was built in successive phases on a narrow ledge of the rock face of Monte Baldo, with the cliff itself forming part of its rear wall. Pilgrims traditionally climbed to it on a steep path from the valley below.
- What is special about the dome of Vicoforte?
- The sanctuary's dome is elliptical rather than circular, and it is the largest elliptical dome in the world. It was completed in the 1730s by the architect Francesco Gallo.
- How many pilgrimage sites are on this list in Italy?
- The list covers 5 pilgrimage sites.