Sanctuary of Saint Michael the Archangel

This is a church inside a mountain. To reach the Sanctuary of Saint Michael at Monte Sant'Angelo, on the heights of the Gargano peninsula in Apulia, you pass through a Gothic portico and go down a long flight of steps into the rock, to a cave where, according to tradition, the Archangel Michael appeared around the year 490. It is the oldest shrine to Saint Michael in Western Europe and since the early Middle Ages it has been one of the great pilgrim destinations of Christendom.

The legend, set down in an early medieval Latin text, tells of several apparitions to the bishop of nearby Sipontum, with the archangel asking that the cave be dedicated to Christian worship. A later episode credits Michael with a victory by the Lombard duke of Benevento, Grimoald, over invading Greeks in 663, and that battle gave rise to the feast of 8 May. The Lombards adopted Michael as their patron, and dukes of Benevento and kings of Pavia paid for works to ease access for pilgrims; the shrine became a stop on the route to the Holy Land. Popes, saints and emperors came, and tradition holds that Francis of Assisi, feeling unworthy to enter, stopped at the threshold and carved a cross in the shape of a T on a stone. The shrine is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Longobards in Italy, listed in 2011.

The visit is a descent through the centuries. Nearby rises a massive octagonal bell tower of the 13th century, first a watchtower and later converted to hold bells under Charles I of Anjou. The portico's right-hand arch dates from 1395, the work of a local architect named Simone. At the bottom of the stairs, the Romanesque doorway to the cave holds bronze doors made in Constantinople in 1076 and given by a nobleman of Amalfi, divided into 24 panels showing angels from the Old and New Testaments. The cave itself keeps a holy well, a 12th-century marble bishop's throne resting on crouching lions, and a statue of the archangel attributed to Andrea Sansovino.

The town around the sanctuary is worth time too: the castle with its pentagonal Giants' Tower, and the so-called Tomb of Rothari, in fact a 12th-century baptistery. The sanctuary is a minor basilica and an active place of worship.

Getting there

Monte Sant'Angelo sits on the southern slopes of the Gargano, about 9 km from Manfredonia and inside the Gargano National Park. SITA Sud buses run from Foggia via Manfredonia to Monte Sant'Angelo in about an hour and a half, though timetables vary; by car the town is reached on the SP 55 provincial road. The nearest airport is Foggia Gino Lisa (FOG), about 46 km away.