CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF CARAVAGGIO
The votive Church of Our Lady of Caravaggio was built in 1792 on the private land owned by the Gelpi family from Bergamo, italy who commissioned its construction. The worship of Our Lady of Caravaggio began in Italy in 1432, on the 26th of May in Caravaggio, a town near Bergamo where a pious woman named Giovannette had a Marian apparition. After that apparition, the footprints on a stone and a spring of clear water underneath it were left as a reminder of the Virgin Mary’s appearance. After swimming in the stream created by the spring, people were awestruck having discovered that their pain had mysteriously disappeared. The word got out, and the sanctuary was built in the place of the apparition.
During the 17th and beginning of the 18 th centuries, numerous Italian families from around Bergamo moved to Tisno, among them the Gelpi family. Since the mentioned family venerated the Virgin Mary, they brought a painting of her Caravaggio apparition with them. Hence, owing to this italian family’s painting, Tisno turned into a religious center and a mecca for pilgrims.
With the increase of the veneration of the Virgin Mary and pilgrimage over the years, the chapel was extended several times. The altar in the presbytery holds the oil on canvas altarpiece painted by Antonio Zuccaro probably based on the older apparition painting brought to Tisno by the Gelpis. The latter can today be found on the southern lateral wall of the church. Its anonymous author painted it with tempera on a wooden panel.
On the very feast day, tens of thousands of worshipers visit the Church of Our Lady of Caravaggio. Following the prayers of the stations of the Cross and services that take place from dawn till dusk, the citizens of Tisno and their guests continue with the festivity in a series of appropriate events.
The church today
Over the years the church building has gone through various reconstructions and extensions. The current church is a one-nave building with a square apse and an extension in the form of a small room with a gable roof. There is a portico in front of the church, while a remote bell tower built in 1902 is located next to the room with a well.
So-called Karavaj (Caravaggio) street leads to the sanctuary surrounded by cypresses and pine forest on the Hill of Brošćica. The street consists of 214 steps pilgrims tend to cross on their knees to fulfill their vows to the Virgin Mary. On the last Sunday in March, the customary novena prayer to Our Lady of Caravaggio begins as a preparation for her feast day on the 26th of May. Novena prayer takes place each Sunday until the feast day.
Source:
STOŠIĆ, K.: Sela šibenskog kotora, Šibenik, 1941., p.208
JURAN, K., SORIĆ, S. : Spomenici sakralnoga graditeljstva na otoku Murteru,
Toponimija otoka Murtera. Zadar, Sveučilište u Zadru, 2010, p.97-1217