Gargano, Apulia, Italy
San Giovanni Rotondo
What is there today
The cell where he lived for half a century is preserved, with his bed and his habit, along with the confessional where he spent ten hours a day. Beside it a new church by Renzo Piano was raised for six thousand people, because the old one was too small. It is the second most visited shrine in Italy after Loreto.
Why this image comes from here
He is the only saint in the catalogue of whom photographs and recordings exist, and that forces him to be painted as he was: old, white bearded, heavy faced. No image of him can idealise him without it showing, and that is why his icon is one of the few that rests on a likeness rather than on an attribute.
Pieces from this place
- Saint Pio of Pietrelcina
- He spent fifty years in a friary on the Gargano, in Apulia, and hardly ever left. Today it is the second most visited shrine in Italy and the whole town lives off those who climb to see him.