Santuario della Madonna dei Miracoli, Renaissance minor basilica in Saronno, Italy.
The Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of Miracles in Saronno is a Marian shrine built from 1498, with a Latin-cross plan centred on a dome under a twelve-sided drum pierced by 24 windows. Pellegrino Tibaldi's facade, built 1596–1613, has a projecting entrance flanked by two caryatids, statues in high side niches, and a balustrade topped by the Assunta and two pairs of trumpet-playing angels, added in 1666. A 47-metre bell tower by Paolo della Porta stands beside it.
The shrine was built from 8 May 1498 by the people of Saronno around a chapel on the Varesina road that had already collapsed three times. The chapel held a late 14th-century statue of the Madonna, credited with healing a young man, dated by sources to 1447, 1460 or 1497. Giovanni Antonio Amadeo is thought to have designed the original Greek-cross plan and certainly designed the tiburio, finished in 1508. Pellegrino Tibaldi's facade followed in 1596-1613, and in 1581 Carlo Borromeo moved the statue inside.
The venerated image is a Madonna statue from the second half of the 14th century, kept in a chapel on the Varesina road before Carlo Borromeo moved it inside on 10 September 1581. Popular devotion grew from healings attributed to it, dated variously to 1447, 1460 or 1497. The sanctuary became a parish church in 1986.
The facade faces the piazza on the Varesina road; the entrance portal is flanked by two sculpted figures, and a low stone balustrade runs along the base. The 47-metre bell tower by Paolo della Porta stands beside the church, and the small clock turret over the piazza building dates from 1594. The interior is arranged in three naves over five bays, so allow time to walk the full length toward the dome.
The dome's interior was frescoed between 1525 and 1545 by Bernardino Luini and Gaudenzio Ferrari. Look up into the octagonal cupola above the crossing: the painted figures cover the vaults of the dome, a cycle that also involved the sculptors Andrea da Milano and Giulio Oggioni.
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