Santa Maria dell'Itria, Baroque church in Marsala, Italy

Santa Maria dell'Itria is a church on Piazza Sant'Agostino in Marsala, with a Baroque facade and a Neoclassical interior. The entrance portal is flanked by two twisted columns on tall plinths carrying a broken pediment, whose white-stone niche holds a statue of the Madonna with the Child above a box borne by two hermits. Inside, a single barrel-vaulted nave has side altars with marble tabernacles.

The church and monastery were built between the 17th and 18th centuries after the discovery of an 8th-century painting of the Madonna dell'Itria and a miracle linked to it. From the start they housed the Barefoot Augustinians of Marsala, long administered from Palermo until the diocese of Mazara del Vallo won a legal dispute over their management. During World War II soldiers sheltered inside and lit fires that destroyed furnishings, paintings and artworks, while the exterior kept its original appearance.

Locals call it Chiesa dell'Itria, or vulgarly Chiesa del Cimitero. The name Itria corrupts the Greek Byzantine Hodighitria, "she who leads", for the Madonna Odigitria, main patron of Sicily. The venerated image is an 8th-century oil on canvas of Mary with raised hands and the Child on a box held by two hermits.

The church stands at Piazza Sant'Agostino 7. The grotto with the 8th-century Madonna painting is reached through a gate on the right side of the nave, near the entrance, down a stone and marble staircase with a stone balustrade. Padre Elia di Gesù e Maria's sarcophagus is also on the right side.

In 2018, restoration work in the cave beneath the church uncovered a 13th-century fresco of a praying Virgin with raised hands, painted without the Child. It had been hidden under later frescoes and finally covered by the canvas of the Madonna dell'Itria. The cave is reached through a gate on the right side of the nave, near the entrance, down a stone and marble stair.