Madonna del Soccorso, Church and shrine in Cori, Italy.

The Santuario della Madonna del Soccorso stands just outside the built-up area of Cori. Its Baroque interior has a single vaulted nave, with four side altars dedicated to san Pasquale Baylón, saints Jerome and Charles Borromeo, the Holy Family and saint Lucy. The presbytery is covered by a 17th-century dome designed by the Roman architect Mario Arconio. The facade has a portico of three round arches; an epigraph in the left pier records works carried out in 1588.

A chapel was built on the site in 1521, after the shepherd girl Oliva Iannese reported an apparition of the Virgin; a larger church, consecrated in 1537, absorbed it. Pietro Antonio Alciati da Como painted murals there in 1564. To protect the shrine from damp, a new church was begun in 1627 and finished in 1641, with a presbytery dome designed in 1616 by the Roman architect Mario Arconio.

The sanctuary's name comes from the Madonna del Soccorso, the Virgin who protected the lost child Oliva Iannese for eight days in 1521. The feast is held on the second Sunday of May, with a procession in which participants wear period costumes. Since 1938 the shrine has been cared for by the Trinitarian Fathers.

The sanctuary stands outside Cori's built-up centre, on the mountainside, so it is reached by a short trip from the town rather than a walk along its streets. The facade portico with three round arches, added in 1588, shelters the entrance; the Cappella dell'Apparizione, built in 1951, opens off the left side of the nave before the presbytery.

The venerated wall painting of the Madonna and Child, datable between the late 15th and early 16th century, was moved in 1639 from the 16th-century chapel to the high altar of the new church. In it the child Oliva Iannese kneels at the Virgin's left in a red dress, while two angels hold a crown above.