Orselina Via Crucis

Madonna del Sasso sanctuary, dedicated to the “Assunta”, the Virgin Mary, was founded in 1480 following the apparition of the Virgin to the Franciscan friar Bartolomeo Piatti d’Ivrea. The first Assunta church and a small house for the friars called “Casa del Padre” were erected in the years 1485-1487. The convent was only built in 1534 and its structure, which was expanded and transformed during the following centuries, still exists. The Sacro Monte developed later on, with the construction of the first chapels and the opening of the Via Crucis (1621). It develops along an ascensional route, symbolically intended as a purifying walk leading to the Sanctuary via the “Strada della Valle” or the Via Crucis where shrines and chapels are devoted to the life af Christ and the Virgin Mary. The Madonna del Sasso complex, owned by the government since 1848 and taken care by the Capuchin friars, was restored in two different phases, in 2006-2007 and in 2009-2015; the museum was renovated in 2016.