Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie a Fornò - Forlì

This church was dedicated to S. Maria delle Grazie in 1450. It has a circular base and its interiors are big. The place it rises in and the sacredness it inspires make it a very interesting. The church rises in Fornò, a village near Forlì.

Address: Via del Santuario, 22, 47121 Forlì (FC), Italia
Opening hours: ring the doorbell of Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII
Information: Don Mauro Ballestra 339 3315393, 0543 796064
Disabled: access from the main entrance

Admission: free

Analytical text

It was dedicated to S. Maria delle Grazie in 1450.
This church is the protagonist of a suggestive story. A pirate fell out of his ship during a storm; the vessel was wrecked. The man survived holding a piece of wood and floated in the sea for days; the pirate understood that his life depended on that wood. When the pirate Pietro Bianco da Durazzo landed at Romagna coast he was a totally different person. He turned the wooden tablet he had been holding for so long and he realized it was the portray of a Byzantine Madonna.
At first he was shocked, then he converted to Christianity and lived the rest of his life as a hermit. He built up the solid rounded sanctuary hosting the sacred image that led him to salvation.