Santuario della Divina Maternità di Concesa (Trezzo sull’Adda)

In the Milanese area of Martesana, in a small votive chapel between the citadel of Trezzo and that of Vaprio, on the right bank of river Adda, nearby a spring called “Acqua della Madonna”, the miraculous painting of the “Madonna di Concesa” was venerated.

This portrait was painted by Gian Stefano Manetta around the 17th century. To glorify Saint Mary – represented as Jesus and people’s Mother in this miraculous painting, Cardinal Cesare Monti, Archbishop of Milan (1635/1650) commissioned a shrine at his expense. The construction of the building started in 1635 and the shrine opened solemnly to the devoted on 3rd September, 1641.

At first, two Oblates of S. Carlo priests were its keepers. But then, as the turnout of pilgrims grew and grew, two priests weren’t enough to look after the Shrine, and Cardinal Monti builded a Monastery – at his expenses – for a community made of 15 monks. The works ended in 1647 and the custody of the building was given to the Padri Carmelitani Scalzi Lombardi.

But after the French Revolution, the monastery was destroyed by the Cisalpina Republic in 1799 and the monks were moved from the shrine, which was sold to privates.
In 1857 the Monastery and the Shrine cames back to their previous owners, the Padri Carmelitani Scalzi, thanks to a charitable aristocrat from Milan.

The structure of the Shrine is one of the first examples of the simple and traditional Baroque in Lombardy, which spread in the whole area during the 17th century. The Monastery was built later, and it presents a rectangular plan and two floors. The building includes two cloisters.

The shrine presents many interesting elements: the miraculous portrait of “Madonna di Concesa” hanging over the tabernacle of the shrine represents Virgin Mary breastfeeding her child Jesus, the terracotta sculpture of Virgin Mary in the arcade of the shrine just over the miraculous spring that still flows and finally a 1485 fresco entitled “Madonna del Barcaiolo” inside the sacristy. Moreover, the young Carmelite Father Benigno Calvi, died in Concesa at only 28 in 1937, is buried here.

Two main holy services draw a lot of pilgrims to the shrine:

16th July – Solennità della Madonna del Carmine

15th October – Solennità della Santa Madre Teresa d’Avila and the “Fiera di S. Teresa”.

Itinerari consigliati: il Villaggio di Crespi d’Adda