The church was built on the ruins of the Roman theater. The chapel was remodeled during the 17th century.
**Description**: The fresco (dated to the 13th–14th century) is Byzantine-influenced and depicts the Virgin with the Child.
**First recorded use**: 1369
**Image**: Painting
**Description**: The founding legend claims that the image was scratched by a soldier and began to bleed. The Virgin’s blood was collected and preserved in a crystal vial. This relic is mentioned in the inventories of the Church of Sant’Agostino from 1402 and 1417. Until 1866, the relic was displayed every Saturday for veneration by the faithful. Originally kept in the church sacristy, it was later moved to the chapel but was lost after the expulsion of the Augustinians and the suppression of the church in 1866. An elderly nun from the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, who care for the church as it houses the relics of their founder, Blessed Elena Guerra, recalls that in her youth, an elderly Franciscan friar would visit Sant’Agostino to venerate the Virgin’s blood, which he claimed had been sealed within the chapel where the Madonna’s image—also known as the Cappella Bocella—resides.
**First recorded use**: 1369
**Relic**: Blood
**Description**: The church holds the body of Blessed Elena Guerra, founder of the Oblates of the Holy Spirit.
**First recorded use**: 1959
**Relic**: Bones
**Original location of the sanctuary**: In the Bocella Chapel, the same chapel where the sacred image is kept.
**Types of votive offerings**: Lights, inscribed tablets or plaques, goldsmith works, miscellaneous objects
**Current preservation status**: Many votives have been stolen. For security reasons, the location of the remaining ones is not disclosed.
In 1630, the bubonic plague struck Lucca. By decree on January 10, 1631, the Senate, in agreement with the Bishop, ordered a solemn procession for the 13th of the month, featuring the image and the blood relic. To prevent contagion, citizens were required to stay indoors and watch from their windows. Chroniclers noted that after the procession, the plague became far milder.
The church was built in the 14th century, likely around 1369, on the ruins of an older church dedicated to San Salvatore (whose remains are visible at the base of the bell tower). It was called San Salvatore in Muro because it leaned against the city walls. While many parchments attest to the existence of San Salvatore and the Augustinian church, none mention the venerated image before the 14th century. Oral tradition claims the Madonna dates to the late Lombard period, but no documents confirm this. After its abandonment in 1866, the church became a warehouse, and the Madonna del Sasso was nearly forgotten. In 1948–1949, the image was revived for veneration during the Peregrinatio Mariae, where it was carried at night (as people worked by day) on pilgrimage to all diocesan parishes, earning the name “Madonna Pellegrina.” The church was reconsecrated only in 1959 and now houses the remains of Blessed Elena Guerra. Today, devotion to the Marian image has almost entirely faded.
The legend recounts that the miraculous fresco was on the wall of one of the city’s buttresses (San Frediano), near a soldiers’ shelter guarding the gate and the ancient San Salvatore in Muro church. A soldier, having gambled away even his clothes, seized a stone and hurled it violently at the Virgin’s image. Immediately, a chasm swallowed him, while blood gushed from the Madonna’s image. A variant of the legend states that the Virgin moved the Child from right to left to avoid the stone, and the soldier was only half-buried for a long time before being fully swallowed. Many Luccan chroniclers date the founding legend to 750. The hole where the soldier supposedly sank was reportedly sealed in 1627 when the altar was moved. Today, however, a hole remains in the church.
A 17th-century painting depicts the founding legend.
In 1643, the young knight Carlo Boccella, after fighting the Turks, hung his military trophies before the Virgin of the Rock and took vows with the Capuchins on March 29, 1643.
Cardinal Benedetto Odescalchi, upon becoming Pope Innocent XI, granted a plenary indulgence to all who visited the sanctuary on its feast day (the third Sunday of Lent).
The sanctuary is cared for by the Oblate Sisters of the Holy Spirit.
In 1369, Simone Boccella built the Madonna del Sasso Chapel, and his family was granted patronage rights. In 1625, Francesco Boccella restored and embellished the chapel. The Bernardi family also contributed significantly to the church and convent, donating an orchard and a house to the chapel in 1464. The two families contested patronage for years, but records confirm it remained with the Boccella family.
Lucca, Province of Lucca, Italy
