Sanctuary of the Madonna del Piano

The Sanctuary of the Madonna del Piano rises along the current route of the Formia-Cassino, at the junction for Ausonia. The sanctuary is located in an ancient site with Roman remains and owes its origin to the apparition of Our Lady to an infirm shepherdess named Remingarda, miraculously healed. The story, is narrated in a manuscript before 1760 entitled: "Chronicle of the marvellous Transellazione della B.ma Vergine del Piano". There was a young, crippled and deformed girl named Remingarda, with intact costumes and very devoted to Mary. She was the guardian of the pigs, and brought her her herd to the district of Gorgalonga, where there was also a marsh where, according to tradition, women of bad business threw their abortions or babies. On the 23rd of April of the year 1100 Remingarda was there, around the time of the Vespertina, she began to praise Mary with the Angelus prayer, suddenly Mary appeared to her majestically and in great splendour. The young girl loses consciousness from fright. Immediately Mary became close to her, touched her hand and the young woman recovered from fainting and saw her in front of her, adorned with a white robe, while a crown of twelve stars crowned her head. This seems to be the first time in history that Mary has spoken! She said to the young girl: "Remingarda, my Son, through my prayer, is willing to forgive the evils committed by this people. Go to the priests and the people and tell them to build in this place, a Shrine dedicated to me, in the place that I will show them". Mary touched the visionary and healed her of all her deformities, she became physically perfect. The young girl went to report everything to the Archpriest of St. Michael the Archangel... The bishop of Gaeta, Nazario, after praying all night and inviting the faithful to prayer, went with the people to the place of the apparition and found a dense network of ants that marked the place where the church was to be built. But, above all, here was already the wooden statue of Maria Ss.ma, venerated by the faithful of the nearby Castro de' Volsci under the title of "Mary of Hope". The Prelate laid the first stone of the sanctuary, which only after the indication of Mary began to progress almost miraculously and was completed in a short time. The statue came from the village of Castro, but no one knew how it got there. The castrated people, when they noticed it, came to take it back three times, believing it to be a theft. But each time the statue returned, always miraculously, to the district of Gorgalonga. An unprecedented miracle occurred when, taking it away and already made a good street price, in the district of Sant'Antonio, the statue became so heavy that not even the cart pulled by several pairs of oxen could move anymore. The castresi finally understood that the Madonna wanted to stay in the sanctuary of Ausonia and sadly returned to Castro de 'Volsci to report the miracle.