Savona: Shrine of Our Lady of Mercy

On March 18, 1536, in the village of San Bernardo 6 km from Savona, Liguria, in northern Italy), blessed Antonio Botta claimed to have "seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary," standing on a rock overhanging a mountain stream. Our Lady was dressed in white, her gaze looking up towards heaven, her hands outstretched. She asked for conversion, and at the last apparition she finished with these words: "Mercy, and not justice, my son." Then she vanished, leaving a sweet fragrance, which permeated the place for some time.

Within a few months a small church was built. From that day to the present pilgrimages and processions to this sacred shrine have never ceased.

Word spread about the apparitions of the Virgin Mary. In 1665, the bishop of the diocese called for a feast day on March 18th in her honor. Pope Pius VII was exiled there by order of Napoleon in the year 1809 and held captive in Savona till 1812. During those hard years he made the vow that if he were released, he would crown the statue of Our Lady of Mercy. Pius VII kept his promise and on May 10, 1815, he crowned the statue of the Virgin Mary himself.

________________________

See: https://www.santuariosavona.eu/