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The staircase
The two portals give onto a hall where begins the staircase leading up to the mystical grotto.
The construction of this magnificent work goes back to the Angevin
era (13th century).
It is made up of 86 steps and subdivided into five flights and interrupted
by four landings; the galleries are supported by big Gothic arches and
by ogival vaults, the side walls are illuminated by small windows.
At the top of the stairs in an opening on the left of the first flight,
an oratory was constructed in 1986 in honour of Saint Benedict, Patron
of Europe. Proceeding to the fourth flight, always on the left, we come
across a small fifteenth century temple with a statue of the Virgin and
the Sarcophagus of Rinaldo Cantelmo.
At one time various other sarcophaguses belonging to ancient patrician
families who came from there were placed along the stairway.
The staircase closes with a portal that goes back to the year 1652,
traditionally known as the Door of the Bull, because it was originally
decorated with a representation of the legend of the bull. (The event of
the first apparition). |
