On a stormy night with the sky furrowed and almost torn by strong storm winds, a sailing ship wrecked off the beach of the Madonnella. We are in the early 1700s, a few kilometers from Pizzo Calabro and the sailors jolted from one side of the ship to the other, during the shipwreck, helpless against the force of nature begin to invoke the Madonna di Piedigrotta.
To the prayers the sailors add a vow: they promise the Madonna to build a chapel in her honour wherever they could touch the land. The desire was exhausted, the sailors were saved and the statue of the Madonna di Piedigrotta, kept in the cabin of the Captain of the sailing ship, touched the land just a few meters from the Costa degli Dei. However, a real chapel was not built, given the difficulty of the place, until a local artist, Angelo Barone, was fascinated by this legend and decided to build a small church in a cave. Two generations passed before that in 1969, Angelo Barone, restored and finished the church with all its unique statues in tofu and that, at sunset, have a special light! To complete the beauty of the church, on the roof there is a Madonna with a child, protector of seafarers!
