The Cave of St. Michael the Archangel, or Cave of the Angel, is a natural cavity located on the western side of Mount Raione in the municipality of Olevano sul Tusciano where there is a religious complex dating back to the IXX century.
The province of Salerno is dotted with caves dedicated to St. Michael, but the area of Olevano sul Tusciano is one of the most characteristic because seven churches were built in the recesses of the rock. They all date back to the ninth century and many of them contain beautiful frescoes. The Sanctuary rises in the northern part of the "Locus Tuscianus", a territory administratively dependent on Salerno until the institution in the XI century of the territorial lordship of the "Castrum Olibani". The first news about the sanctuary dates back to the decade 860/870, when the bishop Pietro took refuge in it, pressured by the Lombard prince of Salerno Guaifiero who had just overthrown from the throne the brother of the prelate, the prince Ademario. A few years later (870) the cave is among the pilgrimage destinations included in the itineraries of the Holy Land, along with the tombs of the Apostles in Rome and St. Michael on the Gargano, as attested by the Itinerarium of the Frankish monk Bernard. This cave is located about an hour’s walk from Ariano, which is the main village of Olevano sul Tusciano. From Ariano, it is necessary to go up again the valley for the road of the Dovindole, in a nature that still preserves a primitive charm, it is crossed by a cart track, and after a long stretch, bending to the right for a mule track, more and more rough and steep, it is reached a plateau, at the height of about 600m above sea level, on which the mouth of the great natural cavity is located. The track is practicable up to a clearing beyond which, after a 15-minute walk, you reach the wall that closes the cave.
The cave presents a peculiarity that is perhaps unique: it is not a cavern whose walls, smoothed or plastered, have been painted, but a space within which completely independent architectures have been built and which, refusing the natural protection offered by the vault, are completed by their roof or dome covering. It contains within it a basilica and five chapels, with numerous stupendous frescoes in the Byzantine style.
The complex rises on the western slopes of Mount Raione.The Grotto also known as the "Angel’s Grotto" was created by the millennial work of the waters. The cave is constituted by an astro that penetrates in the mountain for 900 m. around.As we have given the chapels to the inside are 5 but two are really particular. One is called the Angel, in which are preserved 29 frescoes of the Christological cycle and Petrian, the other is the church that bears on the pediment fresco of the Madonna Hodighiatria.il pilgrim ends his journey at a small pool that collects the water dripping from the vault of the cave.
