The sanctuary of the Madonna della Costa – commonly called Madonna della Costa – is a Marian shrine located in Sanremo, in the Riviera dei Fiori. The main festivities are celebrated on August 15th (feast of the Assumption). Situated on a hillock, about 100 meters above sea level, overlooking the historic district of Sanremo della Pigna, its foundation seems to date back between the fourteenth and fifteenth century in the town of Castrum Sancti Romuli. According to some historians the birth of the sanctuary could be dated back to 1361 when the castle, owned by the Doria family, was ceded to the Republic of Genoa. It was on that occasion that the famous "festivity of the chains" was born; where the people of Sanremo go to the sanctuary dragging chains to celebrate the liberation from the Doria.he great civil and religious significance that this work had for Sanremo induced the community to work for its reconstruction at the beginning of the seventeenth century according to a rectangular plan, which was still expanded and modified, in the years 1769-70, on a project by the architect Domenico Belmonte.
The vast and majestic interior with a single hall has transverse, full-height chapels with curved walls of marked late-baroque sensibility. The space is defined by a large dome on a high drum with large windows, from which a copious amount of light radiates to highlight the remarkable presbyterial frescoes (1727) by the Bolognese Giacomo Antonio Boni (1688-1766). But the focus is entirely on the precious painting of the Madonna and Child on the high altar, datable to around 1380, perhaps derived from the models by Barnaba da Modena. The façade, preceded by an artistic black and white cobblestone churchyard, is rectilinear and is divided into two orders of pilasters concluded by a curved pediment with two small bell towers at the sides.
