Santuario di Nostra Signora di Reggio

This guide to the Santuario di Nostra Signora di Reggio above Cinque Terre starts with the sick who, from 1615 onward, were kept outside the nave and made to watch Mass through a narrow gap known as the window of the Madonna. Inside waits the object of their prayers, a dark-faced Madonna and Child called the Africana, said by legend to be Saint Luke's work though the paint itself tells a different story. Outside, an ancient cypress and a weathered pillar tied to a Malaspina knight returning from the Crusades still shade the forecourt where the sick once waited.