Church of S.Maria delle Grazie

Along with Monza Cathedral - famous for Longobard history but also for the history of Catholicism - another church in Monza is famous for the great attraction it exerts on popular religious feeling. This is the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, built between 1463 and 1467 with an adjacent convent - outside the city walls and under the direction of Damiano da Padova - by the Observant Friars of the Order of Friars Minor of Saint Francis of Assisi.

The presence of the Franciscan friars in Monza was the natural consequence of the emotion aroused in the town by the preaching of brother Corrado da Padova, a disciple of St. Bernardino of Siena. The prestige deriving from the presence of the friars minor was such as to convince Galeazzo Visconti - in the year of the inauguration - to dispense the new religious community from paying the taxes that would otherwise have been owed to the duke's coffers.

A painting in the church by an unknown artist, representing the Annunciation, soon became an object of increasing popular veneration.

In 1621, the image of the Madonna - a traditional reference of Franciscan devotion - was transferred from its original position in the apse, far from the faithful, to the chapel in the transept.

From then on, an unceasing flow of pilgrims began, especially on the date of 25 March.

In 1810, the sacred image was saved from Napoleonic anticlerical fury by the parish priest of S. Gerardo, don Antonio Sala, and by the archpriest of Monza, mons. Pietro Crugnola, who bought the painting and hung it in the sacristy of San Giovanni Battista. The Annunciation finally returned to the new church of Santa Maria delle Grazie.

In 1893 the church was devastated by a fire. After lying abandoned for about thirty years, the church - by Royal Decree of 1930 - was restructured and opened again for worship.