Lampedusa – Andrea Anfossi

It is said that an inhabitant of the then village of Castellaro in Liguria. Andrea Anfossi – nicknamed “Gagliardo” – was, according to one version, taken prisoner in 1561 by Turkish pirates who attacked the town on that date, while another version sees the protagonist falling into the hands of the Saracens while hunting them at sea. Having been enslaved by pirates and loaded onto a Turkish ship, he then landed on the island of Lampedusa and, to supply the ship with wood, Andrea Anfossi was sent to the island’s woods and it was there that, amidst a dazzling light, he found again in a niche, in the current Sanctuary of the Madonna of Porto di Salvo di Lampedusa, a canvas depicting the Virgin Mary.

While escaping from captivity, she derives from a trunk a rudimentary vessel and from the Marian canvas a sail to face the open sea and do back in the homeland, the legend asserts that the Anfossi arrived on the Ligurian coasts – near Arma, today’s fraction of Taggia – and then in Castellaro in 1602.Here vowed to erect a sanctuary, for thank the Madonna of the dangerous journey, in the place called Costaventosa. In 1619 work was completed for the construction of the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Lampedusa by the inhabitants of Castellaresi. The solemn coronation took place in 1845.