On the morning of 25 April 1467, the people of Genazzano were gathered for the feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist when they heard what the chronicles call "heavenly music." A cloud descended on the unfinished wall of the Augustinian church of Santa Maria, and when it cleared, a fresco of the Madonna and Child rested on the plaster — no thicker than a visiting card, some forty by forty-five centimetres, detached from any wall behind it. The widow Petruccia da Nocera, who had sold her house to restore the church and been mocked when the money ran out, knelt beneath it. The image has not moved since.
Genazzano rises on a tuff spur 375 metres above the Sacco valley, fifty kilometres southeast of Rome, where the Monti Prenestini fall away toward the Lepini. The town had contributed to the building of Santa Maria Maggiore in the fifth century and received in return a church of its own, Santa Maria, which Prince Pietro Giordano Colonna entrusted to the Order of Saint Augustine by notarized decree on 27 December 1356. For more than a century the friars served it. By Petruccia's time it was in ruins, and her funds were not enough. The apparition of the fresco — believed in the Latin tradition to have been carried by angels from a church in Shkodër, Albania, on the eve of the Ottoman invasion — turned the half-built church into one of the chief Marian shrines of the Papal States. It has been an Augustinian house without interruption since 1356. The fresco itself, a Madonna and Child in tender embrace some forty by forty-five centimetres, executed on a layer of plaster no thicker than an eggshell, is the image the shrine holds and the focus of the pilgrimage devotion: pilgrims come to Genazzano to pray at the place where it appeared, to join the Augustinian community's veneration of the Mother of Good Counsel, and to ask her intercession.
On 10 May 2025, two days after his election, Pope Leo XIV — Robert Francis Prevost, the first pope from the Order of Saint Augustine — made a private pilgrimage to the sanctuary at around four in the afternoon. It was the first journey outside the Vatican of his pontificate, and a return to a house he knew well: he had lived at the order's General Curia in Rome throughout his two terms as Prior General (2001-2013), and as a cardinal had celebrated Mass at the shrine on 25 April 2024, the feast day itself. Arriving in a Volkswagen minivan, he was greeted by several hundred people gathered in the square, many calling out "Leo, Leo." Inside the church he greeted the Augustinian community, then stopped to pray — first at the altar, then before the image of the Virgin. With those present he recited John Paul II's prayer to the Mother of Good Counsel, said a Hail Mary, and sang the Salve Regina. Addressing the gathering, he said he "wanted so much to come here in these first days of the new ministry" entrusted to him, and renewed his trust in the Mother of Good Counsel, quoting Mary's words to the servants at Cana: "Whatever he tells you, do it." He then held a private meeting with the Augustinian community. The Province of Augustinians he joined in 1977 bears the name "Our Mother of Good Counsel."
📜 History & Spiritual Significance
The story of Genazzano's shrine rests on a single document and a single witness. The witness is Petruccia da Nocera (1428-1470), a childless widow of Genazzano who devoted her remaining fortune to restoring the crumbling Augustinian church. When the funds failed and the townspeople mocked her, she is said to have asked Heaven for a sign. The document is the Defensorium Ordinis Fratrum Heremitarum Sancti Augustini, written in 1482 by the Augustinian Prior General Ambrogio Massari, which records the apparition of 25 April 1467: the music, the cloud, the fresco revealed on the unfinished wall.
The Latin tradition that Massari recorded holds that the image came from the church of San Nicola in Shkodër, in northern Albania, removed by angelic hands before the Ottoman advance reached the city in 1467. Art historians consulted during the restoration of 1957-1959 reached a different conclusion: the fresco is likely the work of the early fifteenth-century painter Gentile da Fabriano, painted around the time of Pope Martin V (1417-1431) — who was himself born in Genazzano, Oddone Colonna, the Colonna prince who ended the Western Schism. The image is executed on a layer of plaster no thicker than an eggshell, in a Byzantine-influenced style the faithful associate with the Albanian icon tradition.
Pope Sixtus IV opened an inquiry in 1482, the year of Massari's chronicle. The cult grew steadily under the Augustinians' care, and the popes confirmed it one by one. Pius V came in pilgrimage in 1571 and left a heart-shaped ex voto in thanksgiving for the victory of Lepanto, which is preserved at the shrine. Urban VIII visited on 21 October 1630, during the Roman plague. Innocent XI granted a canonical coronation of the image on 17 November 1682. Benedict XIII established a proper Mass and Office for the Augustinian Order in 1727. The local feast remained 25 April — the date of the apparition, the feast of Saint Mark — but Benedict ruled that outside Genazzano itself the feast should be moved to 26 April, so as not to displace the Evangelist.
Leo XIII was the pope most attached to the devotion. A member of the Pious Union of Our Lady of Good Counsel, he renewed the Order's Mass and Office in 1884, approved the White Scapular of Our Lady of Good Counsel in 1893, raised the shrine to the rank of Minor Basilica by the brief Sacris Ædibus Deo on 17 March 1903, and added the invocation Mater boni consilii to the Litany of Loreto by the brief Ex Quo Beatissima on 22 April 1903. Pius XII composed a prayer to her in 1939 and a novena published by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in 1953. John Paul II visited the shrine on 22 April 1993, two days before the feast; he had visited the Albanian sanctuary of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Shkodër on its feast day, 25 April 1993, three days earlier, and gave the Albanian community a copy of the Genazzano icon that is enshrined there today. Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, celebrated Mass at the shrine on 26 September 2000; he declared Our Lady of Good Counsel the patroness of Genazzano by decree of the Holy Office on 13 June 2012. Pope Leo XIV's visit on 10 May 2025 continued a line of papal attention to the shrine that began with Sixtus IV's inquiry of 1482.
☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Genazzano
Basilica Santuario Madre del Buon Consiglio
Basilica Sanctuary of the Mother of Good Counsel
The present church was built between 1621 and 1629 on the foundations of the medieval Santa Maria, and restored in the nineteenth century. The neo-classical facade, designed by Father Giustino Fanucci in 1844, carries six Ionic pilasters and a 15th-century marble portal; in the tympanum a relief of the Madonna and Child borne by two angels is flanked by statues of Pius X and Leo XIII. The interior is three-naved, baroque, with a central vault of gilded stucco, a white-marble balustrade attributed by tradition to Bernini, and the high altar in carved baroque marble by Carlo Colombi. The frescoes of the presbytery are by Monti and Piatti, second half of the nineteenth century. The walnut choir, the marble pulpit, and the side chapels complete a unified baroque ensemble.
The heart of the shrine is the Cappella della Madonna, built in 1630 at the request of Cardinal Girolamo Colonna to shelter the fresco. The image rests on a wall behind a wrought-iron grille, framed by a white-marble tribuna attributed to Andrea Bregno, carried on two spiral-fluted columns of black basalt; the frontal is flowering alabaster, the niche gilded copper. Pilgrims file past at eye level, a few inches from the icon. The fresco itself — a Madonna and Child in tender embrace, the Child's cheek pressed to his mother's — is painted on a layer of plaster that, by every measurement, is detached from the wall behind it. The phenomenon has never been satisfactorily explained; the restoration of 1957-1959 confirmed that the painted surface is no thicker than a carte-de-visite and that the plaster behind it is not bonded to the masonry.
Pope Leo XIV prayed here on 10 May 2025, his first journey outside the Vatican since his election. He had been Prior General of the Augustinian Order from 2001 to 2013, and lived at the order's General Curia beside Santa Monica degli Agostiniani in Rome; the Augustinian Province he entered in 1977 is the Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel.
Tomb of Petruccia da Nocera
Sepolcro di Petruccia da Nocera
Behind the high altar rest the remains of Petruccia da Nocera (1428-1470), the widow whose failed restoration was answered by the apparition of the fresco. She was first buried in 1470 in the niche directly above the image — an honour the Augustinians later judged impious, since the image itself is venerated at eye level and ought not to have anything above it. In 1882 her remains were translated to the back of the altar, where they are visible to pilgrims today. The niche of her first burial, now empty, can be seen above the icon. She has the local title of Blessed, by long custom rather than formal beatification.
Colonna Castle
Castello Colonna di Genazzano
The medieval castle of the Colonna family overlooks the town from the spur above the sanctuary. From this fortress the Colonna controlled the road from Naples to Rome, and from this family came Prince Pietro Giordano, who in 1356 entrusted the church of Santa Maria to the Augustinian Order — the act that began the order's custodianship of the shrine. Genazzano was also the birthplace of Oddone Colonna, who became Pope Martin V in 1417 and ended the Western Schism. The castle today houses a civic collection; the towers and the gate are preserved, and the view from the ramparts takes in the sanctuary roof and the whole Sacco valley.
Nymphaeum of Bramante
Ninfeo di Bramante
At the southern end of the village, built into the tuff cliff below the castle, stands a Renaissance nymphaeum attributed to Donato Bramante. It dates from the first years of the sixteenth century and is one of the earliest Italianate gardens in the Roman Campagna — terraced, watered by a spring, with niches cut into the tuff and a loggia overlooking the valley. It is not a pilgrimage site in the strict sense, but it gives pilgrims a reason to walk the length of Genazzano's old town and rewards the walk with the same view of the Lepini that Petruccia would have known.
🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations
Feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel — April 25-26
The principal feast commemorates the apparition of the fresco on 25 April 1467, the feast of Saint Mark. In Genazzano itself the feast is kept on 25 April; outside the town, by indult of Benedict XIII (1727), it is moved to 26 April so as not to displace the Evangelist. The Augustinian Order keeps 26 April as the feast of Mater Boni Consilii throughout its provinces. At Genazzano the days leading up to the feast are marked by a triduum of preparation; on the feast itself the fresco is venerated in procession, the Codex of Miracles — the manuscript register of favours kept since the fifteenth century — is brought out, and the Augustinian community celebrates a pontifical Mass. The shrine publishes its schedule each year at madredelbuonconsiglio.it.
First Saturday of the Month
On the first Saturday of each month, the shrine keeps a vigil in honour of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with evening Mass at 21:00. The first Friday of each month carries a Mass for the Sacred Heart at the nearby church of San Paolo.
🛏️ Where to Stay
Genazzano is a small town and pilgrim accommodation is limited; most visitors day-trip from Rome. The sanctuary's website maintains a list of local guesthouses.
B&B Fontana Rena (b&b) — Rooms in the medieval town, within walking distance of the sanctuary. Website
B&B La Taverna (b&b) — Second house run by the same family, also in the historic centre. Website
For a wider choice, most pilgrims base themselves in Palestrina (12 km) or day-trip from Rome.
🚗 Getting There
By Air: The nearest international airport is Rome Fiumicino (FCO), 65 km west. Ciampino (CIA), 50 km west, serves European low-cost carriers.
By Train: The nearest railway station is Valmontone, on the Rome-Cassino-Naples line, 10 km south of Genazzano. Trenitalia regional trains run from Rome Termini to Valmontone in approximately 35-45 minutes. From Valmontone a local bus (Cotral line) or taxi completes the journey to Genazzano.
By Bus: Cotral buses run from Rome (Anagnina metro terminus) to Genazzano, changing at Palestrina or Valmontone. The journey takes approximately 90 minutes.
By Car: From Rome take the A1 autostrada south to the Valmontone exit, then follow the SP215 / SP42a uphill to Genazzano, approximately 12 km. Parking is available in the town's public lots; the sanctuary itself sits at the edge of the historic centre and is reached on foot from Piazza del Castello.
On Foot: Genazzano is not on a formal pilgrimage route, but pilgrims walking from Rome to the Sanctuary of the Holy Trinity at Vallepietra or to the Sanctuary of the Mentorella pass through the Prenestini and may detour via Genazzano. The Cammino di San Benedetto, the modern route from Subiaco to Norcia, lies further east.
📚 Further Reading
Books:
Joan Carroll Cruz. Relics — A survey of Catholic relic traditions, with an entry on the Genazzano fresco and its physical peculiarities. Our Sunday Visitor, 1984.
George F. Dillon. The Virgin Mother of Good Counsel: A History of the Ancient Sanctuary of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano — A 19th-century devotional history of the shrine and the apparition, drawing on Augustinian sources. Originally published 1884.
Online Resources:
Augustinian Order — Our Mother of Good Counsel — The Midwest Augustinian Province's history of the devotion, maintained by the Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel that Pope Leo XIV joined in 1977.
Sanctuary Official Site — The Augustinian community's site, with Mass times, the Codex of Miracles, and the schedule of the annual feast.
🎥 Recommended Videos
The Miraculous Icon of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano, Italy visited by Pope Leo XIV — EWTN's account of the fresco, the shrine, and the 10 May 2025 papal visit. EWTN, 2025.
🔗 Useful Links
Diocese of Tivoli-Palestrina — The diocese in which the sanctuary stands, with parish information and liturgical schedules.
Comune di Genazzano — The municipal website, with practical visitor information for the historic town.
Cotral — Lazio regional bus company, serving the Rome–Valmontone–Genazzano route.
Pope visits Marian sanctuary outside Rome — Vatican News's report of the 10 May 2025 pilgrimage, with the Pope's words at the shrine.
🥾 Pilgrim Routes
No formal pilgrimage route passes through Genazzano. Pilgrims walking from Rome toward Subiaco or the Mentorella may reach the town by a 50-km detour through the Prenestini; the Augustinian Sanctuary of Santa Rita at Cascia, in Umbria, lies some 130 km north and belongs to the same order.
🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations
Rome (50 km west) — The four papal basilicas, the catacombs, and Santa Monica degli Agostiniani — the Augustinian General Curia where Pope Leo XIV was ordained and lived as Prior General.
Guadangolo (Mentorella) (30 km northeast) — One of Europe's oldest Marian shrines, perched on a limestone cliff of the Prenestini at 1,018 metres, traditionally the site of Saint Eustace's vision of Christ between a stag's antlers.
Subiaco (35 km east) — The Sacro Speco where Saint Benedict lived as a hermit around 500 AD, and the abbey of Santa Scolastica — the cradle of Western monasticism.
Palestrina (12 km south) — The ancient Praeneste, site of the sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia and the medieval cathedral of Sant'Agapito.
🪶 Closing Reflection
"I wanted so much to come here in these first days of the new Ministry of carrying out the mission of Successor of Peter that the Church has entrusted to me." — Pope Leo XIV, at the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel, Genazzano, 10 May 2025
