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Salus Infirmorum

The Interior of the Chapel of the Madonna della Sanità


[image ALT: An arched recess, about 5 m high and 3 m wide, with a small altar over which a painting on the wall has been surrounded with an exuberant frame of Baroque foliage, much larger than the painting itself. It is a view of the altar, which in turn is about a quarter of the entire interior, of the church of the Madonna della Sanità near Città della Pieve, Umbria (central Italy).]

The altar recess you see above occupies maybe a quarter of the interior of the chapel; it's the only altar, and the painting over it is the whole point of the chapel itself, erected in honor of Mary, the Health and Salvation of the Sick — Salus infirmorum in the Latin inscription above her image. Popular devotion has set the painting on a rather nice spray of exuberant Baroque foliage, and encrusted the very surface of the painting with ex‑votos for graces received. The painting itself dates to the 16c, and seems to be by a pupil of Perugino's: Perugino himself was a local man, after all, born in the territory of Città della Pieve, thus very likely no more than 2 or 3 km away.


[image ALT: missingALT. It is zzz in the church of the Madonna della Sanità near Città della Pieve, Umbria (central Italy).]

[image ALT: missingALT. It is zzz in the church of the Madonna della Sanità near Città della Pieve, Umbria (central Italy).]

About the following I have no information, but suspect that, rather than some kind of loose graffiti, it's the mark of the family that staked out this particular pew:


[image ALT: A view, from above, of a wooden board, in which someone has carved a very neat circular flourish around the letters 'GS'. It is a pew railing in the church of the Madonna della Sanità near Città della Pieve, Umbria (central Italy), with what may be the mark of the family whose pew it was.]


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Page updated: 6 Jul 05