Santuario della Madonnetta

The Santuario della Madonnetta presents itself as a compact cipher in stone: a Baroque Marian temple whose story unfolds as if a detective tale, pieced together from dates, names, and a circle of devoted figures. The first clue arrives in the site’s very purpose. It is a Marian sanctuary, formally known as Nostra Signora Assunta di Carbonara, built for a community of Augustinian friars who sought a disciplined, contemplative space on a hillside between Castelletto and Righi.

The building phase is explicit: it was erected between 1695 and 1696, under the direction of the Italian architect Giovanni Antonio Ricca, a master from Imperia who later joined the Augustinians as a friar himself. The witness statement from the era is clear: a Baroque design, a carefully ordered plan, and a devotion that would bend calendars to its rhythm. If you search for the silhouette of the place, you’ll notice an architectural choice that reads like a coded message.

The church interior is described as a nave of octagonal form—both the main space and the crypt (scurolo) beneath the elevated presbytery share that octagonal logic. This is not merely stylistic; it is symbolic.