Descrizione
It is said that the Virgin, armed with a sword, confused the assailants by wrapping them in a dense cloud to the point that they killed each other, sparing the Ampezzo people. Nine centuries later, here is another legendary intervention of the Virgin who accompanies documented events: in 1412 small groups of Ampezzo and Cadore people managed to stop the imperial troops of Sigismund of Luxemburg at the Cimabanche pass. This lack of battle was interpreted as the new miraculous intervention of the Madonna della Difesa and in perennial memory of this event the Feast of the Vow was established, which has since been celebrated on January 19. From 1337 the presence of the Confraternity of the Beaten is attested, which met in a "House of God" in the Bigontina area. In 1482 the first church dedicated to the Madonna della Difesa was consecrated. The current appearance of the sanctuary is the result of construction in 1750. On the smooth gabled façade there is a delicate fresco depicting the Madonna della Difesa. The interior is illusory enlarged by the dense and elegant pictorial decoration created in 1908 by the Peskoller brothers. On the ceiling, an animated panel depicts the intervention of the Virgin in defense of the Ampezzo people engaged in battle and is characterized by the dynamism of the composition and the lively color combinations. Work attributed to Valentino Rovisi (1715-1783). The wooden high altar is placed on the large raised presbytery. It is a work of clear Baroque taste, where statues of St. Sebastian and St. Rocco and angels in the round are added to the articulated architectural structure with twisted columns and raised tympanum. In the niche there is the venerated statue of the Madonna della Difesa, a wooden work of the fourteenth - fifteenth century, richly dressed. In the same altar there is the beautiful wooden tabernacle, signed by Ampezzo Bruno Apollonio Nert and dated 1892, enriched by angels in the round and small reliefs painted with scenes from the life of Christ. To the right and left of the main altar there are two paintings by Franz Anton Zeiler, respectively "L 'Addolorata" (The Grieving One) and “La Madonna col Bambino tra i Santi Giacomo Minore e Teresa d’Avila” (The Madonna and Child between Saints James Minor and Teresa of Avila). Since 1941 the church of the Beata Vergine della Difesa has been entrusted to the Franciscan Friars Minor.
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