Church of Santa Maria della Neve (Sariano di Gropparello)

The church dates back to the 10th and 11th centuries.
Restored in the 1960s and 1970s, recovering the original Romanesque architectural design with a gabled façade and a single portal.
The oldest element is the apse which dates back to the 10th century and was built with bricks bonded together by thin layers of mortar.
Inside there is a 16th century fresco which reproduces the Madonna della Neve, to whom the church is dedicated, and an icon from 1720 with the figure of Christ.
The legend
The nickname of Madonna della Neve is connected to the birth of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, during the first centuries of the history of the Church. Legend has it that under the pontificate of Pope Liberius (352-366) a rich Roman patrician named Giovanni and his wife, having no children, decided to offer their assets to the Holy Virgin for the construction of a church dedicated to her. The Madonna appeared to the two in a dream on the night between 4 and 5 August, indicating the place where the church was to be built. The Pope also had the same vision. All three went to the indicated place, the Esquiline Hill, and found it covered in snow in the middle of summer.
According to local tradition, the Chiesuola di Sariano also preserves the dedication to the Madonna della Neve to remember the episode, similar to the Roman one, of a prodigious snowfall in the middle of August on the hills of Val Vezzeno.