Lourdes Grotto
Photogallery
Lourdes Grotto
In 1902, Bishop Francesco Saverio Shoepfer of Tarbes presented Pope Leo XIII Pecci (1878-1903) with a faithful, life-size reproduction of the grotto where the Immaculate Conception appeared to little Bernadette Soubiros in 1858.
The project by architect Costantino Sneider (d. 1932), which involved placing the work inside the Vatican Gardens, was realised thanks to public funding received through a worldwide appeal organised by the Missionaries of the Immaculate Conception. The replica of the grotto was constructed in concrete and houses a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes and the original marble altar from the French grotto, donated to Pope John XXIII Roncalli (1958-1963) at the beginning of his pontificate, on the centenary of the first apparition of the Virgin. The culmination of a bucolic path among various plants symbolically linked to biblical texts, the Grotto today remains a hidden and secluded place where one can devote oneself to prayer and meditation.