Vatican Museums

Near the woods stands the shrine of Madonna della Guardia (Our Lady of the Watch), donated to Pope Benedict XV Della Chiesa (1914-1922) in 1917 by his hometown of Genoa, reproducing the shrine of the same name located to protect the city’s port. For this reason, it is known that the pontiff would come to the monument donated by his city every morning to pray.

The work, signed on the base by the sculptor Antonio Canepa (active between 1850 and 1931), celebrates the miraculous apparition of Mary at the end of the fifteenth century to Benedetto Pareto, a shepherd who was tending his flock on Mount Figogna near Genoa. Following this episode the man devoted his life to building a small chapel dedicated to Marian worship, just as the Virgin had asked him. Over time, due to the growing number of pilgrims visiting the holy site, the small chapel was gradually enlarged. At the end of the nineteenth century, the large sanctuary dedicated to Our Lady of the Watch was built (inaugurated on 26 May 1890), from which the Vatican monument donated to the Pope some thirty years later derives.