Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde
The Perloz sanctuary, at the gateway to the Gressoney valley, celebrated on 7 and 8 September
At the entrance to the Lys valley, on a slope overlooking Pont-Saint-Martin, the sanctuary of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde (Our Lady of the Guard) lies at around 690 metres. People from the lower valley have been climbing up to it for centuries.
A statue hidden, then found
According to legend, a wooden statue of the Virgin and Child was hidden during the barbarian invasions and found again in the twelfth or thirteenth century. A first chapel was enlarged in the sixteenth century, as pilgrims grew more numerous. The present building was completed in the eighteenth century.
A portico and frescoes
The sanctuary has a portico with four stone columns and a single nave divided into three bays. Inside, frescoes from 1831 tell scenes from the Bible. They are the work of Vittorio Avondo and his brother, two painters from the valley. On the high altar stands a fourteenth-century Virgin and Child. The gilded wooden altars date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
7 and 8 September
Every year, on 7 and 8 September, Our Lady of the Guard is celebrated. A torchlight procession sets out from the Roman bridge in Pont-Saint-Martin, followed by Mass, a shared meal and prayer to the Virgin. Novenas are also held at the sanctuary to ask for good weather for the crops.
Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde Sanctuary
Perloz
11020 Perloz (AO)
Information: Diocesan Curia of Aosta, +39 0165 238515 · diocesiaosta.it
Main photo : F Ceragioli, via Wikimedia Commons.
Maps: personal work by Marc Badjou.
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