SACRO MONTE DI OROPA

The complex is made up of 19 chapels located outside the walls of the Santuario di Oropa, in the city of Biella. Twelve chapels, arranged more or less in a parallel manner, are dedicated to the life of the Madonna with fresco wall paintings and statues, while the other 7 depict episodes of Christian faith. The architectural complex is a part of the Sacred Mounts of Piemonte and Lombardy and has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 2003. Among its treasures, there is the statue of the Madonna Nera (Black Madonna) which belongs to the iconography of the so-called Black Virgins, traced back to the 12th and 13th centuries in a wide area extending from France, Spain and Germany.