"Fine sanctuary, wide spaces, peaceful prayer place."

Marco Piagentini

"The Santuario della Quercia is the most important place of Marian worship in the province of Viterbo. It was built starting in 1467, near the place where according to tradition the icon of the "Virgin Mary with a child in her arms" was placed, commissioned in 1417 to the painter Monetto and placed among the branches of an oak tree.

The Sanctuary has a façade with three entrance portals surmounted by terracotta lunettes, the work of Andrea Della Robbia, while the tall bell tower is the work of Ambrogio da Milano, isolated from the façade. The interior of the church is a masterpiece of Renaissance harmonies, divided into three naves by two rows of columns supporting large round arches; in the central nave the beautiful coffered ceiling, created by Giovanni di Pietro known as Pazera based on a design by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, features the coat of arms of Paul III and the lilies of the Farnese family. In the center of the presbytery stands the marble aedicule by Andrea Bregno that contains the oak and the miraculous tile. The painting, although beautiful and small, is placed at the top of the aedicule, and cannot be approached, the glass placed in front and the lighting make it difficult even to photograph it. Beyond the tabernacle opens a grandiose choir, inlaid by Francesco di Domenico di Zanobi del Tasso and Giuliano di Giovanni called Pollastra, now reduced to two thirds of its original length. The complex is enriched by two cloisters, one from the 15th and the other from the 16th century. One of the two cloisters can be glimpsed from a beautiful window, if the parish priest is not present it cannot be visited. There are few parking lots."

Marco Rossi

"The construction was built in its essential structures between the end of the 15th century and the first thirty years of the 16th century, in place of a primitive country church, little more than a wooden hut. The erection took place as an act of devotion of the people of Viterbo to the image of the Madonna and Child which in 1417 a certain Battista Juzzante had painted on a tile.
The elegant facade of bevelled ashlar peperino, which ends in a tympanum with two lions on the sides of an oak, is opened by a central oculus (between two small lateral ones) and by portals, whose jambs are decorated with old-fashioned candelabras, the lunettes contain precious glazed terracottas by Andrea della Robbia (1503).
The airy interior, remodeled in the renovations carried out between 1861 and 1880, is divided into three naves divided by large arches supported by two rows of columns, essentially the result of projects by Giuliano da Sangallo inspired by Brunelleschi's S. Spirito in Florence.
It alone is worth the trip."

Claudio del Curto