The Benedictine Basilica of Sant’Angelo in Formis stands at the foot of Mount Tifata, on the remains of a temple dedicated to Diana Tifatina. The pagan temple’s ruins, found in 1877, show that the plan of the basilica traces its perimeter. The construction date of the primitive church of Sant’Angelo in Formis is unknown, but it is placed at the end of the sixth century AD. and it’s attributed to the Lombard princes.
We do know that a church certainly existed in the 10th century, when the Cassinese monks were granted a permission to build a monastery there. In 1072 the ownership of the building passed from Richard I, Prince of Capua and Count of Aversa, to the Abbey of Montecassino, ruled in those years by Abbot Desiderio (1027-1087). Under his rectorate, the Basilica of Sant’Angelo in Formis was rebuilt and equipped with a wall decoration whose remains today represent one of the most important monuments of the Middle Ages.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.