The consecration of the oldest church in the valley, dedicated to Santa Maria del Campo, dates back to 561. This event took place on 1 August of that year, with the presence of Pope John III (561-574), bishops, priests and a large number of the faithful.
At dawn on that day, a miracle took place: an inscription in gold letters was discovered on the altar, which read: “Whoever, from the first crowing of the cockerel until the end of the first day of August, enters this church will be cleansed of all sin. This is spoken by the Lord”. The news spread quickly and huge crowds gathered from all over the surrounding area to witness the consecration, with indulgence, of the first Marian shrine in the Comino Valley.
The church was built on the site of an ancient pagan temple dedicated to the goddess Ceres, thus explaining the dedication of the new sanctuary to the “Virgin of the Field”, the patron saint of fields. This choice is not accidental, as Ceres was the pagan goddess of the harvest and fertility of the fields.
During the early Christian era, it was common to transform buildings dedicated to pagan deities into churches dedicated to sacred figures that had similarities or analogies to the previous ones, to facilitate the transition to the new Christian religion. The same happened in Canneto, where the temple dedicated to the water deity, Mephitis, was transformed into a church dedicated to the Black Virgin, which iconographically recalled the figure of the pre-Roman goddess of underground and sulphurous waters.
The church we see today is no longer that of the 6th century. Over the centuries it has undergone extensions and modifications, although it still retains its original structure with a single nave preceded by a portico. The first changes date back to the 11th century, perhaps during the time of Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino, who at the same time promoted the total reconstruction of the Cassinese abbey around 1066. In the 12th century, changes were made to the portico, while the interior was influenced by Gothic architecture. The portico was completely demolished and rebuilt from 1882 and over the centuries the frescoes, reliefs, sculptures and older furnishings were gradually replaced.
