A mixture of local history and legend make the Church of Piedigrotta unique.

For hundreds of years, the legend has been handed down of a shipwreck that occurred around the middle of the 17th century: a sailing ship with a Neapolitan crew was caught in a violent storm. The sailors gathered in the captain’s cabin where the painting of the Madonna of Piedigrotta was kept, and all together they began to pray, making a vow to the Virgin that, in the event of salvation, they would erect a chapel and dedicate it to the Madonna. The ship sank and the sailors swam to the shore. Along with them, the painting of Our Lady of Piedigrotta and the ship’s bell dated 1632 also rested on the shore. Determined to keep their promise, they dug a small chapel in the rock and placed the sacred image there. There were other storms and the picture, carried away by the fury of the waves that penetrated right into the grotto, was always found in the place where the sailing ship had crashed against the rocks.

There are no documents to corroborate this story, but the cult for the image is ancient and very much felt by the population, and it would not be far-fetched for the painting to really be the result of a shipwreck.