The medieval Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie is very unusual: lacking a facade, it has its entrance curiously located on the right side of the building, in the middle of three wide arches of trachyte and limestone.
The interior has a single nave with a neoclassical high altar placed in the apse, which holds an Ecce Homo between two niches with statues of saints. The church is enriched by wooden minor altars, in Baroque style like the fine pulpit, and an ancient statue of St. Francis placed in the chancel. The chapel with a cross vault and carved capitals houses, in a polychrome wooden altar, the 14th-century crucifix of the Black Christ. The Black Christ is one of the oldest crucifixes in Sardinia, dating back to the 1300s and called “Lu Cristu Nieddu” because of the color that the juniper wood has taken on over time due to soot from the candles used to light the church. Because of its resemblance to the Christ of Monte Cassino, it is thought that the friars had it made on purpose, as a tribute to their order’s home abbey. It is believed to be miraculous, not least because, it is said to have saved the city from the assault of the mercenary captain Andrea Doria, attached with the French, in 1527. It was carried in procession whenever calamities came upon the City. The church, according to some sources, was a Cathedral in the early 1500s, before the current sacred building was built. The building began as a church attached to the convent of the Friars Minor Conventual of the adjacent convent of Santa Martino, which now houses the Museum of Genoese Origins. Inside the church is preserved the portrait and tombstone of “Lu biaddu Giuseppu” born Father Giuseppe Monserrate venerated by the people of Castellano as a saint, who died on August 3, 1716 in the very convent of San Martino. He belonged to the Pompeian family and was Turritan Custos before becoming guardian of the convent of San Martino. The church of Santa Maria delle Grazie is now the home and property of the Brotherhood of the Oratory of Santa Croce, which preserves and passes on the rites of Castellian Holy Week. The best known and most original takes place on the day after Palm Sunday: Lunissanti. In fact, the procession starts, at dawn, from this church, and ends here late at night after a stop at the church of Our Lady of Jericho in the nearby town of Tergu.
