Chapter 1 A Holy Site for Sailors: Our Lady of the Cave in Famagusta
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Abstract
In the times of Famagusta’s emergence as a prominent port of trade, in the 14th century, sailors started visiting an underground church known as the Madonna della Cava in Italian. Located on the city’s outskirts, it was regarded as a holy site especially associated with the specific needs of navigation, such as protection against storms or becalmed waters, and was invoked as a special protector during the crossing of the dangerous Gulf of Antalya. It was the only church in Famagusta to be included in the litany known as the Sante Parole, in which the holy sites located along the coasts of the Mediterranean and beyond were listed in geographical order.
This chapter sheds new light on the topographic location of this elusive place and the ways in which it came to be used and worshipped by both Greeks and Latins in Famagusta. It discusses the church’s widely accepted identification with either the present-day Panagia Chrysospiliotissa or the underground chapel near the Martinengo Bastion. Whereas the former’s far-off location in Kato Varosha does not match the earliest descriptions, the latter is unequivocally described in 15th- and 16th-century sources as a holy site in honor of Saint Thecla and associated with a miraculous spring. Indeed, a hitherto neglected text from 1546 locates Our Lady of the Cave in yet another location, close to the Torre dell’Oca, Famagusta’s lighthouse.