The Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of Grace, known as Our Lady of Quintiliolo, is located just outside the historic center of Tivoli, down Via della Montanare, on a hill surrounded by green olive trees.
In the shrine dedicated to the sacred image of the Virgin Mary, found, according to a local legend, by a farmer working the land with a plow, Tibetans venerate the Madonna known as “of Quintiliolus.”
The place name derives from the gens of the Quintilii Vari, owners of the large villa when it was enlarged in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries B.C., particularly by the poet Quintilius Varus (died 24 B.C.); after him the villa probably passed to the general Publius Quintilius Varus, who died in 9 A.D. in the famous defeat at Theotoburg (clades Variana).
The wall remains are well in evidence a few meters from the church, constituting an open-air archaeological museum.
Externally, the church has a neoclassical style divided into two orders and dominated by a tall bell tower that towers over the surrounding landscape.
The interior has a single nave with two side chapels; the one on the left contains a painting of Our Lady Queen of Saints, an 18th-century work by Francesco Serbucci from Tivoli.
On the high altar is the symbol of the shrine, the Icon of the Madonna of Quintiliolo, a sacred image dating back to the 13th century, donated by the Benedictine fathers of Subiaco and still venerated by the people of Tiburtina, depicting the Virgin seated on a throne holding the baby Jesus with her left knee, while with her right hand she holds a lily.
Every first Sunday in May, since 1600, this splendid figure has been carried in procession to the Cathedral of St. Lawrence, where it remains until September 8, the day it returns to the shrine.
The present shrine was completely rebuilt between 1757 and 1766.
Here in 1803 Viscount François-René de Chateaubriand (1768 – 1848), French writer, politician and diplomat, composed the “Pilgrim’s Prayer,” known throughout the religious world.
From 1888, when the shrine was entrusted to the Capuchin Fathers, they enriched it with new buildings, including the convent.
