Overview
Built in 1625 at the foot of Monte Ortobene di Nuoro, the Church of the Madonna della Solitudine was originally a simple country shrine located outside of the town, consecrated to the Virgin of Sorrows.
A place dear to shepherds and farmers, who gathered here on the occasion of the feasts of the Virgin Mary, it was chosen by Grazia Deledda as the setting for her eponymous last novel in 1936: "The Church of Solitude".
Always dear to the people of Nuoro, this church also gained notable literary significance and, in welcoming the remains of the Nobel Prize-winning author, became even more dear to the city.
In 1947, eleven years after her death, when Deledda's body was laid to rest in the Verano Cemetery in Rome, the proposal was made to return her remains to the Island once and for all.
The church, by then in poor condition, was completely rebuilt for the occasion, preserving the simplicity of the original layout.
The simplicity of the place of worship, suitable for the most heartfelt contemplation, is also confirmed in the hut-like façade culminating in the small bell tower, in the wooden roof trusses of the interior vault and in the pure lines of the semicircular apse. Highly original liturgical decor, the work of the artists Gavino Tilocca and Eugenio Tavolara, makes the church a precious and unique jewel. Imposing and alluring, it lies in waits for the arrival of the most devout faithful or simple visitor, who inside the sanctuary find the perfect atmosphere to approach the small black marble sarcophagus in which the mortal remains of Grazia Deledda now lie in rest.
