According to local tradition, in May 1521 the Virgin Mary appeared several times to the poor shepherd Bartolomeo Coppa, mute since birth. After healing him, Our Lady is said to have urged him to exhort the people of Fossano to penance.

Bartholomew obeyed but the population did not listen to him. The ferocious pestilence that soon devastated the territory was interpreted as a punishment inflicted for the locals’ indifference to the call of Mary. The people of Fossano then decided to go in procession to the place of the apparitions, and the plague immediately stopped.

The following year, a chapel was erected where the miracle had occurred. In 1617, the Augustinian fathers of the Genoa Congregation began a series of works that would transform and enlarge it. The works designed to extend the church and the erection of a convent were entrusted to Fossano-born architect Giovenale Boetto and to Alessandro Thesauro.

In the Napoleonic era, the convent was closed and the sanctuary abandoned. In 1876, at the behest of Bishop Emiliano Manacorda, a friend of St. John Bosco, its rebirth began. The design, in eclectic style, is the work of architect Giuseppe Magni, vicar general of the diocese of Novara. The red of the brick and granite offers an elegant contrast with the copper roofing of the majestic octagonal dome and with the white Carrara marble statues, crowning the facade, depicting the Virgin with Bartolomeo Coppa, the blessed Ancina and the blessed Oddino Barotto.

Today, the splendid tree-lined avenue of the Santuario is visited by the faithful on pilgrimage, especially in the months of May and June. The corridor on the side of the church and some spaces of the convent host numerous ex-votos, testimony of centuries and centuries of devotion. Surrounded by a large park offering plenty of shade, Cussanio is also an ideal location for eating, drinking and relaxing in the open air.