The San Matteo sul Gargano Sanctuary is located on the Gargano about three kilometers from San Marco in Lamis, a town in the province of Foggia in Puglia.
Tourist information
Today the Sanctuary of San Matteo is one of the most popular destinations in the Gargano, inserted in a very beautiful natural environment that enriches its great religious and cultural value.
The convent was founded by the Benedictines on the slopes of Monte Celano to host pilgrims who had traveled on the route of the ancient Via Sacra Langobardorum since the end of the 5th century, heading for the Archangel Michael's Grotto in Monte Sant'Angelo.
As evidenced by various medieval documents, the original name of the convent was San Giovanni in Lamis, an important social and ecclesiastical reality since the beginning of the millennium.
Its territory included, among other things, the current San Giovanni Rotondo and San Marco in Lamis, whose first inhabited nuclei date back to the period of the Benedictines' stay in the Monastery.
In 1311 the Benedictine monks were replaced by the Cistercians, who remained there until 1578, when the monastery was entrusted to the Observant Friars Minor of the Province of San'Angelo in Puglia, starting the Franciscan period which, except for the parenthesis of the suppression of religious orders of the nineteenth century, has come to our day with the present presence of the Franciscan Friars.
Meanwhile, since the mid-sixteenth century, a relic, a molar tooth, which seems to have belonged to the apostle and evangelist Saint Matthew, was kept in the Church of San Giovanni in Lamis, this prodigious relic fueled a deeply felt popular devotion, enough to change the name of the monastery, from San Giovanni in Lamis to the Convent of San Matteo.
