Curiosity – To know more about it, it was created to tell our guests the most interesting and least known aspects of the places where the Club Esse hotels and resorts are located, so that they can have one more reason to get to know the wonderful territories of our peninsula: today we are talking about Luogosanto.
The village of Luogosanto
In the Gallura hinterland there is a village with a peculiar evocative name: Luogosanto (literally ‘holy place‘). It is a small town with less than 2,000 souls, about half an hour away from both the north coast of Gallura, Palau and Baja Sardinia.
The community of the inhabitants of this quiet Sardinian hinterland town has a peculiarity that distinguishes it: all the families have handed down the natural recipe to create a miraculous ointment for burns and scars.
Over the years, each family has then added small changes that have made the recipe impossible to generalize, as it is too personalized by individuals, but with a final purpose that is always the same, and with an almost supernatural result.
The origin of this place
Let’s take a step back.
It is said that around the year 1000 in the area where Luogosanto stands today, two friars, Trano and Nicola, lived in penitence and hardship, who in the future would be recognized as martyrs and sanctified by the Church.
Centuries after their death, the remains were found by some Franciscan monks, and small houses were built on the site of the discovery, used for religious and celebratory purposes.
That small settlement, inhabited only occasionally, gave way to new buildings and the birth of a real community that chose the name of Luogosanto, precisely in homage to the two friars who had lived in those places.
Luogosanto ointments
The chronicles of the time explain that the two friars had extraordinary abilities, and that with their special potion they were able to miraculously heal even very serious burns, and to remove the scars.
It is said that one day, in a village not far from the home of the two friars, a woman burned herself with boiling water, producing a serious and deep burn to herself, which would undoubtedly have left recurring scars and pain.
Since the special medicine of Trano and Nicola was known throughout the Gallura, the woman, with her arm bandaged, made the journey through the forest to ask for the help of the two friars.
Her husband, who was a shepherd like many others in the area, noted the seriousness of the injury to his wife’s arm, accompanied her even though he did not believe that her visit to the friars could have produced an impossible and unexpected recovery.
But faced with the hypothetical possibility of obtaining at least a soothing benefit for her wife, she willingly accepted the trip to the house of Trano and Nicola.
This one charitably welcomed the couple into his humble home and, after seeing the woman’s arm, asked them to sit down and wait patiently for him, walking towards the thick forest overlooking the house.
The wait lasted a few hours, during which the woman had to suffer the pain caused by the deep burn, with the worried closeness of her husband who did not know what to do to relieve that severe pain.
Creation of the ointments
Nicola returned when it was almost night, with a sack full of wild herbs that he himself had collected, in the tangle of vegetation.
He carefully chose the herbs to use and mixed them in well-calculated percentages, and then shredded and crushed them using a pestle and a stone mortar, thus creating a pulp that he spread on the woman’s arm, and then bandaged it with the pieces that the couple had brought with them, after having thoroughly washed them.
Finally, he invited the two guests to stop for the night, since it was now deep dark and it would not be safe to make the return journey.
The next day the couple returned to their village, not before promising Nicola that they would not change the bandage for at least a week.
After this period, once the bandage was removed, the husband and wife realized with amazement and wonder that the skin of the arm had returned perfectly intact, soft and beautiful as before.
Meta di cure
Da allora, Luogosanto è la mèta di tutti coloro che vogliono curare le ustioni più gravi o mimetizzare le cicatrici, residuo di vecchie ferite. Chiedete in giro e sicuramente vi sarà indicato qualcuno che ha questi unguenti della tradizione che ancora oggi vengono preparati con le erbe tipiche di questa zona e con le ricette che si tramandano segretamente di generazione in generazione.
Marco Baldisseri
Chief Commercial Officer
Come arrivare
- In nave al Porto di Olbia o al Porto di Golfo Aranci
- In aereo all’Aeroporto di Olbia Costa Smeralda
Dove soggiornare
- Club Esse Gallura Beach – Aglientu (SS)
- Club Esse Shardana – Santa Teresa Gallura (SS)
- Club Esse Posada – Palau (SS)
- Club Esse Cala Bitta – Baja Sardinia (SS)
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