SANTA AGNE´S CAVE

EARLY CHRISTIAN CHAPEL OF SANTA AGNES

Located at 59 meters on the level of the sea, it is a place where the history and the legend intermingle.

A wide gallery intermingles with others narrow galleries. It seems that the first Christians in the Roman epoch, when the Christian worship was prosecuted, it was here where they meet to practising their cults.

During the 19th century, the Archduke Luís Salvador of Austria already was speaking in his chronicles of Balearics of this place. He was doing allusion to the most ample gallery with a great spring of crystalline waters and where every August 24th the peoples of the island were meeting. It seems to be that a precipice finished with the gallery and the spring, which certainly other historical sources also mention.

It is not known by accuracy when, but also one speaks of that a statue of wood of the Virgin who takes the name of the cave, which from here moved to the church always was returning to appear in the cave. Of here maybe it avenges the tradition of the famous picture (according to a few versions) or famous statue of wood (according to others) of venerated Saint Agnes, that on board of a ship in danger due to a heavy storm, the crew members promised to deliver in the port where they were coming healthy and safe and this it was precisely the Port of Portmany's Sant Antoni on August 24th, and that was this precisely the motive of San Bartolome's current festivity.