The church was established around a venerated icon of the Madonna di San Prosdocimo, later renamed the Madonna del Monte Summano. According to an older tradition, in the first century AD, specifically the year 77, the then bishop of Padua, San Prosdocimo, climbed to the peak of this mountain to destroy the pagan idol statue dedicated to Plutone (Summus Manium). Later St Orso was said to have made a pilgrimage to this site, leading to the construction of a sanctuary chapel and a monastery. The present Madonna statue is said to date to the second half of the 15th-century.