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The Madonna of Genzano story.
Welcome to our article, The Madonna story.
Dear readers, this will be a long article, we will write about the history of the Madonna of Genzano. Anyhow, here
is a link about what sometime happens in the church of this Madonna of Genzano.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsPrg1ucmsQ
Now, in our last
article the heritage chapter, we have explained that in Genzano there were Greek people living in one of the chasms. Anyhow, I want to talk
about the Greek people; because we believe that this Madonna story that we are
writing here, could not have happened if the Greek people were not there. You
see, before those Greek people left the chasm for the last time, they hid this
Madonna effigy that has made history in the town of Genzano.
Anyhow, we must assume this imaginary story, because when we look, it seems that the Greek people were forced to move away from their living place in the chasm, and when they did, they hid their Madonna effigy at the lower end of the chasm. Here we are talking about the Greek people of the early Christian community that lived in the chasm of Genzano; we have to admit that there is no written evidence, so, what we are telling here is folklore stories and logic human explanations, when we put together of what is known today.
Anyhow, what follows here is guess work, because nobody knows what happened to the Greek people, it is known that they were there in the chasm and then they were not there anymore, perhaps the Greek people were persecuted and had to run away, and when they left, they had to hide away their most precious religious things. So, they left behind buried in a secret spot in a little-known cave, an effigy of a Madonna, which was to be found later by the people of Genzano.
How they found this
Madonna icon, everybody in Genzano seems to know the story, because it is a
story that has been told from generation to generation, since they found this
Madonna, so, just about everybody in Genzano can tell you the story. Therefore,
I had only to find a few names and a few dates to write my own version down,
which I want to tell you now.
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Telling the Madonna story.
One day in the year
of our Lord 1619 there was a fourteen years old youth grazing oxen in the
fields of Genzano, in the zone that we call Sterpara; his parents were of a
good and honorable family, the youth name was; Pietro di Giovanni Filippo, and
he was minding some oxen in the fields, at the beginning of the chasm ‘Del
Monte’ when this event happened. While he was browsing his oxen; a Lady all
dressed in white appeared to him; and she told him that he should go and tell
the people of Genzano that, they should go into the chasm near the fountain of
Capo d’aqua, and dig in the cave that was once known as the vineyard of ‘Don
Fabio’ and they would find her there.
The youth went to
town and told the people and the priest of the apparition of this great Lady,
but they were not sure whether to believe him or not; so, nothing was done. But
after a few days or a week or two, the Lady in white appeared to the youth
again; but this time she asked the youth to open his hand, and she wrote in his
hand a message to the priest, she closed the youth hand and told him to go to the
priest and show him that writing. The youth now with his closed fist that he
could not or would not open for fear ran into the town and found the priest,
and told him about the second apparition of the Lady in white, and that the
Lady had written on his hand in his closed fist something; the priest took his
hand to see and there in front of the priest he could open his hand again; and
in his hand the priest could see the message which read (I am Maria Santissima
Delle Grazie, and come to find me).
So, now the priest
had no doubt in his mind from where that message was coming from, and he
assembled the people of Genzano and told them the facts. A search was
organized, and they dug in and around the said cave for a very long time, and
not knowing where else to dig, they also dug farther up the mountain, where
they found some human remains and other object as evidence that eremites had
been living there, a long time ago.
The search went on
for about two years. So, they thought that there was not a real Madonna image
to be found, because the only image of a Madonna that they had found, it was a
Madonna traced over the sand which was slowly disappearing. And thinking that
this was all they would find, they decided to give up the search, but at the
same time they wanted to build a small chapel in honor of this Madonna. But
while they were digging the foundation for this chapel, a whole heap of hard
rocks fell from the chasm’s wall above, which showed them that there was a
smaller cave near the old cave higher up in the chasm’s wall, and in this small
cave they found a few religious items, including a small image of St. Peter on
a brick, but there was no Madonna image or icon to be found.
-------------------------------------------
The Madonna is found.
Anyhow, they
decided to remove the fallen rocks, they could use the rocks to build the
chapel. While they were doing that this happened; it happened the 25th day of
March 1621 late in the afternoon, it was about the time when in the church they
say this afternoon Vespers’ prayers, at this time of the day most people that
are in the country pack up to go home. But there was a worker working at the
fallen stone heap, he was tired, but he wanted to do a little bit more, so, he
kept working: His name was ‘Giovanni Malatesta’ and he was digging with a pick
to get the stones loose from the fallen heap of rocks, when he hit a very hard
rock, and a beautiful aroma filled the air: he had struck with his pick the
sculpture of the ‘Madonna with Child’. What a shock to this man must have been,
when he realized that he struck with his pick the icon of the Madonna over the
eye. They say that he never was the same man again, and he died early in life,
after this event.
As soon as they
realized that they had found the Madonna, somebody ran up the road to town, to
let the people of Genzano know that they had found the Madonna icon.
All the religious
authorities were in due time advised about the finding of the Madonna icon, and
they took part in the prescribed religious events that followed. A Chapel was
built on the spot where they had found the Madonna, with the intention that one
day they would build a church there. After they found the icon of the Madonna
with Child many people came to adore this Madonna, they came from the surrounding
towns and from far away towns and they received many miracles from this Madonna
that would be hard to count them. Of course, today’s people don’t believe in
miracles, therefore, they will not believe what we are saying here, but this is
the Madonna folklore story that goes around Genzano town even these days.
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Taking the Madonna to town.
But there is another
folklore story to tell about this Madonna, today most people may not believe
it, but you see, here we are talking about Madonna's and miracles, we have to
keep in mind that the old people believed that it happened the way that they
have been told, so, let us tell you the story, the way it has been told and
retold many times from the elders of the town.
The story is, that
while they were taking the Madonna effigy to town, to the church of Maria SS
Della Platea, which was the main church of Genzano then, when they reached the
entrance of the town, the Madonna effigy became heavy, (In those times every
town had their entrance doors that were shut at night), the effigy was so heavy
that the bears had to stop and set the devise they were carrying the Madonna
with on the ground.
Then when they
tried to lift her off the ground they could not lift her; so, the priest and
the town authorities started to think, why this was happening and what they
could do to overcome this unseen problem, some wise man started saying that
perhaps the Madonna wanted to be recognized that she was a powerful spiritual
being, and to recognize her the best thing to do was to give her the keys of the
town, and hope that this was what the Madonna wanted, so, they went to fetch
the keys and placed the keys beside her effigy, and soon the effigy became
light again and they were able to take her through the entrance of the town and
into the church. This is one of the folklore stories of this Madonna; now it is
up to us, if we want to believe it or not.
We need to say that
believer believe any religious thing that are being told; I am saying this
because of the following event, I remember when I was young that at this same
entrance where the Madonna came into Genzano town the first time; there were
times when some peregrines would come to adore this Madonna with child, and
they were bringing with them a little statue of a child, I don’t know exactly
what all this meant, but there is a phrase in the town dialect “U bambnid d
Frenz” meaning the little baby Jesus of Forenza; Forenza is a town that take
several hours of walking to reach Genzano, and those peregrines did all this
walking to come and adore this Madonna in Genzano, there were really religious
believers in those old days.
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Building the Madonna church.
A few years after
they found the Madonna icon at Capodacqua, somebody dreamed that the Madonna
wanted a church of her own, built on a hill called ‘Montefreddo’. When the
dreamer dreamed that the Madonna wanted her church built, that night was
snowing, but in the morning the snow had melted away everywhere except where
the dreamer had dreamed that the Madonna wanted her church built. The dreamer
told her dream to the people of Genzano, which then they understood and took
notice of the strange event of the snow. Therefore, it was decided that the new
church had to be built where that large patch of snow was left. And this is the
reason why the church of this Madonna with child was built on this hill called,
Montefreddo.
With the building
of the Madonna church many devotees came to adore this Madonna, and they prayed
to her for graces and miracles; and many graces and miracles they received in
return, so, this Madonna sanctuary grew and became well known all around the
country for a few centuries.
Today, this Madonna
church has been damaged badly twice by earthquake and once by fire, it has been
rebuilt and restored and it is still popular, but not quite as much as it used
to be, I suppose it is the sign of the times, because people nowadays don’t
believe in religion as much as they used to believe in the old times, when they
found this Madonna.
Anyhow, in the town
of Genzano, we still celebrate a great feast for this Madonna, the yearly
festivity for this Madonna are held for three days the first weekend in August.
We will come back to tell you about these festivities later; because now I want
to tell you what else the people of Genzano did after they found the Madonna
Icon at Capo D’acqua.
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Madonna chapel and fountain.
The Madonna chapel and Capo D'acqua fountain
Let us go back to
the site where they found the Madonna Icon; as we have said they were going to
build a chapel, and they did build the chapel; but at the same time, they built
a larger fountain, because when they were digging to find the Madonna icon,
they also found a large spring of water, so, they channeled this water to make
a larger fountain at Capo d’acqua, because on the abundance of this spring
waters.
Since then this
fountain has been rebuilt and enlarged several times, one of this was about the
year 1800, to serve the people of Genzano as the population was growing larger.
The fountain has inscribed in a corner the name of a certain ‘Lepore’, perhaps
he was the mayor of the town at the time when they built or rebuilt the
fountain. As I said it is a large and abundant spring fountain situated
downstream from where they had found the Madonna, and where the chasm Del’monte
and the Greek chasm meet, but well before they merge with St. Antony chasm.
The fountain was
built as a simple country fountain, and it had five or six large troughs of
about three-metre-long and one-metre-wide, all built of solid and simple
masonry. We believe that the people of Genzano have used this fountain outside
the town a lot, because there was no reticulated water in town in those days.
So, this fountain
was used in various ways, as there are two troughs which have three and four
water sprouts each, which are fed from the spring and are constantly pouring
water into the troughs. The two troughs with the sprouts are reserved for the
animals to drink, and for those people that want to fill some vessels straight
from the sprouts. From these two troughs then the water runs out into the rest
of the troughs, and these secondary troughs were used to do the town’s washing,
since there was no reticulated water in town in those times.
Capo d’acqua
fountain was very popular in the old times, there was even a song that a young
girl used to sing happily, she would sing about the time when she would go to
Capo d’acqua fountain to do the washing. I can still remember a few of the
dialect verses, and they go like this:
My Italian dialect
verses.
Me chiam Rosa e
teng vent’ann
E a Capodacqua ije
lav li pann
Kess eij la dota ca
me dai mam
na strecatora e na
cest pei pann.
--------------------------------
English version
My name is Rose and
I am twenty
And a Capo D’acqua I
wash the clothes
This is the dowry
that my mother gives me,
A scrubbing board
and a basket for clothes.
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There is a longer
version of the washing lady written from the writer 'Angelo Valente' which must
be a lot closer to the original; I am going to post it in my blog, http://genzanoit.blogspot.com/, once you open
this link on the left side find a list of pages and click on, Poem the washing
lady.
I believe that I have said enough about the Madonna story, So, see you next time with, Our life observations.
To see more click on this link, The Madonna story.
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