March 30
Madonna della Rocca, Alessandria della Rocca, Agrigento, Sicily, Italy
The story goes that in 1620 the Madonna appeared to a blind
young woman of Alessandria, granted her sight, and asked her to work on
having a church built for the veneration of a statue that would be found
hidden in the rocks of a hill. Convinced by the miracle of healing, the
people of Alessandria dug in the spot the Madonna had indicated and found
a beautiful statue, two feet tall, of white Parian marble finely worked,
which they judged to be Greek art of the 400s, hidden during Saracen
incursions later in that century.[1] The town soon designated the Madonna
of the Rock its heavenly patron. The Hermits of St. Anthony Abbot built a church to house the statue, but the Barresi
and Napoli, lords of the place, claimed ownership of the statue found on
their lands and moved it to Palermo, replacing it with a bronze
copy.
On March 30, 1873, with great festivity, the original statue returned to its shrine in Alessandria della Rocca. The copy moved to the town church. The marble statue still resides in the main parish church of S. Maria del Pilerio from the third Sunday of Lent to Easter afternoon, and from the Friday of the last week in August to the first Sunday in October.
The festa of the Madonna della Rocca began in 1630 in thanksgiving for the harvest. It starts on the Friday before the last Sunday in August, when townspeople go in procession to the shrine. After mass there, they return with the statue to Alessandria in the evening. On Sunday, after mass in the parish church, another procession conducts the patronal statue through the streets. Festivities continue for a few days, with a fair, entertainment, and fireworks.
[1] Sicily was under the Goths in the 400s and under the Byzantine Greeks from 535-827, when it fell to the Arabs, who had it until the Norman conquest in 1061. In 1282, the Spanish took over, more or less until Garibaldi overthrew them in 1860. So, if the statue were Greek, it could have been imported under the Goths, or made and hidden during the Byzantine period, but its style is more of the 1200s. The marble is of the fine-grained white type associated with the Greek island of Paros.
Sources include:
 | "Madonna della Rocca la storia," Alessandria della Rocca, www.alessandriadellarocca.it/index.php/storia/2021-03-22-16-50-58 (picture) |
| "Santuario della Madonna della Rocca (Alessandria della Rocca)," Wikipedia, it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santuario_della_Madonna_della_Rocca_(Alessandria_della_Rocca) |
| "Festa Patronale 2022 Alessandria della Rocca | PROGRAMMA," VivaSicilia | Vacanze, Viaggi, Feste e Sagre in Sicilia, www.vivasicilia.com/festa-madonna-della-rocca-alessandria-della-rocca/ |
| "Santuario Madonna della Rocca," Santuari.it, www.santuari.it |