Madonna dei Miracoli, Lonigo, Venezia, Veneto, Italy
It was May 1, 1486, outside the north Italian town of Lonigo. Two men had murdered a fellow cobbler for his money, which they were counting on the altar of St. Peter's church. Guglielmo, looking at a fresco of Our Lady of the Assumption on the wall, said, "We've done a bad thing!"
Gianantonio
said, "But who knows it?" "Only I and the Virgin Mary." "Then I'll give her
ten whacks!" and at that Gianantonio stabbed the image in the right eye and
breast. As the wounds bled, the Madonna bowed her head, lifting one praying
hand to her wounded brow and the other to her high sash. The men fled to
Verona, where the authorities apprehended and executed repentant Guglielmo.
The attacker, Gianantonio, got away. Meanwhile, in Lonigo, pilgrims began
coming to St. Peter's and reporting more miracles through the Madonna. On
May 7, a man was healed of a broken back. Pietro Bruti, Bishop of Verona,
conducted an investigation and declared the events supernatural in 1492. Not
much remains of the Madonna's image (far left) enshrined in the sanctuary begun
in 1487 and dedicated to her in 1501. Under the huge papal crown of 1618,
her face is featureless. It is hard to make out the clouds below her or even
the "tree of salvation" behind her, with the Crucifixion on its trunk, the
Apostles on its branches, and the Holy Spirit on top. A late
nineteenth-century mosaic (above right) on the main altar depicts the image as it
would have looked after the miracle. Although the official feast day of the
Madonna dei Miracoli is the fourth Sunday after Easter, Lonigo makes its
pilgrimage on May 1, and there is also a procession on the last Sunday of May to
close the Month of Mary.
Source: The shrine's website, www.madonnadeimiracoli.org