The local community of this tiny hilly village has elected the Madonna di Misericordia (Our Lady of Mercy) as its patron saint and traditionally the inhabitants of the valley set up piles of wood and light large bonfires to pay homage to their Madonna on New Year’s Eve and prepare for the next day's procession as a celebration for prosperity for the new year.
Although this year the bonfire in the Piazza and the procession will not take place, the devotees usually meet every year in front of the Cathedral in the city center and walk the streets of the city until they reach the road to the mountain leading to the road to the Shrine where the first of the nine chapels that mark the way to the Shrine is located. The procession ends with the great solemn mass officiated by the Bishop in the square of the Santuario, defined by the art historians as “the most beautiful square in the area.”
Next to the Church is the Museum of the Shrine which opened in the 1950s in order to rearrange the nineteenth-century museum-deposit and completely renovated in the 80s, currently consists of a single itinerary which includes the historic Museum of the Treasury and another room. The heart of the Museum consists of a precious cell, where the splendid jewels donated to the Madonna are housed, among which the Crown in gold, diamonds and precious stones that Pope Pius VII used in 1815 to crown the Statue of Our Lady of Mercy and to thank the community during the three years in which he was forced by Napoleon to reside here.
The interior, richly decorated by architects and artists of the time, houses various works of art even an altar by Bernini, eighteenth-century frescoes on the vault and the dome by the painter Castello. There are also four marble altars, including one dedicated to the Madonna delle Neve with an altarpiece from the 17th century.
The Shrine is a full-fledged Cathedral and also one of the few churches to be open every day of the year and they celebrate mass here every day, twice a day on weekends so many worshippers come here.
It is also traditional to hang round or squared paper lanterns to celebrate the appearance of the Virgin Mary every March because legend says it was March 18th 1536 when the Madonna appeared to a farmer in the valley.
But, the Department of Local Culture, in collaboration with the Department of Education, has launched an original initiative to revive the ancient tradition of the traditional luminous lanterns exhibited throughout the city on the occasion of the patronal holiday in March and as part of this program, on the occasion of the New Year, it organized to pass on the tradition to the new generations by hanging the paper lanterns also for the New Year as a symbol of hope.
This is also done to promote this tradition that would risk to be gradually forgotten and it was decided to create a tutorial showing step by step how to create a “do-it-yourself” lantern at home.
The proposal to make this particular and original video was accepted with enthusiasm and the video was made by a teacher with some young students and it shows in a simple and intuitive way how anyone can build this colored paper lantern even using recycled or easily found materials.
Santuario – Shrine
Paper lanterns, homemade with recycled materials
