HOLY PIETA OF CANNOBIO

Day 242: January 09

Holy Pietà of Cannobio, Verbano Cusio Ossola



The Sanctuary of the Holy Pietà of Cannobio is located on Lake Maggiore, three kilometers from the border with Switzerland.

At the beginning of the 1500's, where the Sanctuary stands today, the curtain of houses and palaces that formed and form the lakeside façade of the ancient village of Cannobio continued. In one of these houses lived the family of Tommaso Zaccheo. It was in his house, in the winter of 1522, that miraculous events took place that then gave rise to the construction of the Sanctuary.

A small painting on parchment (27.5 X 30 cm), depicting Christ in Pietà between Mary and John the Evangelist, kept today in a niche in the center of the main altar, under the panel by Gaudenzio Ferrari, was then hanging on the wall of the upper room. On January 8, 9, 10 and 28, 1522 and then on the following February 4 and 27, the parchment was seen bleeding. The wounds of Jesus' body revived and drops of blood fell from the picture on the chest below. On the second evening, January 9, a small bleeding rib, proportionate to the Christ in the painting, came out of the wounded side where the hand of Our Lady of Sorrows is placed, and fell on the tablecloth below. It was collected in a chalice and carried in procession to the parish church, where it is still kept today, in a precious reliquary that Cardinal Federico Borromeo donated in 1605. The blood-stained clothes are locked up in the urn placed under the table of the main altar of the Sanctuary.

Two years after the miracle, the so-called "Confraternity of Devotion" was formed, which renovated the upper rooms of the Zacchaeus house, obtaining a small chapel.

In this chapel St Charles Borromeo celebrated his penultimate Mass and it was he who asked for the construction of a large Sanctuary to honor the miracle that took place there.

He entrusted the project to Tibaldi who used local workers for the realization, directed by the Beretta of Brissago. From 1575 to 1614, with the sole financial support of villagers and devotees, work was done for the erection of the structure, which then during the 1600's was enriched with stuccoes, frescoes and canvases, until it reached the splendor of today.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"You are likewise Queen by the free acclamation of your subjects, whoso acclaim, salute and crown you, O Mary."

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 153)

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