OUR LADY OF GRACE

Day 298: March 06

Our Lady of Grace, Piove di Sacco, Padua, Italy



Outside the historic center of the town of Piove di Sacco, at the end of the tree-lined avenue that runs alongside the Fiumicello, stands the Sanctuary of Ourlady of Grace (the Madonna delle Grazie), with very ancient origins. The inscription on a tombstone, now destroyed, but reported in the book "Inscriptiones Agri Patavini", informs us that a small church, with an adjoining Franciscan Convent, was built, with the alms of the faithful, between the years 1484 and 1489, on a previous and older chapel.

In those years a prodigious event had happened, not documented, but reported by several illustrious writers of the 1500's, including Father Francesco Gonzaga and the historian Alessandro Morosini.

Two brothers named Sanguinazzi, upon the death of their parents, decided to divide the substantial inheritance received. They proceeded by mutual agreement until the moment of defining to whom to assign a painting of the Madonna and Child, of particular beauty, to which they were both attached. From words they soon moved on to offenses and reached the point of challenging each other to a duel to decide who it was up to.

They were about to begin the duel, when a one-year-old child, in his mother's arms, to everyone's amazement, shouted: "Stop, the Virgin Mary commands you! Lay down your arms and take this image to the chapel not far away where the friars of St Francis are, so that it may be exposed to the veneration of the faithful." Struck by such a miracle, the two brothers put an end to the quarrel and transported the Image of the Madonna to the indicated place. The devotion of the faithful to the prodigious Madonna grew, offerings arrived, so it was decided to build a church on the land donated by the same reconciled brothers.

Thus stands the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Grace, which, among the many works of art, jealously preserves the beautiful painting of the Madonna and Child, attributed to the hand of the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini and dated around 1478. It is a painting on wood measuring 82×62 cm, definitively restored in 1943 by the Central Institute of Rome. Our Lady, wrapped in a blue-green mantle, holds the Child standing with a delicate movement of her hands, in a frontal position and in a blessing attitude.

In the background flooded with morning light, a typical landscape of the Venetian countryside, with cultivated fields, a clear stream and sloping hills. The painting is enclosed in a large marble altarpiece; two angels hold the precious gold crown donated on June 1, 1947 as gratitude to Mary for having preserved the city from the destruction of the Second World War.

On the right wall of the central nave several paintings have been brought together, recovered in the latest restorations, which have great historical value. Among them is the Duel Scene, which is believed to have been performed in or shortly after the event. It represents the two Sanguinazzi brothers among a group of people, in the act of starting the decisive duel for the possession of the painting of the Madonna. On the side, a group of women watches with evident fear and among them, the mother with her arm and the child who orders the contenders to lay down their arms.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"We unite ourselves to you, O Mary, with the Saints and the Angels, with your Holy Parents Joachim and Anne, with your Spouse St Joseph, bowing to you and greeting you, on behalf of the Blessed Trinity, Full of Grace, in the Mystery of your Assumption into Heaven."

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 159)

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