Santuario della Madonna dell'Arco

The shrine

The Santuario della Madonna dell'Arco is a Roman Catholic shrine in Sant'Anastasia, a town on Mount Vesuvius. Every Easter Monday, it is the destination for the traditional 'fujenti' or 'battenti' pilgrims from all over Campania, who sing a song first written in the 15th century and later put to music. A fire is also lit on the bell-tower every second Sunday in September for the feast of the Coronation of the Virgin.

History

The site was originally occupied by a votive aedicula, built in the 15th century and housing a Madonna and Child known as the "Madonna dell'Arco" after the nearby surviving arch from an ancient Roman aqueduct. Tradition holds that on Easter Monday 1450 a young man was angry at losing a game of jeu de mail and threw a ball at the image, whose cheek began to bleed. This was taken as a miracle by the local people and news of it reached Raimondo Orsini, count of Sarno and grand justiciar of the Kingdom of Naples, who put the young man on trial. He was condemned to death and hanged.^[1]

On Easter Monday 1589, during the festival of the Madonna dell'Arco, a woman from the town named Aurelia Del Prete went to the shrine with her husband Marco Cennamo, who wanted to offer an ex voto depicting the Madonna after recovering from a serious eye disease. She was carrying a small pig with her, but it got loose and she could not get it back from among the crowd. Aurelia angrily cursed her husband's ex voto but the following year she fell gravely ill and soon died on 28 July 1590. The illness made her feet fall off and they are still to be seen in the shrine.^[2]

The cult began to spread beyond Naples and in 1592 pope Clement VIII sent father Giovanni Leonardi from Rome to Naples to cooperate with the bishop of Nola in administering the shrine's almsgiving and lands. The first stone of the current sanctuary was laid in 1593 and two years later it was handed over to the Dominicans, who began enlarging it. However, due to tensions with the Reale Albergo dei Poveri (who still held onto part of the monastery) and various collapses, it only reached its final form in 1973. On 25 March 1676 viceroy Antonio Alvarez and cardinal Pier Francesco Orsini saw the sanctuary's image of Mary surrounded by stars.^[3]

References