{"id":426,"date":"2010-07-07T16:11:20","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T16:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=426"},"modified":"2010-07-07T16:11:20","modified_gmt":"2010-07-07T16:11:20","slug":"il-pellegrinaggio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/il-pellegrinaggio\/","title":{"rendered":"Il Pellegrinaggio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday, the 3rd of July, we joined in a small pellegrinaggio <\/strong>(pilgrimage) to a newly restored Madonnina <\/strong>(shrine to the Madonna) which was due to receive the blessing of the local priest. The pilgrimage was organized by some locals from our village, and was meant to start at 9:00 o’clock in the morning, but when we got to the meeting place we found that all the old folk, in other words the majority of the population, who are all well into their seventies, had already set off at 7:30 a.m. to avoid the heat, and to take it easy. The route of the pilgrimage followed an ancient stone paved strada comunale<\/strong> (communal road), called strada romana<\/strong>, which leads from the village up into the mountains. Once upon a time the villagers would use the strada to take their cows up to the high pastures during the hot summer months. I must admit that the first couple of kilometers are a real killer, very steep indeed, so when one of the locals suggested una scorciatoia<\/strong> (a shortcut) that was less steep it seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately it turned out to be completely overgrown with brambles and bushes, which I bravely fought with my rudimentary walking stick in order to save two 10 year old girls, who had naively come along in shorts and tennis shoes.<\/font><\/p>\n

After about forty minutes of hard walking and pleasant chitchatting, we finally reached our destination, a lovely place set in a clearing right on the spine of the foothills which lead up to the Appennino Tosco-Emiliano. The shape of the shrine, which is sculpted out of local stone, is quite unusual: on a square base stands a pillar, about a meter and a half tall, the top section of which contains a niche closed by an iron grill. Inside the niche resides a marble statue of the Madonna, about thirty centimeters high. Towards the top of the shrine the pillar tapers to a narrow spindle upon which rests a massive round stone that looks rather like an upturned bowl. The spindle inserts neatly in a reciprocal whole in the center of the bowl, rather like a wheel on its axel.<\/font><\/p>\n

With a bit of effort we managed to decipher the inscription on the lichen covered stone of the shrine, which informed us that it was erected in 1863 by Giuseppe Biondi. None of the villagers present could remember the reason why a shrine had been built in that particular place, perhaps to thank the Madonna per una grazia ricevuta<\/strong>. However, they all told us a story which, they swore, was absolutely true. It is said that in the late Fifties a young man deliberately broke off the head of the statue. A short while after this incident the young man was decapitated by one of the steel cables that were used to carry wood from the mountain forests down to the village. <\/font><\/p>\n

The head of the statue seems to have disappeared, and at some point had been replaced with a rather primitive plaster head which always looked a bit strange. Then, about a year ago one of the villagers decided to have la Madonna<\/strong> properly restored. The blessing ceremony was lead by Don Gustavo, our parish priest from Benin in Africa, who was accompanied by the cats’ chorus of the local ‘choir’. After the ceremony and the obligatory photos of various ‘pilgrims’ in front of the shrine, la caccia ai funghi<\/strong>  (the wild mushroom hunting) began! The relative order of the procession to the shrine was replaced by  the mysterious disappearance of the congregation who silently melted into the forest towards their secret funghi porcini<\/strong> (porcini mushrooms) locations!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday, the 3rd of July, we joined in a small pellegrinaggio (pilgrimage) to a newly restored Madonnina (shrine to the Madonna) which was due to receive the blessing of the local priest. The pilgrimage was organized by some locals from our village, and was meant to start at 9:00 o’clock in the morning, but…<\/p>\n

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