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mercoledì, novembre 16, 2005 

Miraculous icons: le madonnelle

Romans call "madonnelle" (little Madonnas) those icons put in a wall of a street; you can find more than 500 icons in Rome, especially in the old town centre, but once they were thousands. Most of them are dedicate to the Mother Mary; this custom derives from the usance of the acient romans to build "lares compitales", altars dedicated to a pagan deity. Romans are very wedded to them because those icons made a lot of miracles during years. The most famous miracle happened in the 1796: from July 9 for 3 weeks these pictures of Mary started to move their eyes. During this time, french troops were close to invade the city, so romans thought that it was a very bad omen (infact 2 years after this event, Rome was attacked from France). Now you can think that is just a legend, but during these facts the Church made a serious enquiry to prove the miracle (infact not all the icons were recognized as living miracles). According to the descriptions of the inquiry started from the religious authorities, in some cases the movement of the eyes happened from right on the left, in others was vertical; in the same days in which the above-mentioned icons continued to move their eyes, another one situated in via Baccina (behind the area of the Imperial Holes) made revive a flowers bucket. For more, post me. Dblk

Ciao, Dblk!
This story sounds misterious.
But these icons of your pictures are so beautiful.
Thanks!
~Peach

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