Our Lady of Trapani

Marian Advocation of Trapani (Sicily)

La devoción a Our Lady of Trapani is linked to the city of Trapani, in Sicily, and to its ancient Marian sanctuary of the AnnunziataThe local tradition places there a very old image of the Virgin with the Child, arrived by sea and surrounded by pious stories transmitted for centuries. The tradition It has various versions of its origin, including an eastern provenance and a miraculous transfer by sea to Trapani; however, these narrations cannot be taken as a documented history in all its details.

Main data

Origin and history

La devoción a Our Lady of Trapani is linked to the city of Trapani, in Sicily, and to its ancient Marian sanctuary of the AnnunziataThe local tradition places there a very old image of the Virgin with the Child, arrived by sea and surrounded by pious stories transmitted for centuries. The tradition It has various versions of its origin, including an eastern provenance and a miraculous transfer by sea to Trapani; however, these narrations cannot be taken as a documented history in all its details.

La documented history places the great development of veneration in the Middle Ages. Historical studies and synthesis point out that Trapani, a marine city, consolidated an intense devotional life around this image, with numerous chapels, cofradies and pilgrimages, especially linked to the world of the sea. It is also indicated that the shrine of the Annunciation began to be configured in the 14th century and that the image reached great regional and supraregional fame since early times.

The image and the sanctuary

The venerated image is a marble or alabaster sculpture of the Virgin with the Child, attributed by the artistic tradition to Pisano child or to your school, although this attribution cannot be considered absolutely safe in all the studies consulted. The iconography presents it with the Child Jesus on the left arm, in a sober and hierarchical representation of the Italian medieval sculpture.

Se venera en el Sanctuary of Santissima Annunziata of Trapani, also called Sanctuary of the Annunciation o Madonna di Trapaniwhere the image is preserved in a chapel located in the temple. The sources consulted describe the place as a sanctuary-basilica very linked to the religious identity of the city; it does not contain with certainty, in the sources provided, the exact legal formula of the minor basilicaand should therefore be stated as Shrine of the Annunciation of Trapani.

Sponsorship and coronation

Our Lady of Trapani is main patron of the city of Trapani and also appears linked to the patronage of the people of the sea and the local marine tradition. The sources consulted do not contain a diocesan or national patronage that can be affirmed with the same certainty as the civic patronage of Trapani.

The image was coronada en 1734; the data of the coronation is confirmed in the available sources, but it is not always specified with the same level of detail by the pontiff or the delegate who made it. By editorial prudence, it can be simply stated: canonically crowned in 1734.

Party and devotion

La main party se celebra el 16 August according to the devotional tradition spread in several sources consulted. In some references it also appears related to the liturgical environment of 15 August, but for the fact sheet it is appropriate to maintain the 16 August as the main devotional date, as indicated by the data provided and as collected by various popular and religious sources.

The devotion to the Virgin of Trapani has historically been linked to pilgrimages and to the mercy of the sailors, who have invoked her as a protector in the sea. The sanctuary has been a place of visit and continued veneration, and the image has generated copies and dissemination in other parts of the Mediterranean and Europe, always with a strong marine and processional accent.

Link to the Rosary

The sources consulted do not specifically document a exclusive historical relationship between this advocation and a Rosary fellowship or a rosarian tradition of its own. However, as with many Marian claims of strong popular roots, the Rosary It naturally accompanies this devotion by contemplating, with Mary, the mysteries of Christ; in an image like that of Trapani, the prayer of the Rosary is well integrated into a Marian spirituality of contemplation, supplication and pilgrimage.