Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

«La Virgen que sostiene una bicicleta»

Magreglio, Como (Italy) (1949)

On the top of the Grisallo hill, on Lake Como, in the end of Magreglio, there is a small church that the biking of the whole world has made famous: the shrine of the Madonna of Grisallo, universal patron of the cyclists. Within an eternal flame in memory of the runners killed in accidents or in a race - among them we remember Fabio Casartelli, who died on the 1995 Tour - and next to the temple a museum guards bicycles, maillots and trophies donated as modern exvotes.

The tradition tells that a count of Grisallo, assaulted by bandits in those places, invoked the Virgin before an image of the place; the bandits fled and the count, grateful, ordered to lift a chapel. Since then the Virgin was taken as the protector of the travelers. A century later, the sport did the rest: in 1919 the Lombardy Giro included for the first time the rise to the Grisallo, and the cyclists began to pray there and leave their offerings.

Distingamos. La historia del conde y los bandidos se reconoce como leyenda incluso en las fuentes del santuario, que hablan de una imagen «encontrada en los bosques»: no constan el nombre del conde ni la fecha, y la antigüedad de la devoción «desde el siglo XII» es tradición sin documento. Está en cambio documentada la existencia del santuario, su vínculo con el Giro de Lombardía desde 1919 y la labor del rector P. Ermelindo Viganò, que en 1947 impulsó la advocación. El papa Pío XII la proclamó patrona universal de los ciclistas mediante un breve pontificio: el santuario indica 1949, aunque parte de la prensa cita 1948; el día exacto no consta.

The link with the Rosary is the ordinary of a living Marian sanctuary: pilgrims who pray it on the rise or in the chapel. A unique historical link - apparition, fellowship or privilege of the Rosary - is not recorded.