Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

The Dark Madonna of Mount Partenius

Mercogliano (Italy)

At an altitude of approximately 1,200 meters, on Mount Partenio, stands the sanctuary-abbey of Montevergine, in the municipality of Mercogliano, in Campania. It was founded by Saint William of Vercelli, who around 1124, abandoning the eremitic ideal, built a church there dedicated to the Virgin Mary and a primitive monastery. Over the centuries, it grew into an important Benedictine abbey, now a territorial abbey and national monument, one of the oldest and most visited Marian shrines in southern Italy, attracting nearly 1.5 million pilgrims a year.

Inside, a large icon of the Madonna di Montevergine is venerated—a dark-skinned image, seated on a throne, lovingly cradling the Christ Child. The dark color of her face has established her as the Black Madonna and is the origin of beautiful folk traditions. The attribution of the panel to the painter Montano d'Arezzo comes from a widely circulated local source, although there is no scholarly consensus on its dating and authorship; it should be considered a traditional fact.

The people affectionately call her Mamma Schiavona, and that's a fact. The reason for the name belongs to Neapolitan and Irpine religious folklore: one legend tells of seven sister Madonnas, six white and one black; the black one, the Madonna of Montevergine, scorned for her color, supposedly took refuge on the Partenio hill, saying in dialect that if they considered her ugly, they would have to climb up there to see her. Another beloved legend, which the sources themselves explicitly present as such, places two young people condemned for their love in 1256, tied to a tree on the hill to die, whom the Virgin miraculously rescued, making her a symbol of protection for the least, the weak, and the marginalized. There is no contemporary historical record of this episode: it is devotional tradition, not a proven fact.

The devotion is intensely popular: pilgrimages on foot along the Sentiero di Mamma Schiavona from Ospedaletto d'Alpinolo, the very steep funicular that ascends in just a few minutes, and two major festivals a year, Candlemas on February 2nd and the "Juta a Montevergine" on September 12th. The specific rites of Candlemas, with songs and dances, are documented primarily in studies of religious anthropology, which are not included here in detail. Regarding the Rosary, there is no evidence of a foundational link specific to Montevergine, as there is in Pompeii; it is reasonable that it is commonly prayed in the life of a Marian Benedictine shrine, but that is a general inference about ordinary Catholic piety.