Italy - Monte Berico

http://www.monteberico.it/

I was a pretty literal-minded child, and there is reason to believe that my parents did not understand how much that was true. Sometimes the answers they gave me were puzzling, but I accepted them instead of asking follow-up questions, and so I would not understand various things until much later.

One of these stories is about a plate.

We had a few plates from Italy, representing my mother's homeland. There were plates showing scenes from Pisa, Venice, and Rome, but this one was actually from my mother's hometown, Vicenza. I was curious about the lady up in the air.

I probably didn't ask the question right. When I was asking, "What is that?", I didn't specify that I was asking about the levitating woman with the flock of children around her. She told me that was Vicenza (she may have even told me that it was Monte Berico), and if I went there I would see it. I was curious to go and see how she stayed up there. That's not how it works.

The Basilica di Santa Maria di Monte Berico is a shrine to Mary, on top of a hill overlooking Vicenza, built as a response to two apparitions by Mary to a peasant worker, Vincenzo Pasini, in 1426 and 1428. She promised that if they would build her the church she would heal them of the plague. The church was built in three months (I assume after the second vision) and became a sanctuary.

There is a part of me that is skeptical about this, especially because his name, Vincenzo Pasini, sounds a lot like the town name - Vicenza - combined with the word for peasant - paesano, plural paesani. However, there was an inquiry in 1430 and the proceedings have been preserved.

That being said, I remember driving around in Italy, and wherever you looked there were steeples and domes and a lot of these structures have similar stories. It had occurred to me that you could navigate Italy just by looking around, spotting something that seems interesting, and heading to it. Then I realized that would be a terrible idea, because there would be too much and you would grow tired while still missing a lot.

You have to pick and choose. Some places are widely known for their appeal, so lots of people go. Some places get seen because they are near where you are. Este probably gets seen more for by virtue of its proximity to Padova.

I don't know that Vicenza is much of a tourist attraction, though we will be going over some of what it offers in the next few posts. It may be very similar to a lot of other towns that are not at all famous and that I will never visit. It is still always home. That's where my cousins are, and where the stories from half of my heritage take place. It will always be more to me.

Nonetheless, if you go to Vicenza and visit Monte Berica, you will see many representations of Mary, with smaller figures flocking around her. You will see her in paintings and statuary and on cards. I did see her when I went there and she looked just like the plate. There just wasn't any levitation involved.