Our Lady of the Letter (the patroness)
The importance it has in Messina
It is difficult to find a Messina who is not fond of Our Lady of the Letter . The Madonna has been watching over the port of Messina for almost ninety years from her stele . She stands at the end of the characteristic sickle-shaped harbor and protects the entire city from there.
Bigger than it looks
To see it from the sea promenade, from the tram, or from the hydrofoils, to the tourists who visit Messina, the Madonnina could seem really small . Nothing could be more wrong: the gilded bronze statue alone is seven meters high and the globe that serves as a pedestal measures just over two and a half meters. All on a thirty-five meter high votive stele .
The history of the statue of the Madonna della Lettera
It was Archbishop Angelo Paino who commissioned the construction of the stele, another of the ambitious reconstruction projects of the city after the disaster of the 1908 earthquake developed by the "Mason of Christ". For the realization of the stele, Paino commissioned the director of the bishop's technical office Francesco Barbaro, while the beautiful sculpture with the blessing hand was the work of Tore Edmondo Calabrò.
On 12 August 1934 the work was inaugurated and blessed by Pope Pius XI in connection with Rome with a special radio system. Such was the media resonance of the event that the Times of London reported on it.
Why exactly Mary of Nazareth?
We have to go back many centuries to find out why the Madonna della Lettera became the patroness of Messina . The story narrates, in fact, that in the year 42 AD Paul of Tarsus arrived in Messina to spread the Gospel. He returned to Palestine with a group of citizens who wanted to meet Mary and who returned to the city with a letter in which he blessed the city and its inhabitants with the words that the people of Messina find before their eyes every day:
“Vos et ipsam civitatem benedicimus”.
From that moment, Maria would become the protector of the city and there are many stories about her appearances in the most difficult moments in the history of Messina.
June 3 party
Every year, on June 3, a silver statue of the Madonna is carried in procession together with the hair that she would have used to wrap the letter to the city. In Messina on 3 June a goldsmith's masterpiece from the 1600s (by Innocenzo Mangani) is exhibited: the solid gold manta that covers the painting of the Madonna of the letter . Normally, during the rest of the year, the Byzantine-style framework is covered with a silver mantle. The golden manta is displayed only on the occasion of the Messina procession. It is an important occasion in which the Messina people rediscover their own traditions and cultivate their own religious sentiment. And it's a party not to be missed!