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Gather ‘round, all ye greengrocers, for there is a church in the heart of Rome to honor you. Well, if you own a mill or are a delicatessen shopkeeper, or are a chicken seller, this church is for you, too. But let us not forget the dough resellers or the cobblers…
Back in the early 1400’s, the area of Trastevere near the port of Ripa Grande was practically uninhabited; it was then used to cultivate vegetable gardens. One day in the later part of the century, a man with an incurable disease looked upon a statue of the Virgin Mary standing inside a very old wall of a vegetable garden. He made a vow that if he recovered, he would keep a perpetual lamp lit in front of the image.
He was healed and kept his promise. In fact, on Holy Thursday of each year (exactly a week from today, on April 21st, 2011), the liturgical practice of exhibiting the Sacrament within the shape of a Quarantore continues, signifying the 40 hours Christ spent in the tomb before the resurrection. In many churches a special structure has been built called a “macchina” destined to support candles and illuminations on an altar. (Read more here about Viterbo’s variation on this practice.)
The location of that original vegetable garden and statue of Mary has since become a church, Santa Maria dell’Orto (literally, Mary of the Vegetable Garden). In this case, the Macchina is a complex liturgical construction, tenderly built by the “brothers” of the Church’s Confraternity. On the evening of Holy Thursday each year, the Eucharistic Sacrament is celebrated with the lighting of all its 213 candles.
Final image contributed by Lalupa under a CC 3.0 Unported License. Many thanks!
Fascinating and well-written. Many thanks!
EVEN THE RC CHURCH LOVES “FOODIES” LIKE ME!! WONDERFUL ARTICLE, AS ARE ALL OF THE ARTICLES ON ITALIANNOTEBOOK.COM. VERY GLAD I SUBSCRIBE!
Thanks Evanne, love the massed candles and your prose.
Your notes are a special part of my day, each day! What a pleasure! I will be in Italy late fall, and am diligently studying in preparation – your beautiful pieces add to the excitement and anticipation. I’ve passed on your site to many. Thank you so much!
Thank You for the info. We will be in Rome next week, and will try to see this wonderful church.
I really enjoy these stories I am looking forward to Easter Living in Sydney we do not have a lot of these church displays thank you and wishong you all a joyful Easter ciao Cristina
This was frustrating. I did not see the place for name and email and therefore hit send and got the message to include those. However, there was no way to go back and fill those in without re- accessing the Notebook and losing the message. My note was fairly long and too complex to re-create, so this will sound more like a complaint than the list of kudos that the orignial contained.
Meanwhile, I enjoy the Notes very much but would really like to have real addresses for places you mention (like St. Maria del Orto, for example) so I could locate it more readily on my own maps as well as the internet ones. The map site listed does not do that very well.
Thanks.