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The Madonna del Cuore:
A 15c Wayside Shrine to the Virgin

[image ALT: A small plastered shed with a pitched roof; it consists of a deep arched recess enclosed by a grillwork gate. It is the Madonna del Cuore, a wayside shrine depicting the Virgin Mary, near Bevagna, Umbria (central Italy).]

I'm fond of saying that being a tourist is hard work; and for sure, being a tourist in a car must be next to impossible. I honestly don't know what would happen if I depended on a car to see Italy: would I succeed in keeping my eyes open despite my speed of travel, then stop to investigate — and often delight in — every ruin, every chapel, every edicola?

This little whitewashed shed, with its almost Appalachian wooden carving of a heart, its grillwork gate, its flowers and statuettes, sits amidst the road signs, dumpster and phone booth in front of some modern apartment houses on the W side of the road leaving Bevagna for Cantalupo and Cannara. Having admired or at least gazed at some of the town's many churches, her medieval walls, her Roman temple and theatre and mosaics, we might have thought we'd seen everything: on to the next place!

[image ALT: A painting of the Virgin Mary seated on an architectural throne, holding the Baby Jesus standing on her lap; on either side of them, a small standing angel. It is the 15c fresco in the Madonna del Cuore, a wayside shrine near Bevagna, Umbria (central Italy).]
The Madonna owes her name — Madonna del Cuore, The Heart Madonna — to the heart she holds in her left hand, now barely visible.

Yet we would have missed this vibrant fifteenth-century fresco of the Virgin enthroned and her Child, attended by their flame-winged angels; must have been an extraordinary sight when it was new. I'm glad I was on foot this particular day.

[image ALT: A painting of an angel\'s head; behind him his fine many-feathered upraised wings. It is a detail of the 15c fresco in the Madonna del Cuore, a wayside shrine depicting the Virgin Mary, near Bevagna, Umbria (central Italy).]

Colle Poppo, the area just W of Bevagna, has now grown to be part of the town, and the once-isolated madonnina is maybe more than ever the focus of public devotion, as on fair evenings during the Marian month of May the Rosary is recited here.

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Page updated: 1 Oct 19