Italy: 'Madonna of the Cherries' inaugurated

Madonna of the Cherries by leading pavement artist Mariangela Cappa

On Friday evening at 9pm, the medieval village of Celleno in the Tuscia hills of Lazio - 90 minutes from Rome - officially inaugurated a new Marian devotion: the Madonna of the Cherries. The first-ever procession departed from the church of San Donato, winding through the historic borgo and opening the annual Cherry Festival.

At the centre of the new devotion stands an altarpiece unlike any other in the Western sacred art tradition: a painting executed entirely in coloured chalk pastels on wooden board, created by Mariangela Cappa, an internationally acclaimed Maestra Madonnara from Ceresara (Mantua) and multiple winner of the International Madonnari Competition at Grazie di Curtatone, where she has participated since 1990.

The madonnari are Italy's tradition of devotional pavement artists, who create images in chalk on church forecourts and public squares - works that, by their nature, dissolve in rain. Cappa's altarpiece reverses that logic: using a specialist fixative, she has permanently stabilised chalk on wood, transforming an ephemeral folk art into a lasting liturgical object. The result is believed to be the first altarpiece of its kind.

The painting was donated in 2025, during the Catholic Jubilee Year, by the Municipality of Ceresara to the Municipality of Celleno, as part of the long-standing twinning agreement between the two communities - both rooted in cherry cultivation. It now hangs in a dedicated chapel inside the church of San Donato.

The procession on Friday evening closed the Marian month of May and carried a double meaning: it was both a formal inauguration of the new cult and a traditional harvest thanksgiving for the cherry season.

"This moment of prayer before the Madonna of the Cherries is the beating heart of our festival," said Father Giusto Neri, parish priest of Celleno. "We thank the Municipality of Ceresara for this precious gift, which enriches our chapel and strengthens the bond between our communities."

The iconographic tradition of the Madonna of the Cherries is older than the Renaissance. It draws on the Apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, in which the Christ Child commands a cherry tree to bend so that Mary may gather its fruit. In Christian symbolism, the cherry - red as the blood of the Passion, sweet as the promise of redemption - became a recurring image of salvation.

The tradition produced masterworks across five centuries: Titian's Madonna of the Cherries and the celebrated panel by Federico Barocci, now in the Vatican Pinacoteca. With the inauguration of this cult, the village of Celleno adds a new chapter to that history.