Yesterday was  Italy’s first national  commemoration day in memory of its covid dead and Bagni Di Lucca was no exception in remembering this sad occasion with its own twenty nine  positive cases, four of which are in intensive care and its fifty quarantined families.

One year to the day when the shocking train of army trucks bearing the bodies of Bergamo Covid victims was shown on TV I passed the melancholy ruined shell of the former plague church of San Rocco located at the junction between the main Controneria road and the turn-off to the village of Vetteglia. San Rocco had been open for services until the 1970s when the Lucca bishopric declared the church redundant.  It was soon looted of its fitments and the weather did the rest.

I noticed this sign stuck on the facade:

Translated this notice, placed there by persons unknown last month, means.

“In this building which is no longer a church, why not make it into a meeting place for young people to be together and exchanges ideas and plans. From this more initiatives arise. If there are people who would like this to happen. let’s do it and invite local associations to join in. Covid will end. Life continues.”

Interestingly I’d thought about a similar use for this despoiled building when last year I wrote:

“I at least would feel inclined that to give thanks to the Almighty for eventually delivering us from the pandemic we could have the former church of San Rocco outside nearby Vetteglia and now in a ruinous condition memoralizing  this event and restored as a refreshment and information point for modern-day pilgrims to the extraordinarily beautiful area of the Controneria.”

I do hope something on this line can be done when things get back to as normal as I’m sure they will be before too long.

PS. In case you didn’t know San Rocco was invoked against the plague and, judging by the number of churches dedicated to him, was particularly venerated. Born in a noble family the saint gave his wealth to the poor and became a mendicant pilgrim. During his travels the town of Acquapendente became badly affected by the Black Death; Saint Roch stopped there and healed its victims by making the sign of the cross over them. He cured the sick of several other plague-ridden towns without catching the disease himself. However, when the saint reached Piacenza in northern Italy he fell victim and a fetid ulcer developed in his leg. So rank was its smell that people kept well away from him. Luckily a dog befriended Roch and brought him some food daily and even licked his ulcer clean. Hence St. Roch has also become the patron saint of dogs. So let’s have a refreshment point here for dog walkers and their pets too!