One can be living in an area for over fifteen years and ever discover new places which may be just a few minutes away. Below the village of Granaiola in our Comune of Bagni Di Lucca, for example, we came across a sweet dell containing a chapel near a hamlet.
The chapel, characteristic of so many others in our part of the world with its porch, bell-cote and austere nave, dates back to the eighteenth century and is dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows.
In Italy there are over a thousand religious buildings with this dedication. Indeed, we know of another chapel ‘of the snows’ near us at Boveglio for example.
According to tradition in the 4th century, under the pontificate of Pope Liberius, a noble and rich Roman patrician named Giovanni together with his wife, having no children, decided to offer their possessions to the Holy Virgin for the construction of a church dedicated to her. Our Lady appreciated their wish and appeared to the spouses in a dream on the night between 4 and 5 August, marking with a miracle the place where the church was to be built. The following morning the Roman couple went to the Pope to tell him about the dream they both had. Since the Pope also had the same dream, they went to the place indicated, the Esquiline Hill, which was found covered with snow in the middle of summer! They traced the perimeter of the new church following the surface of the snow-covered ground and had the sacred building built at the expense of the noble spouses. This building is the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, a magnificent church which I visited when my University choir sang there: (https://longoio3.com/2017/10/05/towards-romes-santa-maria-maggiore/).
Although the Church no longer upholds the veracity of the story tradition still continues and every year a Mass is celebrated in these lonely chapels built to allow local farmers to worship without having to walk all the way to the main church. In any case the purity of The Virgin, born without sin according to believers and shortly to be celebrated in Italy’s national holiday of the Immaculate Conception on the 8th December, is beautifully symbolised by the image of snow.
A short distance away from this chapel in the woods is a hamlet consisting of a collection of substantial farmhouses. These have been excellently restored and with some marvellous garden landscaping are now very desirable holiday homes.
The views from this spot with a landscape swathed in long veils of misty clouds is quite magical!
It is possible to reach this area using a newly refurbished footpath called ‘la via del grano ‘ which runs from Ponte a Serraglio to Granaiola.
The hamlet’s new use has saved it from the dereliction which has been inflicted on so many of Italy’s abandoned villages. I just wish the same entrepreneurship could have been shown towards another Val Di Lima settlement: the crumbling village of Bugnano (which I describe at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2014/03/16/abandon-all-hope-all-ye-who-enter-here/).