The Sanctuaries: Madonna di Pin

There are many sanctuaries in the Trentino and we will explore them in the Fil. The sanctuary of the Madonna di Pin of Montagnaga of Pin is the most well known one in the Trentino. Here is its story....Domenica Targa, born in 1699, lived in the small village of Varda, the daughter of poor peasant farmers. She assisted her family pasturing their animals. In 1729 and 1730, she is reported to have had five visions of the Virgin Mary. Many would not acknowledge the assertions of Domenica especially the pastor of Baselga of Pin who would not even listen to her and demanded that she remain silent. Nonetheless, word got around the Trentino so that the curious began making their way to Montagnaga and along with Statues of Madonna and Domenica these visitors there came donations to reconstruct the ancient chapel of St. Anne originally built in the 16th century. A new phenomenon occurred in association with the chapel. there came the obsessives, possessed and convulsed which the people regarded as ndemoniadi o spiritadi...the possessed and spirited people. These people came to Montagnaga to receive special blessings and be liberated from the demons.

When Domenica Targa died on October 25, 1784, she was buried in the church of St Anna, in the very place where she had declared that she had seen visions of Mary on three occasions. With the passage of time and with the multiplication of events and episodes considered miraculous, the sanctuary of Montagnaga became the focus of attention and devotion. In 1816, there occurred l`an dela fam, the year of the hunger..famine that gripped the Trentino, the people of Montagnaga gained an approval from the Church to enlarge the Church of St. Anna. Despite the hardships of the times, the restorations went forward and continued until 1880. Luigi Church of St. Anna Liberi was the architect that provided the grand design. Bishop Gian Giacomo della Bona consecrated the new church and final decorations and restorations were completed in 1929, the second centennial of the apparitions. The field where the apparitions occurred the field della Comparsa was bought by private individuals and added to the sanctuary. They also had cast a bronze statue of the Madonna e the young peasant girl. There was added a large painting that was crowned by Bishop Eugenio Carlo Valussi and placed in the parochial church of St. Anna. To celebrate the centennial remembrance of the apparitions, the same Bishop erected a memorial cross on the adjacent mountain tops. Don Giuseppe Zanotelli erected a monument dedicated to the Holy Redeemer by adding a devotional set of 28 steps that lead to a replica of a large crucifix, a copy of the crucifix that is venerated in the cathedral of Trento.

Although the Catholic Church has never recognized the authenticity of the alleged visions, every year there arrive no less than 200,000 pilgrims to visit and pray at the Comparsa. Hundreds of devotional pictures (Ex Voto) covered the sanctuary walls like a great tapestry of St Anna. The more ancient of these devotional framed images refer to exorcisms, deliverance from evil spirits and cures from man-made and aniHoly Stairs of the Redeemer mal epidemics. While it is difficult, after three centuries, to know clearly what occurred in 1729-1730, there are thousands of testimonials of grazie. . . favors, hundreds of thousands of invocations, a devotion that has resisted the enormous changes of civilization and customs. Every year, pilgrimages from individual parishes, organized by the dioceses, of the young, the sick and the elderly come to the sanctuary of Pin. None seem concerned about diocesan approvals for their heart felt devotion and this place of piety.
Alberto Folgheraiter is the author of many books regarding the Trentino. This article is an abstract from his definitive and colorful book I Sentieri dell`Infinito-Storia dei Santuari del Trentino-Alto Adige The Paths of the Infinite-The Story of the Sancutaries of the Trentino Alto-Adige sanctuaries.