Rosalia | |
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| Virgin | |
| Born | 1130 (1130) Palermo,Kingdom of Sicily |
| Died | 1166 (aged 35–36) Mount Pellegrino, Kingdom of Sicily |
| Venerated in | Catholic Church |
| Feast |
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| Attributes | cross, book, skull, spray of lilies[1], chisel and hammer, crown of roses, attended by winged angels, cave opening of Palermo Harbour |
| Patronage |
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Rosalia (Italian:[rozaˈliːa];Sicilian:Rusulìa; 1130–1166), nicknamedla Santuzza ("the Little Saint") was avirgin andhermit onMonte Pellegrino. She is venerated as thepatroness saint ofPalermo in Italy,Camargo in Chihuahua, and three towns inVenezuela:El Hatillo,Zuata [es], andEl Playón. She is especially important internationally as a saint invoked in times ofplague. From 2020 onwards she has been invoked by some citizens of Palermo to protect the city fromCOVID-19.[2]
Rosalia was born of aNorman noble family that claimed descent fromCharlemagne. Devoutly religious, she retired to live as ahermit in a cave onMount Pellegrino, where she died alone in 1166. Tradition says that she was led to the cave by twoangels. On the cave wall she wrote "I, Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, Lord of[Monte] delle Rose, and Quisquina, have taken the resolution to live in this cave for the love of my Lord, Jesus Christ."[3]
In 1624, aplague beset Palermo. During this hardship Rosalia reportedly appeared first to a sick woman, then to a hunter, to whom she indicated where her remains were to be found. She ordered him to bring her bones to Palermo and have them carried in procession through the city.[4]
The hunter climbed the mountain and found her bones in the cave as described. He did what she had asked in the apparition. After her remains were carried around the city three times, the plague ceased. After this Rosalia was venerated as the patroness saint of Palermo, and a sanctuary was built in the cave where her remains were discovered.[5]
Her post-1624 iconography is dominated by the work of the Flemish painterAnthony van Dyck, who was trapped in the city during the 1624–1625 quarantine, during which time he produced five paintings of Rosalia, now inMadrid,Houston,London,New York andPalermo itself. In 1629 he also producedSaint Rosalia Interceding for the City of Palermo andCoronation of Saint Rosalia to assist Jesuit efforts to spread devotion to her beyond Sicily.[6]
InPalermo, the Festino di Santa Rosalia is held each year on 14 July, and continues into the next day.[7] It is a major social and religious event in the city.
The feastday of St. Rosalia is on 4 September.[3]
The devotion to Santa Rosalia is widespread among the large and mainly HinduTamil community of Sri Lankan origin settled in Palermo.[8][9][10]
On 4 September, a tradition of walking barefoot from Palermo up to theSanctuary of Santa Rosalia high up on Mount Pellegrino is observed in honor of Rosalia.[11] InItalian-American communities in the United States, the July feast is generally dedicated toOur Lady of Mount Carmel[12] while the September feast, beginning in August, brings large numbers of visitors annually to theBensonhurst section ofBrooklyn in New York City.[13]
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Santa Rosalia is venerated as the patroness of the Italian sardine fishing fleet in Monterey, California.[14][15]
Also, although St. Rosalia lived in a period after theGreat Schism, someOrthodox faithful today recognise and venerate her as a saint.[16][17][18]
Rosalia was proposed as the patroness saint ofevolutionary studies in a paper byG.E. Hutchinson.[19] This was due to a visit he paid to a pool of water downstream from the cave where St. Rosalia's remains were found, where he developed ideas based on observations ofwater boatmen.[20]
Saint Rosalia was an important subject in Italian Renaissance and Baroque painting, particularly in sacre conversazioni (group pictures of saints flanking the Virgin Mary) by artists such asRiccardo Quartararo,Mario di Laurito,Vincenzo La Barbara, and possiblyAntonello da Messina.[21]
It was the Flemish masterAnthony van Dyck (1599–1637), who was caught up in Palermo during the 1624 plague, who produced the most paintings of her. His depictions – a young woman with flowing blonde hair, wearing a Franciscan cowl and reaching down toward the city of Palermo in its peril – became the standard iconography of Rosalia from that time onward. Van Dyck's series of St. Rosalia paintings have been studied byGauvin Alexander Bailey andXavier F. Salomon, both of whom curated or co-curated exhibitions devoted to the theme of Italian art and the plague.[22][23][24] In March 2020,The New York Times published an article about the Metropolitan Museum of Art's painting of Saint Rosalia by Van Dyck in the context ofCOVID-19.[25]
Van Dyck also made designs for prints which were engraved byPhilips van Mallery for the publicationVita S. Rosaliae Virginis Panormitanae Pestis Patronæ iconibus expressa, which was published byCornelis Galle the Elder in Antwerp in 1629. Only a few copies of the work, which recounts the life of Saint Rosalia, survive.[26]
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913)."St. Rosalia".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.| International | |
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