medieval place of worship in Liguria 1 The old church of the Holy Savior in Ripalta Ortara
Jonathan Ferroni
Ripalta is a tiny country of twenty-five souls on the site top of a hill is a watershed between the Val di Vara, where the detritus of the river formed the small flat on which stand Brugnato Borghetto Vara, and the valleys of the river Cassana.
the history of this town not much is known: it is was founded before the year thousand, probably in the first half of the tenth century and, probably, its inhabitants have subsequently founded Borghetto, in the bed of the stream. On top of the hill there was a major castrum, already owned by the Fieschi and Malaspina, which has lost almost all traces, except for some dry wall, now reduced to a vague memory and oral calcium.
However, the village sits on a vital crossroads of two ancient roads. That, in EW direction, connecting the Gulf of La Spezia with the passage of the arm and the Genoese and the in NS direction, connecting the mouth of Bardellone - and then Levanto and the Cinque Terre Bonassola - abreast of the Casoni and from there, to Parma and Piacenza.
latter was very popular since pre-Roman times to the early 900, as was one of the most important shopping streets inland from the sea (salt, oil, wine, etc.).. In addition, this ancient road winds through some of the most important prehistoric anthropogenic Val di Vara: castellaro of the Bardellone, castellaro of the sprocket and to Cassana, passing through the Val Marveia, place of occurrence of petroglyphs and rock work, for arrive, finally, in the area of \u200b\u200bMount Dragnone Zignago, famous for finding homonym statue-stele and important for the presence of a fortification and a sanctuary.
had, therefore, be a significant route for prehistoric peoples, whose descendants in historical times have slowly turned the rock villages and castles in populous towns and large castles that have seen the peak in the Middle Ages, such as the castle of Celasco, which has recently been located on the summit of Mount Bardellone, nearby the homonym prehistoric settlement (1).
As for the other path, it is the ancient Via Romea from the Genoa area, through the pass of Bracco, probably was connected with the Francigena in Val di Magra. However, the path traced Romanesque, at least in part, a likely route much older, which was the main route from the Gulf to the mountains, along the natural course of Vara.
Well, Ripalta is situated midway between these two prehistoric routes that, although it is too risky to assume the presence of a fortification on which the settlement would then be developed castrense , given the total absence of archaeological data, it seems still makes sense to assume that the original appropriation of the village is not high-medieval but pre-Roman era.
A reinforcement of this view, survives among the inhabitants of Ripalta tradition that before the church of St. Nicholas, built in the fourteenth century on an earlier Romanesque building, there was another church, built in ancient times, around which there were events "miraculous".
We are talking about the church of the Holy Savior of Ortara, located just down the street Romeo as we discussed before, halfway between Ripalta Boccapignone and not far from the junction down to Memola.
The tradition speaks of a religious building, with adjoining home, built in ancient times by some monks to celebrate the Marian apparition occurred in the surrounding forest of chestnut trees. A painting depicting the Madonna and Child seated on a chestnut, was just inside the church. This building existed until 1752 when, during a flood resulting in a memorable flooding of the Vara, was dragged downstream along with tons of land because of heavy rains.
But it's over. Traditions tell other more recent apparitions of the Madonna, which took place almost thirty years after the destruction of the shrine dedicated to her.
In this case, it appeared to some shepherds Padivarma (as the best witness to a supernatural truth?) In front of the ruins of the church where they were grazing a small herd.
The appearance, which is also repeated on Wednesday saint of 1779 was also witnessed in other circumstances by a young couple who were driving along the road towards romea Ripalta.
Just in 1779, so you decide to rebuild the shrine and, during construction, the Virgin appears again in carpenters to break for lunch (2).
Currently, the building no longer exists. We do not know under what circumstances has been destroyed, although the oral memory just to mention a new flood in an unspecified time.
This whole story is very important to reconstruct, through the only oral source, what could have been the ancient shrine and therefore suggest pre-Roman origins of the village of Ripalta. Now we will explain how.
First, the tradition speaks of a very ancient church, built in an era remote that you do not know anything about this first and because it is already significant in itself because it puts the recognition of the sacredness of place at a time so far as to be unknown even to the legend.
You can imagine, even if it is just a guess, that this time be at least pre-medieval.
also told that the monks built the building in honor of the Madonna del Castagno was to have appeared repeatedly in that place, to convince them that the will of the Virgin was to be venerated at that precise point.
Furthermore, it was a novelty. Several legends of Trustees of Marian shrines show very similar stories: the Madonna appears twice, three times in the same place and people must understand that building a church in his honor.
Not only that, the painting of the Virgin is placed (or found) in situ is recurrent in the legends of apparitions. Fulcrum, for example, the history of the sanctuary of oak, with the needle, which will be discussed later.
In addition, the Madonna is linked, both in the painting that appeared in the chestnut. This last observation allows us to interpret the other.
the chestnut, in fact, as well as other trees, was considered sacred by prehistoric populations Ligurian (3), as well as by the Celts who, as noted, had a special relationship with the Ligurian, never very clear, parallel or cultural influence. Probably both. The fact is that
Cassana, an ancient village which is less than a mile from Ripalta must, in all probability, his own name to the Celtic cassanus , meaning oak, indicating, along with many engravings and bas-reliefs in common theme the Val di Vara, the extreme importance of the tree in ancient symbolism.
is more than possible, then, that in the woods, near a major path of antiquity, is a chestnut (or a forest of chestnut trees) held sacred in prehistoric times and it is quite plausible that this place has been desecrated in a period of Christianization without success and who has therefore decided to "convert" in place of the Christian faith.
would be nothing new either.
In Liguria, as in many other places, Christianity was ruthless with the pagan cults called . He tried to extirpate them sopressa blood, broke the idols. But this did not deter the people of Liguria.
It was decided then to justify their pilgrimages and pagan rituals related to the elements of nature simply by granting them the Christian connotations.
The "source megalithic" thus becomes the source of Madonna, the "up ritual of the mountain "was changed into a pilgrimage to the shrine - in the meantime built on the ruins of a cromlech - and so on. This allowed the missionaries to Christianize the heathen without transform their habits, very likely die hard.
not diverting pilgrimages and without having to advertise new places of worship, religious sites of the pagans were simply recycled .
Why not suppose then, that even the sacred woods of chestnut Ripalta has been converted chestnut Madonna?
The Marian apparitions were often a symbol of conversion and stories to this effect were widely ad hoc to do just that.
But not enough, because beside the chestnut of the miracle was built the church, which confirms that this place had to be so important for the spirituality of the Ligurian tribes of the area can not be simply converted but even colonized as a Christian shrine.
It touches on the place names.
The church is dedicated to the Savior of Ortara, however, this seems Ortara not be attributed to any specific location in the area, neither in Liguria. The name seems strange until you get to Lazio, where the famous Mount Ortara dominates the province of Frosinone or, albeit truncated to Lake Orta, in the territory once occupied by the Ligurian Levi and Marica. It would seem a good track, the latter, however, doing more research, it appears that the name given to Lake Orta is only since the seventeenth century.
Ortara This may also suggest a derivation from the Latin Hortus , meaning a garden or orchard, but around the church, there were no gardens or lawns, with only wood.
the latter case, the most striking is that Ortara metathesis is a linguistic Ostara, a pagan festival of spring celebrated linked to the Nordic goddess Eostre, well known to the Norse but also by Celts, as we recall, had a certain cultural influence in Liguria.
The celebration of Ostara has also been incorporated into Christianity as the other pagan holidays and now is our Passover. In Germany, even today, the term used for the Easter Oster and English Easter.
The same Easter Bunny is not a variant of the hare, his sacred animal to the goddess. The hare, in almost all cultures of the world, is associated with the moon, fertility and rebirth, for which the deity Eostre, which in some representations is represented with the head of hare (4), is similar in many respects to Diana / Artemis and Venus / Aphrodite of the Greeks and Romans and the Ishtar / Babylonian Innanna.
The same pronunciation of the name Ishtar, in fact, does not differ that much from Easter.
Well, a goddess Eostre is also tied to tree worship. In fact, the holiday dedicated to her is the vernal equinox, also called the Festival of Trees , which celebrates the return of nature from winter slumber and, on this occasion, pagan tribes used certain symbolic exchange colored eggs under the sacred tree of the village (5).
Why not assume a sacred tree to Eostre, revered and loved by local people, the missionaries Christianized without difficulty by simply exchanging the name of the pagan goddess with that of the Virgin?
The similarities between the two cults seem obvious.
The name "Ostara", remaining in the diction Liguria / Italy, derives directly from the Celtic name "Ostur Monath," to indicate just the spring equinox. If the wood in question had a value of importance in the celebration of Ostara, one can easily imagine how the name of the holiday has been transformed, little by little, in name. And, just as easily as you can imagine, almost two thousand years later, the monks have called the church just rebuilt the Savior of Ortara, perhaps as early as distorted, but, for them, simple local place name.
Nor is it to be excluded, moreover, that the church was built over an earlier temple dedicated to the goddess, demolished and reused as construction material, as was the custom of the missionaries of the time. Action, however, already appeared in various nearby sites: Mount Dragnone, also tied to a tree worship, for example.
The aura of sacredness that hovers around the site must therefore be made very powerful and very ancient religion by the sedimentation of most ages, and even today the elderly ripaltesi speak with great respect and admiration. Still survives, among them the belief that the baptismal font of the parish church of St. Nicholas comes precisely from the destroyed church Ortara and that there was, in substance, a dispute with the inhabitants of the nearby village of Cassana, as they also claimed ownership sacred vessels. It would eventually decided to appease the spirits, to let Providence decide directly to the bowl was loaded on a cart pulled by two oxen and, after being urged, they were to choose the way to go, deciding who would be awarded the scope object, and they chose the route of Ripalta. The curious thing is that even in Cassana tell the same story but the resolve in their favor, arguing that the famous baptismal font of Ortara is that found in their church, the parish church of San Michele. As noted rightly Formentini (7), this argument suggests that the territory once belonged to the church of Ortara could have included, in addition Ripalta Boccapignone and even Cassana, thus controlling a significant portion of the road, in both the EO that NS.
From this point of view, it would be possible to completely rethink the early history of Ripalta and mountains, also in relation to similar sites nearby. It may be, in fact, that the cult of chestnut Ripalta interested in only a small gated community or, rather - and more likely, given the position on an important road artery -, was a place of pilgrimage for the people of the surrounding valleys.
Currently, as we have said, the church no longer exists and it is not clear even the exact location, lost in the memory of the inhabitants, given the radical transformation of the last century.
The path, however, still exists, reinforced by the loggers to allow the passage of cars and tractors. Ground conditions, however, have discouraged attempts to archaeological excavation hypothesized some years ago and, for now, everything lies undisturbed somewhere under the ground.
NOTES :
(1) AA.VV., excavations in the castle of Celasco - preliminary report on the campaigns 1996/1999, Firenze, Edizioni full of Giglio, 2003 (2) FM Bussetti, G. Maura Costa, Sanctuaries of Liguria, Genoa, AGIS, 1980; M. Gamba, Marian Apparitions, Udine, Edizioni Segno, 1999 (3) I. Pucci, Cults nature of the Old Liguria, La Spezia, Luna Press, 1997 (4) A Celtic legend tells of how, one day, the goddess Eostre has turned a bird in hare and, to repay the loss of wings, has donated a great speed. The hare, however, once a year, in spring, has the right to bring even the eggs as he was a bird. (Richard Taraglio, The mistletoe and oak , Torino, Edizioni the Age of Aquarius, 2001) (5) J. Frazer, The Golden Bough , Roma, Newton & Compton, 2003; A. Romanazzi, The Mother Goddess cult and the betili , Bari, Levante Editore, 2003 (6) Ubaldo Formentini Guide historical ethnography of the Val di Vara , Province of La Spezia, 1977
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| The village of Ripalta. In the background, the village of The Needle and the peak of Bracco |
Considerations
For our trip to the rediscovery of the ancient places of worship Ligurian was chosen as the starting point of the village Ripalta, tiny fraction isolated and almost unknown. This choice was dictated by the desire to make the reader understand that our past is not always far away, in the discoveries important and famous but also, importantly, surrounding us, just around the corner, made up of many micro-discoveries.
Local history should not be discriminated against because it too has made in recent years, great and important contributions to the history globale.Le various local stories intertwine to form a complex canvas that gives us an overview and allows us, as well, to put it in the general historical setting.
As for the story of the Madonna del Castagno Ortara, the pattern is the classic narrative of the legend, we will encounter often in this research and that is almost a topos , as regards the area of \u200b\u200bTuscany and Liguria. In many places, in fact, uses the narrative of the founding of a church after the discovery, in a site, often out of town, in the woods or in the countryside, an object of the Madonna (painting, sculpture or sacred furnishings ). Often said that such an object after being removed from the place of discovery and transferred the seat of worship of the community (village church, chapel or rectory), disappear and are later found in the original place. This fact is interpreted by villagers as the supernatural call of the Virgin to erect a shrine in his honor, which is soon done.
There are two interpretations we can give to these legends. The first, more simplistic (But no less likely) is that they were invented, beginning with a common narrative model to explain the existence of a sanctuary, having almost lost the historical motivation of overlap with an earlier pagan holy site, either However, it is possible that something has really been discovered at the site of the alleged apparition: statue-stele, betili, carved stones and tombs on the box (once believed to be objects of pagan worship), which led the local curia to build upon a church to Christianize the site. This hypothesis implies that the legends have been invented then ad hoc, to justify in the eyes of the villagers erection of the shrine.
In reality it is likely that both assumptions are plausible in some way and that, depending on the circumstances, there may be one or the other behavior.
