Ferrara: the Blood on the Vault

Ferrara lies in the flat land of the Po, in northern Italy. South of the old town the river could once be crossed on foot, and the local word for a ford is vado. That is where this church has its name.

The parish's own history says a small shrine with an image of Our Lady stood on the river bank from the fifth century, and that devotion to it led to a church in the seventh. Other writers say a chapel is documented only from the tenth century. These early dates cannot be pressed. The parish history adds that the church became a parish in 1115, with a baptistery.

In 1171 the building was small. The church of that time is often called Santa Maria Anteriore, and some sources use that name for the event while others use Santa Maria in Vado. They mean the same place of worship: the older church was later taken into the larger one. It was served by canons, priests living in community under a rule. The sources name them the Canons Regular called Portuensi.

What follows is the account as tradition hands it on. The details below come from later writers, and the section "What is less certain" shows how far back each one can be traced.

On Easter Sunday, 28 March 1171, the prior, Father Pietro da Verona, was celebrating the Easter Mass with three of his brethren, named as Bono, Leonardo and Aimone. The church was crowded. When he came to the breaking of the consecrated Host, blood is said to have burst from it with force and to have fallen in large drops on the low vault above the altar.

Later accounts add more. Some say the Host itself took on the appearance of flesh or a blood-red colour. Others say that witnesses saw in it the figure of a child. One modern summary speaks of the holy terror of the priest and the wonder of the people.

The date holds up. By the calendar then in use, Easter in 1171 did fall on 28 March.

According to the tradition of the shrine, word went round the city quickly. Bishop Amato of Ferrara and Archbishop Gherardo of Ravenna came and heard the eyewitnesses. They are said to have stated that they saw the blood reddening the vault, and to have called it true and miraculous blood of the Lord. Those words reach us through later summaries. The text of a document from 1171 itself has not been found. Some modern summaries call Amato an archbishop; the Eucharistic miracles exhibition of the Istituto San Clemente calls him Bishop of Ferrara, which is the title used here.

The church at once became a place of pilgrimage. The parish history says that news of the event spread across Europe, and it counts Ferrara as the third such miracle, after Lanciano and Trani.

Three centuries later the old building was in a poor state and too small. From 1473, the parish says, the church was in the care of the Canons Regular of the Holy Saviour, who followed the Rule of St Augustine. In 1495 Duke Ercole I d'Este, the ruler of Ferrara, ordered a rebuilding on a grand scale. The architect most often named is Biagio Rossetti, the great builder of Renaissance Ferrara. Ercole de' Roberti and Bartolomeo Tristano are also named, and sources differ on who did what.

The builders did not forget what the pilgrims had come to see. On 26 March 1501 the small vault was taken from its old wall and set in the right arm of the new church, the south transept, where it is today. The older building was taken into the new one.

The new church was consecrated on 18 April 1518 and dedicated to the Annunciation, according to the parish history. The same diocesan page also gives 1581 in another place without explaining why. The Italian reference works agree on 1518.

In 1594 Duke Alfonso II d'Este commissioned Alessandro Balbi to build the small temple you see in the picture above. It has an altar at floor level and, above it, the vault itself behind a railing, reached by two stairs. Some sources date it 1594 and others 1595, probably the difference between the commission and the finished work.

The Canons of the Holy Saviour stayed until 19 November 1797, in the upheaval of the French period. Lateran Canons followed until the general suppression of religious houses, and then diocesan priests. In 1930 Archbishop Ruggero Bovelli gave the parish to the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, the congregation founded by St Gaspar del Bufalo. It was a fitting choice for a church known as the Sanctuary of the Precious Blood.

They served there for decades, until June 2016. Since September 2018 the basilica has belonged to the Borgovado Pastoral Unit of the archdiocese, with diocesan priests.