According to a tradition, held in high regard in the Peloritane area, and not only, an embassy of notables from Messina led by Saint Paul, in 42 AD left the Strait and sailed eastward, to visit the Madonna and pay homage to her. The Madonna wrote and entrusted the ambassadors with a letter, and some of her hair, and declared herself the Celestial Patron of Messina, blessing the city of the Strait.
Since August 12, 1934, a statue of the Madonna della Lettera has stood on Fort San Salvatore at the entrance to the sickle-shaped port, and to the ships that dock there, it seems to reveal the unshakeable Marian faith of the people of Messina. The ninetieth anniversary of the solemn inauguration of this truly valuable and highly venerated statue is about to be celebrated.
Let us now be guided a little by “A Consul for Messina”, or “Monsignor Angelo Paino, Archbishop and Archimandrite”, a considerable book by Giuseppe Foti published in 1968. On that 12th of August, it was Pope Pius XI who presented, via radio from Rome, the sculpture, thus illuminating it, “to a crowd of two hundred thousand people who crowded the docks and wharves of the curved port”. The event was also followed well beyond Italy. The “Times” of London, for example, reported it extensively on 12th September 1934.
Thus the English chronicler: “Radio equipment adapted to receive the ultra-short waves of the special Vatican station set up at Castel Gandolfo under the direction of Senator Marconi, were placed along the coastal sea, which was crowded with steamers from Oslo, New York and other ports, even Italian warships. And when the radio announced: “Attention! The Pope is speaking”, many knelt in the streets and men took off their hats”.
From Rome, the Pope then pronounced the blessing in Latin, and soon after the stele with the statue on top appeared illuminated.
Of the statue of the Madonnina del porto, and especially of its authorsomewhat forgotten, it is worth adding something. Aurora Albert Calabrò, the artist’s granddaughter, who we remember as an esteemed collaborator of the “Gazzetta”; discusses him in various ways in her valuable book “Tore Edmondo Calabrò, creator of the Madonnina del porto di Messina” (2005). Tore Calabrò, a native of Nizza Sicilia, was a sculptor and painter of notable level. We remember him, very active, in his atelier in via Saffi. In the opinion of his granddaughter Aurora, the work that contributed most to making him famous was undoubtedly the large statue of the Madonna della Lettera that he modeled in 1934. Which, cast in gilded bronze, is seven meters high, placed on a globe with a diameter of about two meters and sixty centimeters also in gilded bronze.
Initially, the artist seemed to be inspired by the silver statue of the Madonna della Lettera by Lio Gangeri kept in the Cathedral. But during the work – Albert reveals – he changed his mind. The stele of the great monument was apparently chosen by Monsignor Paino and designed by the engineer Francesco Barbaro; covered in Trapani stone, it is about thirty-five meters high. With an octagonal section and widened at the bottom, it rests on a circular base: the so-called Campana fort dating back to the second half of the sixteenth century. Where the inscription of the Virgin “Vos e ipsam civitatem benedicimus” stands out…