Every river has a source, a point of origin from which it all begins. Sometimes it can be large, like a glacier or a lake, or sometimes it is formed from a tiny babbling spring. Other times, like in the case of the River Churchina in Italy, it begins on the slope of a mountain, formed over time from what starts as just a few drops of rain, landing like tears onto rock and earth, sliding down the surface in gentle,
silent rivulets. Gradually the rivulets converge or collect in pools, spilling over, finally as gravity takes hold, and now a stream is beginning to gush down the mountain side, ever increasing in size and intensity. As more and more streams collide into one another, creating pathways in the landscape for later rains to follow, and as these pathways converge into one, it deepens and grows wider, until from what began as only a few drops of rain, an entire river has emerged.
For the dark, silty waters of the River Churchina, this process begins somewhere in the Callina Metallifera, or the metalliferous hills in western Tuscany, where two waterways converge in the province of Grosseto to form the Churchina. From there it meanders gently west through the pale Tuscan countryside all the way to the small coastal town of Chechina, the river's namesake, in the province of Livuano, where its waters flow out
into the Lago Urian Sea. And it is from there one quiet morning sometime in the late nineteen forties that a local sculptor makes his way towards the banks of the river to the east of the town and begins his working day. In the distance, rolling Tuscan hills as steadily reddening under the rising sun, while birds cheap happily in the scrub and a light breeze rustles the long grass. As the sculptor carefully picks his way toward the river's edge.
Plunging his hands into the cool waters, he tears a thick chunk of clay from its bed and pulls it up above the surface. He plays with it in his hand, testing it for consistency, watching as the water streams off, dripping back into the river in thick, cloudy drops. Satisfied, the sculptor, a man named amor Car Santini, set about collecting as much sodden clay as he could, shoveling it into a bucket before hauling it back to his studio
later that day. Back in his workshop, Santini begins the laborious process of purifying the clay, then dissolving it in water and filtering the resultant mixture numerous times through gauze, with all impurities removed. What remains it's poured into a vat, where it is left for weeks as the clay steadily separates from the water. Only then, when the time is right,
is it ready to be used. At first, Santini doesn't quite know how to begin, as he takes a large ball of the clay and tries to visualize the gentle folds and contours of the shape it must become, when suddenly he is struck by a sudden bout of inspiration. Taking the clay, he begins to roll it between his palms, feeling its damp plasticity as he teases it expertly into shape with his fingers. It is a strange feeling that has come over him. It's almost as if his hands
are being guided by some one else. First, he constructs the torso before moving on to the arms and finally what will be the figure's head begins to emerge on He continues over the course of three days until finally the piece is finished. As he sits back to admire his work, what stands before him is a thirty centimeter
high bust of Mary, the Virgin Mother of Jesus. Her body is clothed in a tunic and robe, while over a subtly bowed head sits a shroud, the folds of each seeming almost to be in motion, so delicately have they been crafted. The figures left hand grasps the opening of her tunic, holding it back, while her right rests on the striking image of her heart, which protrudes from her chest and has a finely carved flame shooting out
the top of it. The strangely macabre image is known as the Immaculate Heart of Mary, an icon of the Catholic Faith, with its prominently displayed heart serving as a symbol for her undying love for God as it pertains to the Catholic Faith and for all humankind. Santini had been commissioned to make a version of it for a company located in nearby Banyard Luca, who hope to mass produce it as a religious effigy for people to hang
up in their home. It was the first of its kind to be made by the well respected sculptor, whose work wouldn't ordinarily be affordable for most people. Little did anyone know that it would become just about the most famous depiction of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ever created. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McClean smith. Once finished, Santini's sculpture was sent to a factory in Banyard, Luca, where molds were made of it before being promptly added
to the production line. Over the next few years, hundreds of copies of Santini's model were churned out cast from a simple mix of plaster before being painted and then mounted onto a forty by thirty centimeter block of black
opaline glass. In early nineteen fifty two, just one such model emerged from the production line, no different from any of the others that had come before it, with its sad forlorn eyes painted sky blue in color to match its robe, while its prominent heart was given a striking scarlet hue after being coated in varnish and left to dry. It along with a number of others, was boxed up and shipped out to the ancient terra cotta town of
Syracusa on the east coast of Sicily. It was sometime in October nineteen fifty two that Our Mary of the Immaculate Heart was removed from its box by shop keeper Salvatore Floresta and placed alongside the thirty or so other Marys he'd ordered on a shelf at the back of his shop at number twenty eight Corsa Umberto. Salvatore looked at his latest items with quiet satisfaction as they stood silent and still on the shelf, then turned and headed back to the front of the shop and opened up
for the day. It was roughly six months later, with most of the models sold, that a woman came into the shop looking for a gift to give a relative who was due to get married. Well, what better than an effigy of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, suggested Salvatore, the shopkeeper, the ultimate symbol of undying love and faith, and so Our Mary was finally plucked from the shelf, placed inside a paper bag, and taken away. Twenty year olds Atonina and Angelo Ianuzzo didn't quite know what to
make of the thing. Although they'd been polite and courteous when they received it at the wedding, in truth, neither were especially religious and had little interest in an effigy of Mary, not least of all one that was so garish. Not having the heart to throw it out, however, they eventually decided to hang it above their bed, perhaps hoping it might in the very least bring them some good luck.
The couple were married in late March nineteen fifty three, and, with only Angelo working carving out a modest living as a laborer, the pair had moved into Angelo's brother's home on Via delhi Orti de San Giorgio to live with Angelo's brother and his wife. It was only a week or so later when Antonina fell pregnant. Perhaps the effigy of Mary had brought them good luck after all, they thought, as they delighted in the news. Wasn't long, however, before
Antonina noticed strange things occurring to her body. It started with a swelling in her hands and face. Then her urine began to darken, going almost slate gray in color. At first, she assumed it was a natural side effect of the pregnancy, but then the headaches started up steadily. They grew worse and worse each time, Antonina feeling that she might pass out from the pain, until one day she collapsed to the floor. Her husband could only watch on in horror as her face twisted into a hideous
rictus and her body began to shake uncontrollably. Having eventually come round, Antonina was finally taken to see a doctor, who gave her the terrifying news that she developed toxemia, an old fashioned term for what would be described today as pre eclampsia, a condition which causes high blood pressure
during pregnancy and can lead to serious complications if left untreated. Antonina, however, had entered the later stage known as eclampsia, and her prognosis was not clear, and despite the doctor's best efforts, her condition only seemed to worsen steadily over time. If the terror of possibly losing her baby wasn't enough, Antonina began to go blind. It was three am in the morning of Saturday, August twenty ninth when Angelo was woken
by Antonina's body twitching and convulsing beside him. Realizing she was having another seizure, he did his best to keep her from hurting herself until the fitting finally abated and his wife came round again. But when she looked for his face, she saw only darkness. Her sight had now completely gone. As the couple wept together through the night, Antonina eventually found sleep, while Angelo had no choice but
to head out for work. It was sometime around eight thirty am that Antonina is said to have woken again. When she opened her eyes, she thought at first she was still dreaming. She could see everything, the bed, the walls, the sunlight flooding in through the windows. It was a miracle, she thought, as she touched her face, pinching herself to know it was real. Then she looked up to the effigy hanging on the wall above the back of the bed, and into the forlorn eyes of Mary, when she noticed
something strange. The effigy appeared to be crying. Gratzia, Antonina's sister in law, was brought rushing to the room by Antonina's astonished cries. Thinking first that Antonina was having another seizure, Gratzia was astonished to find her standing at the head of the bed. Look, she said to the bemused Gratzia as she pointed to the statue. Do you see it? It's crying. Gratzia looked with startled pity at Antonina, thinking she was clearly hallucinating, but when she tried to help
her into bed, Antonina pulled back. She was cured, she said, pointing to her eyes she could see. Then Antonina turned back to the effigy on the wall. Gratzia followed her concentrated gaze, screwing her face up in bewilderment as she tried to comprehend what she was looking at. The effigy was covered in small rivulets of water that were dripping steadily on to the headboard of the bed below, and as far as Gratzia could make out, the liquid was
coming from Mary's eyes. Completely dumbfounded, Antonina and Gratzia, along with Angelo's aunt who was staying with them too, grabbed the effigy from the wall and ran immediately into the street as they showed it to their neighbors and anyone who was passing by. One by one, the plaque was
taken and stared at in disbelief. The eyes dabbed and the material examined for any sign of water see pitch, but nothing was found, and yet the tears continued to fall, with many neighbors, aware of Antonina's recent health struggles to see her then standing before them positively glowing. It was clear to them all that a genuine miracle was taking
place right in front of their eyes. Before long, talk of the weeping Madonna had extended far beyond the Ianusom home as words traveled quickly, first through the neighborhood and then out into the wider town, and soon a large crowd had formed outside Antonina and Angelo's home as people from all over Syracusa demanded to see the effigy for themselves.
Having been alerted to the developing incident, the police promptly arrived to disperse the crowd, only to find themselves being swept up in the moment too, when the effigy was brought out to them, still crying apparent tears from its eyes, But as the crowd in the street continued to grow, the police had no choice but to confiscate the item and take it back to the station for a closer look. By the time they'd arrived there, however, the crying had stopped.
That night, with the crowd almost all but gone. The police returned to the Iannuso home, sorry to say that whatever it was that had taken place had now finished. Then they handed what was by then a completely dry statue back to Antonina and Angelo, with a few people from the earlier crowd choosing to remain outside the house. Despite the apparent miracle having come to an end, the Iannusos decided to leave the statue on a table outside should anyone else turn up, hoping to see it. By
the following morning, it was weeping again. On the second day, Sunday, August thirtieth, the Archbishop of Syracusa, Attore Baroncini, traveled to the Yanuso home, where he too claimed to witness the weeping. So stunned by what he'd seen, he rushed back immediately to his official residence and began organizing a scientific commission to have the object formally analyzed. All the while, word of the miracle in Syracusa continued to spread as hundreds
descended once more to Antonina and Angelo's home. The couple decided eventually to simply nail the effigy to their front door so all could see it and touch it if they so wished. Many even brought pieces of cloth and wads of cotton in an effort to harvest the tears to keep for themselves. Others came simply to pray, like Pietro Sebastiano, who, on seeing the liquid emerge from the
statue's eyes, burst immediately into tears of his own. Feeling suddenly ashamed for crying so openly in public, he then turned round to find that everyone else there, too, was crying. It was early on Monday, September first that Archbishop Baroncini's commission arrived at the ian Usou property. The group of seven men, comprised of four scientists and three trusted colleagues of Baroncini's, was led by doctor Michel Cassola. Cassola was an avowed atheist and had been chosen by Baroncini for
that precise reason. After being led through to the living room where the effigy was then being kept, Cassola couldn't help but feel a little unnerved by the humble looking object, this strange and passive thing, no different from many similar objects he'd seen hung up in people's homes over the years, quite clearly emitting some kind of inexplicable liquid. He brushed at its eyes with his thumb, then rubbed the wetness between his fingers. Then, taking a sterilized prepete from his bag,
he proceeded to take a sample of it. Turning their attention to the object itself, the team carefully removed the bust from its plaque and examined it closely for any sign of a crack or evidence that it was simply leaking from insight, but they found nothing. Having got everything they needed, the team screwed the effigy back together, then handed it back to Antonina and Angelo, and left a short time later that morning, at roughly eleven forty am,
the crying ceased, never to occur again. Madonna de la Lachrymae, or our Lady of the Tears, as the peculiar object would come to be known, was said to have wept on fifty eight separate occasions over a total of four days before it stopped. This apparent weeping was also filmed by a local cinematographer, the footage of which can be seen on YouTube. For some, with the crying having finished, the miracle was now over. For many others, however, it
was only just beginning. On the afternoon of Saturday, September fifth, a young girl called Enza Moncada, who had suffered from the paralysis of her right arm since she was a baby, was said to have been brought from her home to kneel before the effigy in the hope that it might cure her. As she was led through, the crowd, which had remained as large as ever, many began to pray for her. While the young Enza stirred underneath the plaque.
A piece of cotton was brought forward, still apparently damped from the idol's tears collected almost a week before, and applied to her right arm. As the crowd watched on, some began to chant Long Live Mary, Long Live Mary. When suddenly the young girl's arm began to twitch, drawing gasps from everyone around, and then it was rising higher and higher into the air. Enza's mother burst into tears as her daughter stood before her, gleefully waving her once
paralyzed arm high above her head. It was four days later when doctor Michel Cassola published his team's findings. According to them, incredibly, the liquid taken from the effigy was found to be comprised of a watery solution of sodium chlorite with traces of protein, just like human secretions. The liquid was then put through a series of chemical reactions, the results of which were found to mirror almost identically
the results of similar tests conducted with human tears. As a direct result of these startling revelations, priests all over Italy reported a huge surge in members of their congregation visiting their confession boxes, only spurred on by the now seemingly verified miracle. Doctor Cassola's team also examined around two hundred and ninety reports of inexplicable healing, such as that
apparently experienced by the young girl Endza Moncada. Though most were dismissed, as many as one hundred and five are said to have been considered of special interest to the church. With the release of the commission's findings, the seemingly miraculous effigy had forever been transformed from what was once a humble wedding gift to a deeply venerated icon of immense
religious significance. As such, it had effectively ceased to be the private property of Antonina and Angelo Ianuso, after agreeing with the Church to have it removed from their home. A vast crowd followed as it was taken from their door and led through the streets into nearby Piazza Euripide,
where it was set to remain indefinitely. Watching on as it was installed at the edge of the square, Archbishop Baronzini addressed the crowd solemnly remarking that the effigies tears were not only indelible proof of God, but also a symbol of all the suffering that remained in the world. In December, at Sicily's annual Bishop's Conference, it was unanimously agreed that, on account of the findings of Baronzini's scientific commission,
the miracle had been real. A few days later, on what for many is Christmas Day, with Antonina Ianuso having by then completely overcome her illness, she and Angelo welcomed their first child into the world, Mariano. The couple would go on to have three more healthy children. The following year, the Vatican confirmed the findings of the bishop's conference, with Pope Pious the twelfth also declaring the miracle to have
been real. The Ianuso effigy remains the only article of its kind to be formally recognized by the Roman Catholic church, and as its mythical status continued to grow over the years, it was eventually decided to build it a sanctuary of
its own. The Basilica Sanctuario Madonna de la Lacromae in Syracusa was formerly opened by Pope John Pauled the second in November nineteen ninety four, and you can visit the object to this day where it is displayed along with the reliquary that is said to hold a vial of its tears, as well as a number of tear soaked cloths. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help support us, you can now do so via Patroon. To receive access to add free episodes, just go to patron dot com
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