ROSALIA (Rusolia), Saint. — Patroness of Palermo since the 17th century, the “Santuzza,” as she is called by the people, led an eremitical life in the second half of the 12th century in the caves of the Serra Quisquina and Monte Pellegrino near the city; local historians state that she died at a young age in 1160.
Before the 17th century, only scant information exists regarding her cult, which spread extraordinarily after the discovery of her body (15 July 1624) and the cessation of the plague afflicting the city of Palermo (July 1625) and the island (June 1626) through her intercession. Details about the life of St. ROSALIA are later than this date and lack historical value. The inscription found forty days after the discovery of her body in the cave of the Serra Quisquina, presumed to be her autograph, identifies her as the daughter of Duke Sinibaldo, who lived in the time of Roger II (d. 1154). Urban VIII ordered a procession with the silver urn containing the relics of the Saint, carried by masons under ancient privilege and preceded by the coffins of other saints, accompanied by many drums; fireworks and the splendid illumination of the Cassaro, the Marina, and the Cathedral. The Saint is also celebrated on 4 September, the day of her liturgical commemoration, with a pilgrimage to the cave attended by all the faithful of the province and with particular devotion by the Albanians of the Piana; the Palermitans prefer to make the pilgrimage in May, when it takes on the character of a spring rite.
Of the three main motifs of the legend (birth, childhood, retreat into solitude; temptations; liberation of Palermo from the plague), poetically revived by the people, the contrast between the penitent virgin and the tempting demon is the most recurring and vivid in folk songs, which exist in narrative forms (Sicilian stories in ottava rima; even the Fullone composed an epic poem on St. ROSALIA) and in lyrical forms (quatrains or sestets of octosyllables), the latter also widespread in Calabria, Lucania, Apulia, Campania, Abruzzo, and the Marches. Even more extensive are the cult’s geographical boundaries, spreading to Spain (notable is the “Fiesta del Cuadro” on 15 July in Torredembarra), France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Portugal, Malta, and even Africa and South America: St. ROSALIA is invoked everywhere against the plague.
From a critical-comparative perspective, it is worth noting that some manifestations of the cult of St. ROSALIA are linked to that of St. ROSA (v.): in addition to the shared feast day on 4 September, similarities include the two figures’ shared iconography, the frequent substitution in folk songs of the name Rosa for R., and, regarding the legend, the common motif of the discovery of bones and liberation from the plague.
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**Saint Rosalia - Interior: of the sanctuary of St. ROSALIA on Monte Pellegrino - Palermo.**
In the *Roman Martyrology* (1630), the date of the discovery of the body (15 July) and the presumed date of death (4 September) are recorded. The caves inhabited by ROSALIA were transformed into richly adorned chapels (17th–18th centuries), and her body rests in a sumptuous chapel of the Palermo Cathedral, enclosed in an elaborate reliquary executed by various artists in 1631. Sicilian emigrants have spread her cult to all the regions of the world they frequent.
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**Folklore.** — An image, before which even Goethe (*Italian Journey*, letter of 6 Apr. 1787) bowed in veneration, preserved in the chapel of St. ROSALIA on Monte Pellegrino and reproduced in various popular prints, depicts the Saint lying as if in ecstasy within a cave’s recess, dressed in the penitential habit, illuminated by a beam of light from above, with a skull, a book, and a bowl beside her—symbols of hermitic life—while a little angel stands at her side holding lilies, and at the cave’s entrance appears a young hunter: this, the legend explains, is Vincenzo Bonello, the hunter who discovered the Saint’s relics. In memory of this discovery and the translation that is said to have ended the terrible plague of 1625, Palermo celebrates in mid-July a solemn festival, enthusiastically described in past centuries by Italian and foreign writers as one of the most characteristic manifestations of Sicily and all Italy; today, only its memory and the saying “Mi cunti li cinciu jorna di lu Fistinu” remain. Drawn by long lines of oxen or mules (up to 24 pairs!) it traversed the city’s main streets, the triumphal cart constructed in the shape of a ship according to designs renewed each year (the drawings are preserved in the National Museum of Palermo), splendidly illuminated and adorned with garlands of flowers, embellished with depictions of the legend, atop which shone, suspended on a cloud, the statue of the “Santuzza,” crowned with roses and taller than the rooftops: “la muntagnedda d’or” the provincial folk called this mighty machine, which at every 50–60 paces would stop for the singing of the *frottola*, a new hymn in honor of St. ROSALIA. Other elements that gave life and scenic character to the festive rite were the “beneficiata” in Piazza Marina, a lottery with cash prizes, fabrics, and paintings depicting Palermo and St. ROSALIA; the race of the *berberi*, i.e., horses either free or ridden by boys aged 12–14, covered in elder leaves, with a gilded wooden eagle as the prize;
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**Saint Rosalia - Reproduction of the cart of St. ROSALIA - Palermo, Ethnographic Museum Pirtè.**
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Recently, the recitation of the Rosary took on new aspects, such as the “perpetual Rosary,” the “living Rosary,” the “Rosary of children,” and the “Rosary of the sick.” Among the popes who have fostered devotion to the Rosary with encyclicals or letters are remembered: Leo XIII (1883, 1891, 1895, 1896), Pius X (27 June 1908), Pius XI (1937), and Pius XII, who on 15 September 1931 sent the encyclical Ingrumentum malorum to Christendom to implore from the Virgin the end of so many evils afflicting humanity.
