After a fire in 1465 this gothic standing mother and child replaced a 9th-10th century Romanesque Seat of Wisdom Madonna lost in the flames. Baby Jesus holds a bird in his left hand…

Black Madonna of Sonogno (most beautiful village of Switzerland) a miracle working copy of Our Lady of Loreto. The previous statue was burnt as a remnant of Pagan Goddess worship by a priest in the 1920’s. Apparently a common sentiment among Swiss clergy around that time. The furious villagers got rid of the priest and replace their Dark Mother. Fresco is what remains of her older incarnation.

This “Lourdes of Switzerland” was a gift of the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln. In 1581, she appeared to a handicapped, destitute peasant in a dream and told him where to dig for a sacred well to be healed. The price: his six daughters all went home to their heavenly mother in one week. That put the fear of the Black Madonna into the villagers and they installed White Madonnas instead. Only in the 1950’s with a modern church being built, did they commission a copy of the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln.

While one may say that this is just another one of hundreds of copies of the Black Madonna of Loreto in Europe, several things make it special…