
Devotion to the Madonna has held strong over the centuries, as shown by the widespread presence across the diocese of sanctuaries dedicated to her and the extensive production of votive tablets in which she is the protagonist or recipient of invocations of grace. On display here are numerous ex-votos from some of the sanctuaries in the diocese, a selection from the 300 or so tablets taken from many parish churches and returned thanks to the investigations of the Monza team of Carabinieri police responsible for protecting cultural heritage.
Stories of everyday life emerge from the images on the votive tablets. Many different themes are explored by the ex-votos selected for the exhibition, offering an effective account of worship over a span of around four centuries. We see episodes from daily life in the countryside, featuring noble personages and humble commoners: an encounter with brigands, a fall from a tree or the roof, injuries, house fires, carts and carriages overturned, lightning strikes and, most of all, illness, affecting not just people but also livestock. They not only bear witness to the faith of many generations who turned to the Virgin in moments of difficulty and never forgot the importance of gratitude, but also serve as a valuable source of information about the everyday life of past centuries: about crafts and trades, about illnesses and the historical events, wars and natural phenomena that marked the lives of people of every social class.
Types and materials
These common objects of private devotion were produced in various styles and materials and were intended as offerings to God, the Madonna or saints as intercessors or in fulfilment of a vow. Various types exist: hearts in silver laminate, reliefs depicting parts of the body in need of healing, crosses, rosaries, medals and multi-material objects made using a range of techniques, from embroidery to collage. In our diocese we can find many little pictures painted in various media on wooden boards, metal plates or canvas that use images to tell of a disease cured, an escape from danger, an accident or a wartime event. They were often made using salvaged materials; one example is the ex-voto painted on a piece of wood from a crate for petroleum products refined by a North American oil company.
Compositional patterns
The ex-votos on display are figurative and made using pieces of wood or sheets of metal, a less noble and cheaper support. On these surfaces, artists would reproduce a realistic depiction of the event, following fairly repetitive models. The space is divided between the celestial, with the Virgin or the Saints up high, and the human, with one or more figures praying in their homes in the case of recovery from an illness, or scenes set in the fields, along roads, at building sites or in farmyards showing the inauspicious event from which deliverance was requested and obtained. At the bottom we might find the letters PGR (Per Grazia Ricevuta, “for grace received”) or VFGA (Votum Fecit gratiam accepit, “vow made, graces accepted”) and often the date and name of the person who received the grace.
Artists and workshops
Most of the pictures were produced by single anonymous painters or by workshops that would move from one sanctuary to another based on the annual rhythms of local saints’ feast days. In some cases the artists left their signature; they might be known for other works as well, or only for these devotional tablets. The choice or a painter or a simple decorator was primarily linked to the financial resources of the offerer, and would affect the accuracy, effectiveness and realism of the final result.
ILLNESS
Back when medicine was not as advanced as it is today, staying in good health was complicated. Diseases that at the time were not treatable would force whole families to bed, while epidemics like cholera and smallpox would strike down swathes of the population.
The influenza virus known as “Spanish flu” was at its height between 1918 and 1920 and was responsible for between 50 and 100 million victims in Europe and the United States, a toll worse than the Great War that had just ended.
Numerous ex-votos show people bedridden and surrounded by family members at prayer. Often the sick are small children in cribs or mothers with a newborn, reflecting the high rate of infant mortality. Divine protection was also sought for livestock, a vital resource in rural life.

DANGERS OF THE ROAD AND OTHER HAZARDS
Accidents were common in everyday life: overturned carts, falls from stairs, balconies and trees or into wells or rivers, house fires.
Roads were particularly dangerous, not least because brigands were common between the 18th and 19th centuries. Legendary figures included the brigand Depero, who spread terror across Langhe and Roero, and the “Narzole gang” who for decades made travel in the countryside around Cherasco particularly risky.
One ex-voto in particular shows the courageous resistance of a young woman threatened by two men armed with pistols, with the Latin inscription Potius mori quam foedari (“better to die than fall into dishonour”). Another shows a man facing down two threatening individuals brandishing a club, which evidently also had a positive outcome for the victim.
An ex-voto from Magliano Alfieri depicts an unusual incident: the overturning of a carriage as it travelled across a pontoon bridge that allowed passage from one bank of the Tanaro to the other.

WORK
The ex-votos on display reflect rural life, marked by the rhythm of work in the fields and closely tied to the changing seasons and the weather. Drought and hailstorms were always on the minds of farmers, as they could upset the delicate balance of a subsistence economy. For centuries, prayers and vows were seen as the only remedy to these afflictions.
The struggle and toil involved in the work can be seen in the ex-votos that depict countless accidents: carts full of hay or wheat overturned along the road, haylofts in flames, a fall from a tree while picking fruit.
The accidents also show occupations other than farming: builders precariously perched on scaffolding, millers swept away by the water of the stream, a housewife invoking protection over her silkworm brood. The rearing of silkworms used to be common in this area and represented a significant source of income.

WAR
The conflicts that have marked the history of Italy and which appear in the pictorial ex-votos from our sanctuaries range from Risorgimento revolts to the colonial wars of the late 19th and early 20th century and the two World Wars.
The Third Alpine Regiment appears in the ex-voto of thanksgiving commissioned by one of the participants in the Italo-Turkish war in Libya (1911-1912).
The Great War was the conflict that had the greatest impact on the lives of the rural people. We can see the drama in the scenes of fighting in the trenches or on the battlefield between exploding grenades, in domestic scenes in which mothers and children pray for the return of their loved ones or in scenes of survivors thanking the Virgin. Against the backdrop of the Carnian mountains we see tanks and men falling under enemy fire in episodes from the Austro-Hungarian front.

THE EXHIBITION AND THE WORK OF THE CARABINIERI COMMAND FOR THE PROTECTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE
The Comando dei Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage) was established in 1969. It collaborates directly with the Italian Ministry for Culture carrying out tasks related to the security and safeguarding of the national cultural heritage, utilizing specialized personnel and advanced technology. The unit’s activities include specialist investigations aimed at identifying those responsible for crimes against cultural heritage and recovering stolen items. They also maintain a database of illegally taken cultural assets. Following the investigations carried out by the Monza branch of the Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, in 2019 around 300 ex-votos were returned to the Diocese of Alba after having been taken from many parishes in the 1960s. The research was extensive and involved other dioceses in Piedmont and the rest of Italy. The ex-votos were catalogued and entered by specialist staff from the Office for Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage in the CEI OA database, an inventory of movable ecclesiastical heritage of historical and artistic value. They may be returned to the parishes in the future.
SANCTUARIES AND WORSHIP

Every sanctuary has its own backstory, passed down through the centuries: the discovery of a miraculous picture, an act of arrogance resulting in a gunshot striking a sacred image, the healing of a blind person, the rescue of a young girl from ill-intentioned soldiers, a miraculous spring that everyone wants to drink from and the list could go on. These remarkable events, healings and appearances have long defined the sacred nature of certain places, where first a votive shrine and then later a sanctuary was built. Every community prays to their own specific Madonna and this multiplicity of devotions is reflected in the dedications of the churches and sanctuaries that dot the Langhe and Roero landscape and in the iconography of the Virgin depicted in the ex-votos. On display here are ex-votos from sanctuaries in Alba, Benevello, Ceresole, Cherasco, Lequio Berria, Monchiero, Montà, Priocca and Verduno. As well as the most common imagery of the Madonna and Child, we can find many other iconographies linked to the worship of Mary in our ex-votos. The Madonna of the Rosary is very popular, identifiable by the Rosary (a small string of beads, each corresponding to a Hail Mary or Our Father prayer) that she and Jesus are showing to the faithful. Worship of the Madonna of the Rosary began to spread in the 13th century thanks to the Dominican order and a feast day was established in 1571 after the victory of the Christians over the Muslim Turks at the Battle of Lepanto. The cult of the Immaculate Virgin came later, its dogma proclaimed on December 8, 1854. The Virgin appears with a crown of twelve stars around her head, standing on a crescent moon and trampling on a snake that symbolizes Evil. Worship of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows dates to the 15th century, and spread thanks to the Servite Fathers. The Virgin appears with her breast pierced by seven swords, a reference to the prophecy of Simeon, when Jesus was presented at the Temple: “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce” (Luke 2:35). Three sorrows relate to Jesus’s childhood and four sorrows to the Passion.
WORK CLOTHES AND HOLIDAY CLOTHES

Special occasion clothing can generally be seen in the depictions on the ex-votos, representing deep respect in the presence of the Divine. In the 18th and 19th century tablets, men of elevated social class are wearing frock-coats and breeches, jabots (white lace ruffles at the collar) and sometimes a hat. The women also wear frock coats, open at the back to leave space for their wide white skirts, as well as starched collars and always a bonnet. Between the late 19th and early 20th century, the ex-votos also show countrypeople in elegant dress: a white shirt and dark jacket or white shirt, waistcoat and close-fitting trousers. The women wear long dark dresses with a shawl covering their shoulders and a black-lace mass veil known as a quefa in dialect. Or they might be in a blouse and skirt with a white apron and an elegant white bonnet adorned with colourful ribbons.
HOUSES AND FURNISHINGS

The homes depicted in these ex-votos are generally the farmhouses typical of the Langhe and Roero: usually two floors, characterized by long balconies and with a stable and a hayloft, one on top of the other and connected by a hatch through which hay and straw could be passed down to the animals. In front of the house is the farmyard, a hub of family life where children play and farm animals roam. The rooms are simply furnished. The ex-votos often depict the bedrooms where the sick would lie. We can see 18th-century four-posters and 19th-century sleigh beds or bedframes in wrought iron as well as wooden rocking cradles.