Vittoriano
The image of the Madonna della noce presents a unique iconographic composition rich in theological and symbolic meanings. Let's start with its most striking element: the Virgin seated on a walnut tree. The tree isn't just a topographical reference to the miraculous apparition, which according to tradition occurred in San Polo Sabino in 1505, but also holds complex symbolic significance. In Christian imagination, the walnut tree is often associated with wisdom, but also with sorrow and penance, due to its dense shade and hard-shelled fruit that conceals a precious heart: a metaphorical image of sacrifice and redemption.
The Virgin is depicted weeping, with tears clearly visible on her face, in a solemn yet approachable, deeply human pose. The gesture with which she displays the wounds caused by the sins of humanity is close to the iconography of the Madonna Addolorata or Mater Dolorosa, often represented in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance as a figure witnessing her Son's Passion and participating in humanity's pain.
Her black, unadorned habit recalls the attire of the Servite tertiaries, a lay female congregation linked to the mendicant order of the Servites, particularly devoted to the sorrows of the Virgin. This detail is not only faithful to the account of the apparition but reflects a deeper intention: to portray a Madonna close to women and popular piety, immersed in sorrow but also in daily life.
The combination of these elements—the tree, the black habit, the tears, the displayed wounds—contributes to building an image of the Madonna who is both queen of heaven and suffering mother, mediator between the divine and the human, a figure capable of speaking directly to the hearts of the faithful, particularly in a context of penitential preaching like that which followed the apparition of 1505.
In this iconography, there is no distance between the sacred and the popular: the Madonna della noce presents herself as a compassionate and admonishing figure, inviting not fear, but a conscious return to faith, through the visual language of suffering and motherhood.
