Santa Maria del Lauro
A Modest Shrine in a small Piazza fronting a Pontifical Basilica
Meta di Sorrento, on the Gulf of Naples, is the home of my maternal grandparents. Santa Maria del Lauro is the much-loved patroness of the town, and for whom its fine cathedral is named. Though my mother was born in the United States, was a thoroughly assimilated American without the Italian language or traditions -- and never traveled to Italy -- her parents named her Maria Laura in fond remembrance, and with deep reverence, for the Madonna left behind when they sailed to the New World.
I first went to Meta di Sorrento while on holiday from graduate studies at L'Accademia di Belli Arti, Florence, under the G.I.Bill (1950). Immediately won over by the town's gracious, gentle people -- a few newly-found relatives, acquired friends -- I launched a love-affair with the Sorrento Peninsula which has grown stronger with repeated visits over many years. I never go there without visits to Basilica Pontifica Santa Maria del Lauro, a wonderful manifestation of reverent sacred space in which communal life is colorfully active.
Early in the 1990s, a sister and I considered my doing a statue of Santa Maria del Lauro as a memorial to our deceased mother. On a trip to Meta, I spoke with the parish priest about the possibility. There was a problem: the ancient carving of the Madonna in the Cathedral is a precious, valued gilt masterwork. Many traditional paintings and prints show the legend of the saint: a shepherdess, accompanied by cow and chickens, to whom the crowned and richly-gowned Madonna appears under a laurel tree and asks that a church be built on this site believed to have once been a pagan temple. The illustrations are very literal, with landscape and figures meticulously detailed. I didn't want to emulate, or compete with, either the Cathedral's centuries-old carving or the popular paintings of the legend.
Nor did I want the memorial to be inside the cathedral, considering it better suited to the small piazza across the street where parishoners gathered before and after Masses, and where a modest cafe offered light refreshments. I wanted the memorial there, under the laurel trees, among the people. And of modest height, on a low pedestal, receptive to the close scrutiny and touch of those who love the Madonna.
The piazza is town, not church, property, which engendered political negotiations and diplomacy. Major practical challenges centered around working on clay and wax models in the States, determing whether bronze casting would be more feasible if done in the States rather than Italy, concern about shipment and customs if the completed work were shipped from the US. And since my knowledge of the regional dialect is practically non-existent, communication was difficult. Opera buffa, I sometimes bellowed when it seemed the project would never be realized.
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