The Civic Temple of the Blessed Virgin Mary the Crowned was built in a “lost” corner of Lodi, a suburb where love was sold for money and violent fights regularly broke out in the streets. One day in 1487, a miracle happened: a small 14th-century effigy of Mary, inside the local brothel, shed a tear for the human desolation that surrounded it, expressing the quiet pain of a mother in front of her lost children.

The Gospel reads, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” The tears of the Marian fresco were full of hope for that promise to come true for the dispossessed, the prostitutes and the drunkards living in that terrible part of Lodi. According to tradition, Mary asked the people to build a sanctuary right there – and it was the city’s secular authorities who listened to her request: indeed, to this day, the temple belongs to the municipality, not the dioceses.