Truth or legend? Miracle perhaps, but one thing is certain: in the alleys of Naples one breathes the hope and desire of couples wishing to conceive a child.

Fertility worship finds a home in a place of faith and mystery found in the Spanish Neighborhoods.

We walk through the city with an open heart and without prejudice, wearing a pair of comfortable shoes.

Maria Francesca's chair

On the sixth day every month you might see flowing through the narrow, noisy alleys of the Spanish Quarter a crowd of would-be parents, or strollers with children coming to pay their respects to St. Mary Frances For the miracle received. The worship of St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds lives in this area of Naples, beginning with the Vico Tre Re in Toledo, where there is the home of the Santarella of the Spanish Quarters.

The Life of St. Mary Frances

The virgin, patroness of Naples, was born on March 25 in 1715 and, along with St. Gennaro, belonged to the Third Order of St. Francis.

She was the first woman from southern Italy canonized by Pius Nono on June 29, 1967, after being declared blessed by St. Gregory the Sixteenth.

Throughout her life, the saint suffered greatly from illnesses of various kinds, and the physical suffering was compounded by the psychological pain caused by the persecution of her father, sisters and many others.

When she was sixteen, her father tried to marry her off to a wealthy young man, but in the face of her firm refusal he reacted violently, beating and abusing her. Eventually, however, nothing bent Maria Francesca; she was granted permission to enter the Franciscan Third Order in September 1731.

St. Mary Frances received the stigmata, and every Friday, especially on the Fridays of Lent, he felt the pains of the Passion in his body.

The saint of motherhood

Women who are infertile or have difficult pregnancies turn to her. She is considered the only canonized Neapolitan saint, and a shrine that holds her miraculous chair is dedicated to her.

A room in the convent houses a dense display of silver votive offerings, rosettes colored blue or pink, which tell of the births that occurred after prayers were addressed to St. Mary Frances: signs of gratitude for grace received or even to entrust new births to her protection.

In the next room, however, you have to get in line to sit on what used to be her chair, where she rested for the pains of the Passion: those who wish to have a child sit there, embrace the relic and ask for grace, pray and hope; they call it the "chair of miracles“.

Prayer for becoming a mother

Here is the prayer that women say during the ritual to St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds:

"I congratulate you, O first Holy Virgin of the city of Naples, glorious St. Mary Frances, for the copious favors from heaven bestowed on you; and I beg you to multiply on me the effects of your charity and protection, by obtaining for me from the Lord that grace, which I so much desire (here grace is asked for). And in order that you undertake with your prayers before God to obtain it for me, I adore, bless and thank the Most Holy Trinity for the many graces He has bestowed on you, especially by having made you, not yet brought forth into the light, foretold by two distinct prophecies, what then you were a Saint; moreover to adore Jesus Sacrament from the womb, adorned with superhuman gifts and virtues, and honored by his familiarity and companionship almost all your life, decorating you with all the traits, of his Passion, adorning your heart with that supreme seraphic charity toward God and neighbor. Deh adh therefore, O beloved Bride of Jesus Christ, if your Bridegroom so loved you, let me experience the effects of your protection now that you are in his presence, that I may find peace of heart in the attainment of the grace required."

Mary Frances and the war

The saint is especially venerated by the Neapolitan people, who today turn to her for all kinds of graces and invoked her protection during World War II.

It is said that during the World War, the Saint protected the people's homes from the fury of destruction.

Other Neapolitan fertility rites

In the writings that have handed down these traditions for centuries, two other fertility chairs are recounted: the one in the chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas in the church of Santa Maria della Sanità and a second, in the church of Santa Maria della Catena, on Santa Lucia Street, but we also find such rituals in other parts of Naples.

The cult of Venus in Piedigrotta

In Piedigrotta, in ancient times there was the cult of "Venus Genetrix," practiced by brides invoking fertility through the effect of powerful aphrodisiacs.

In the third century A.D., the celebration of the Virgin took the place of bacchanals (Roman festivities with a propitiatory background), but retained some colorful features such as floats, fireworks and singing.

Today the effigy of the madonna is kept inside the church, here women hoping to find husbands or pregnant women pay homage to her with ex-votos in the shape of a slipper: the so-called "scarpunciello d'a Maronna."

It is in this magical and spiritual continuity between the pagan and Christian worlds that the celebrations of "Our Lady of Piedigrotta" are held.

The kiss at St. Raphael's

There is also the traditional "vaso a 'o pesce 'e San Rafèle," Italian for "kissing the fish of St. Raphael. The saint, in a scene from the Book of Tobias, is depicted holding a fish, considered by Naples, a city of the sea, to be a symbol of virility, so in the Church of San Raffaele in Materdei women go to kiss the statue of the saint.

Donna Concetta in the Fontanelle Cemetery

Among the many capuzzelle, as Neapolitans like to call the skulls of the Fontanelle Cemetery in Naples, there is that of Woman Concetta: According to the ritual one must caress it to receive the gift of fertility.