VernAZZA: City Spotlight
Highlighting Cities with that IS- sound, the Isis of Egypt. With a quick search, we find out if the theory holds. Does this city have any distinct remembrace of women in spritual power?
The answer is a profound Yes.
But here, reverence has transferred to a female saint. That should not discourage us- as nothing in christianity exists without copying from previous sources, albeit in disguised form. This city brings us somewhere unexpected: to the story of the Black Maryâs.
In the picturesque village of Vernazza, Italyâa famous coastal townâa remarkable story unfolds that connects ancient African spirituality to European Christianity. This connection becomes visible through the town's very name, its founding on a steep hilltop by freed Roman slaves, and its beloved and mysterious Black Madonna that reminds us of far older traditions.
The Etymology of Power: Vernazza and the "Isis Sound"
Vernazza's name itself preserves ancient echoes. The Latin "Vulnetia" is connected to the Roman family Gens Vulnetia, but the distinctive "-azza" ending carries something more interesting. This sound patternâvariations of the "s" sound with different vowelsâappears throughout names associated with the Egyptian goddess Isis, whose worship was widely encouraged by the Roman Empire, where Christianity started as a tool of Empire.
Isis was the mother goddess, often shown carrying her son, the sun god Ray. At a time when Rome was trying to support its middle class, this familial concept was found to be useful. Isis temples went up all over Rome and it surrounding cities. Even the marriage Ring comes from the Egyptian idea of eternity and devotion to a woman.
This linguistic connection is strengthed, and broadened, by the fact that Egyptian and Hebrew scripts did not write vowels. Only consonants are preserved, just like in oral memory across accents, vowels may change sound, but the consanants remain as definitive markers. This consonantal pattern of "_s_s_" has become a core identifier of Isis's name across cultures.
I now see it as a red flag to pay attention. Upon investigation of places with this sound pattern, I can almost always find a connection to more ancient traditions of ancient goddess worship. That is exactly how my interest in this city came about, revealing another interesting piece to the lost goddess puzzle.
A Town Founded by Freed Slaves
Around 1,000 AD, VernAZZa was founded by freed slaves of the Roman family Gens Vulnetia (notice the ending sound âeshaâ). The settlement once belonged to wealthy family, who let their slaves work in the steep mountains. Once free, these slaves founded their home around the protected harbor. It is from the slave ownersâ name from which the name Vernazza comes from. Interestingly, the term "verna," means "native" or "local." In Latin, the term "verna" refers to a house-born slave, distinct from slaves who were purchased or inherited.
I was trying to figure out what lineage this slave family was from. The Gens Vulnetia does not appear in the standard catalogues of Roman families. Perhaps they really were local Italians, whichever way you come at it: from Roman native or local slave, born of blending of lineages.
This family somehow received a statue of a Black Madonna. Among various theories, it was supposedly brought back from the Holy Land by someone in the Crusades (the âholyâ wars which would continue for another 300 years). The statue is still able to be visited at the top of a long hike, near the facade of a church from the same date as the founding of the city, built on top of the crypt of an even older church. A festival dedicated to the African tradition of the black goddess is celebrated on the first Sunday in August every year.
To get to this church you hike up a steep trail to the North of Vernazza near the graveyard. The area around the sanctuary has a spring (water, of course! Isis was associated with water), ancient trees (as all pre-christian sacred places were).
These are pictures of the famous Black Madonna in the local Belforte castle.
The Sacred Geography: Water, Springs, and Ancient Trees
The Black Madonna of Vernazza resides in the 11th-century Sanctuary of Our Lady of Reggio (Nostra Signora di Reggio), reached by a steep pilgrimage trail north of the village. The sanctuary's location follows the ancient pattern of sacred sites: it sits on a natural spring, surrounded by centuries-old trees including an 800-year-old cypressâthe oldest in Liguria.
This sacred geography mirrors pre-Christian holy places throughout the Mediterranean, where water sources and ancient groves marked sites of goddess worship. The name "Reggio" itself likely derives from an ancient Tuscan word meaning "stream" or "canal," emphasizing the site's connection to waterâan element sacred to Isis.
Saint Margaret: The Christianized Goddess
Vernazza's patron saint, Margaret of Antioch, provides another layer to this palimpsest of female divine power. Her legendâdefeating a dragon, choosing death over marriage to a Roman governor, inspiring Joan of Arcâcontains symbols that scholars recognize as echoes of pre-Christian goddess traditions.
The story that a box containing Margaret's finger washed ashore (leading to the church's construction on the "isolotto"âanother water-related term) follows the pattern of many Black Madonna legends: sacred objects mysteriously appearing from water or earth, usually at sites already considered holy.
Margaret's popularity during the Crusades makes historical senseâthis was precisely when many Black Madonna images were said to have been brought back from the Holy Land, providing Christian cover for much older spiritual traditions.
Today, the city of Vernazza has a patron saint (protector, a hold over from when goddesses did the same for ancient cities), named Saint Margaretita. She grew in popularity during the Crusades. She was also one of the voices Saint Joan of Arc heard, inspiring her to lead French troops into battle.
The Fairy Tales of the Cinque Terre" by Arbaspaa: This resource provides details on the legend of Saint Margaret in Vernazza
There is a legend that a box with Margaretâs finger washed up on the shore, which is why they built her church here. The church was built in a part of Vernazza called âisolottoâ where it was exposed to the sea waves. (isolotto is another is- water word associated with isis, like island, islet, and estuary).
She was beloved by Christians for vowing to be a virgin for God, and when asked by the Roman governor to marry her and convert, she preferred to die, defeating a dragon in the process. (these symbols all become important later. They actually represent female power, interstingly enough). More than 250 churches are dedicated to her in England.
She was considered a saint from 1,000 to 1969 AD, when a letter from the pope called Mysterii Paschalis, pulled out 200 of the mythological saints from the official record books and calendar of festivals.
But, she is not the only powerful woman known in the city. We have evidence of Isis, Aphrodite and Our Lady of Reggio all in the same place.
Isis: The Egyptian goddess of fertility, rebirth, and the arts is depicted on an oscillum (votive disc) found in Palazzo Vernazza, an historical building in Lecce.
This comes as the most important to me, since it was the name âVernAZZAâ that caught my attention to look deeper, preserving that -S- sound with various vowels, associated with -S-S-, isis, ist, as Egyptian and Hebrew scripts did not write vowels.
Aphrodite: A statue from 0 BC/AD, similar to the Egyptian goddess Iside, is also found in Palazzo Vernazza.
Our Lady of Reggio: The Shrine of Our Lady of Reggio, located near Vernazza, features a Black Madonna with the Child Jesus, a revered figure in the region.
The Global Phenomenon of Black Madonnas
Vernazza's Black Madonna belongs to a network of over 450 similar images found across Europe. They are connected to the more accurate, but uncomfortable connection, to pre-Christian goddesses like Isis, Cybele, Demeter, and many Celtic women. They also tend to be located at sites that were sacred before Christians ever showed up.
They tend to be associated with pilgrimage routes, and linked to fringe groups like monks, CISTercians, and the Knights Templars (who had a particularly Parisian Romantic kind of love for the Mother).
Examples of these black women in statue start in Italy:
170 AD: Rome and Sicily, particularly in PrISCilla tombs, the earliest known images of âMaryâ as a black woman (or⌠the black woman who inspired Mary).
Priscilla was an early Jewish leader in the Christian religion, at a time when the pagan cultures and prominent female deities and women in positions of power and reverence were transitioning to much lower status.
The earliest Christian images of a dark-skinned Mary appear in a Roman catacombsâat a time when distinguishing between representations of Mary and Isis was nearly impossible.
1,100 to 1,300 AD:
France: including one with egyptian names:
"Our Lady the Egyptian" at Le Puy-en-Vela by Meymac, with turban
"Our Lady from Under the Ground" at Chartres/ChASTrEIX
Spain: The Black Madonna of Montserrat, Guadalupe de CĂĄceres
Montserrat: Black Madonna said to be connected to Jerusalem
Guadalupe de CĂĄceres: Found buried in earth, patroness of Extremadura
Nuria: "Queen of the Pyrenees" (12th century)
Italy:
Loreto: "Our Lady of Loreto" - said to be painted by St. Luke (Luke means light, like the sun!, and Rey, the Egyptian sun/son god)
Oropa: Found by St. Eusebius in 4th century, installed in pre-Christian cave
Montevergine: Called "Mamma Schiavone" (Slave Mama)
1200 to 1500 AD:
Poland: Our Lady of CzÄstochowa - attributed to St. Luke (Luke as light, again)
Germany: Black Madonna with eternal lamp in Cologne
Restored to black after public outcry when whitened
Renaissance+ (1500+ AD)
The tradition spreads to the Americas with Mexico's Virgin of Guadalupe (appearing as a dark Aztec princess) and Brazil's "Our Appeared Lady," found by fishermen and associated with the abolition of slavery.
Mexico: Guadalupe (1531): Virgin of Guadalupe - appeared to Juan Diego as dark Aztec princess
Brazil: Aparecida: "Our Appeared Lady" - found by fishermen, associated with abolition of slavery
Modern Examples
Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, France: Sara la Kali (venerated by Roma people)
Tindari, Sicily: "Our Lady the Ethiopian" (7th century, still active pilgrimage site)
Vienna, Austria: "Our Lady of the Bowed Head" (found in garbage, 1610)
Black Madonnas consistently appear at:
Former pagan goddess sites
Natural springs and water sources
Ancient groves and sacred trees
Points along pilgrimage routes
Places associated with marginalized communities (holding onto their roots, in hard to reach places, exactly like this mountaintop village of Vernazza).
Geographic Distribution
The phenomenon appears across Catholic Europe and former colonies:
Densest concentration: France (nearly 50 early examples)
Other significant locations: Spain (225 documented), Italy, Germany, Poland
Colonial extensions: Mexico, Brazil, Philippines
Modern discoveries: Continuing reports from various countries
From Isis to Mary: The African Connection
The transformation of Isis âworshipâ into Mary âdevotionâ (notice the shift?) represents one of history's most successful religious/political magic tricks. Throughout the Roman Empire, Isis statues were literally baptized and renamed as Mary, leaving their function and celebration exactly the same, but claiming her story.
Isis, the Egyptian goddess of babies, and all of life basically, had been called "Mother of God" for THOUSANDS OF YEARS before Christianity. She had the same healing powers, maternal love, and wisdom that Mary would adopt. And her understanding as a literal queen, each queen being a reincarnation of her, explains the jeweled robe and crown that Christians would have a really hard time explaining for the next 2,000 years.
The truly African Mary (or should we say the the White Isis?) we know as Isis became one of the favorite goddesses of Romans. It is a verifiable fact that the Virgin Mary âinheritedâ many of the characteristics of Isis, a TRUE Queen. All over the Roman Empire, Isis statues were literally baptized and renamed as images of Mary, remaining what the people had already called the âMother of Godâ. There are 200 years in early christian Rome where it is impossible to tell if the statues on graves are of Mary or Isis. This preserves the transition, and epic start of Mary as Isis, FROM AFRICA.
One statue was said to have remained in Paris, and worshipped until 1,514 AD, when some frenzied Christians destroyed her because they did not like her dress.[Begg, The Cult of the Black Virgin, 1985] People also still worship little Isis statues in their homes. These were often made of bronze, which over time turns a dark brown, almost black, which lead some people to think this is where the idea of Black Madonna came from.
It is conceivable that Northern Europeans imagined the Egyptian goddess as black since she was after all African. Scholarly research suggests there were many different skin colours across Egypt, as they were very ethnically diverse, including every shade of what we now call white, brown and black.
For centuries ancient Egypt was the most tolerant and egalitarian culture around the Mediterranean Sea. It is not surprising that its list of gods would be equally diverse. Isis herself was most often portrayed with golden skin, along with many of the gods, as personification of the sun. But, she was also shown with blue skin, like the sky.
Just as Isis had many faces, colors, and functions (from giving life to destroying), Mary has also been embraced by many different people, all who can relate to the love for and from, a Mother. The most important thing is to see Isis and Mary, in all her colors, as the heiress to the thrones of all the goddesses. Down to it, She is complex, and extremely powerful.
The Goddess of Night: Ancient Roots of Sacred Darkness
The reverence for dark-skinned divine feminine figures connects to even deeper traditions. The Egyptian goddess Nut (giving us the French word "nuit" for night) was shown with dark skin, covered in stars, spanning tall of the sky and heavens. She represented the creative darkness from which all life emerges.
This tradition honors darkness. The dark was seen as potentialâthe fertile home of the womb, the restorative power of sleep, the infinite space of creation, and the consistency of death and birth.
This Egyptian Goddesses even gives us our name for ânightâ. Even if most sources say it came from Germany, African langauges are increasingly being recognized as a lost forebearer of many of our modern languages. Nut was adopted by the Greeks as Nyx, the Phoenicians (proto-Jews) as Baaut, the Peloponnesians (Greek Islanders) as Achlys, the Scandinavians as Nor, and the Polynesians as Po.[Miquel Ballbè i Boada, 23] The Egyptian Nuit (still the French word for night) was also seen as the goddess Hathor or Athyr.
The Egyptians often depicted Nuit as a woman with dark skin, her body covered with stars, stretching over her husband, the earth. Sometimes, like Hathor, she was also portrayed as a milk cow who nourished countless humans. Milk was considered sacred, as was the divine female body. The Greeks envisioned her as a woman from whom flowed a great, dark veil, often covered with stars.
The Greek Night, Nyx, is the daughter of Chaos, the goddess of darkness, the mother of dreams and death. According to Hesiod, around 650 BC, Night is the Mother of all Gods, the first and oldest of all the deities, the original creatrix, the dark womb, out of which everything emerged.
Aristophanes (385 BC) agrees, saying that before there was air, heaven and earth, Night spread her black wings and placed an egg into the bosom of her husband Erebus, the god whose name means âdeep darkness or shadowâ (in the earth realm and underworld, which was never a scary place). Out of the egg hatched Love with its golden wings, and fertilized nature.
The Greeks and Romans worshiped the Goddess Night with temples, oracles, and sacrifices. What does she have in common with the Black Madonna? I think both represent a divine Dark Mother who is there to help us face that which scares us: death, dreams from the subconscious, infinite, dark space, night, and sleep. Like the dark womb, they nurture us in a mysterious darkness where they, not we, are in control.
Modern Revelations and Continuing Power
The Catholic Popeâs 1969 removal of over 200 "mythological" saints (including Margaret of Antioch) from official calendars represents institutional recognition of ânon-historicalâ saints, ie clear examples of pagan, or pre-Christian elders. Yet popular devotion continues, suggesting these spiritual archetypes give us something that rigid tradition cannot.
Isis imagery found in Palazzo Vernazza, alongside statues of goddesses that remind us of Aphrodite, confirms the layering of goddess traditions in this remarkable place. This was a place of female power, for a very long time. Each era added its interpretation, while preserving deeper elements of the sacred feminine.
I really liked what Rozett says about this whole topic. First, she talks about how some feminists appreciate the black madonnas for bringing awareness to pre-christian goddesses:
Then there are Christian feminists such as Charlene Spretnak and myself. We acknowledge Mary's sisterhood with the goddesses as well as the pre-Christian roots of her [worship] cult. We are also aware of the patriarchal churches' efforts to control Mary. Nonetheless we experience her as extremely powerful, though oppressed, like many other goddesses. Historically Christian churches have certainly done what they could to limit her influence, but they never succeeded for very long. Every wave of suppression has been followed by one of renewed enthusiasm. When people are in danger of forgetting their Mother, She has ways of reminding them! She simply sends some apparitions, makes a statue cry, or works a few miracles, and then there is no stopping her followers.
If you doubt her power in Christian history, just see how many churches in Europe are dedicated to her! How often do you enter a church named after her to find a big statue of her in central position, while you almost have to search for any depiction of Jesus! Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut's book "Mary's Vineyard" is full of quotes attesting to the leading role of Mary in many Christian lives. Here is but one of Sergei Bulgakov: "The Mother of God, since she gave her son humanity, is also the mother of all humanity, the spiritual center of all creation, the heart of the world."[Bulgakov]
Throughout the Middle Ages, Christians were deadly afraid of God and Jesus who judged them and were always threatening to damn them to eternal hell fire. Their hope lay in the "Holy Queen, our life, our sweetness, and our hope!" (The beginning of a prayer at the conclusion of every Catholic mass until the "modernizations" of the 1960s.)
Reclaiming the African Legacy
We can see these Black Madonnas as remnants of African spiritual traditions, that have forever challenged historical narratives about Christianity's origins. Without fully understanding it, Europeans had been worshipping African spiritual traditions for thousands of years.
There is a Ted talk about a woman, born in Africa, who never saw a black woman or girl in any books she read growing up. She was amazed to see a black person in books once she came to America. One thing these Black Maryâs do is show that, happily, she was able to affirm: âI am black and beautiful!â
It breaks my heart to see how Black history has been relegated to a day or month in the year, without true understanding of how, or why, they were pushed aside. Just with the story of women, they once had ALL the power, in ancient African traditions, including that of ancient Egypt. It was precislely BECAUSE of her power, that the Romans wanted to pry their treasure and reputation away. And the Church had been all too happy to use scripture to enforce, if not instigate, the slave trade. Then say that christianity was brought TO africa in the 1700âs. Not so, it was CREATED ON and IN the soil of Africa. All of the holy books of the bible were written there. It was there the alphabet was inspired by Jewish workers wanting to read hieroglyphs. Egypt had the grain, glory and gold that Rome wanted. It is time to tell her story as a true African lineage that never was able to be forgotten.
The Eternal Return
In Vernazza's mountaintop hideout, surrounded by ancient trees and sacred springs, the Black Madonna continues her watch. She embodies the persistence of the sacred feminine and African religion through all transformationsâfrom Isis to Mary, from Africa to Europe, from ancient goddess to modern inspiration.
Her presence reminds us that spiritual truth cannot be held back by rigid interpretations, and has survived every attempt at suppression. The African roots of Christianity, and its focus on balance, with a key space held for a divine in-tact family, all remain visible to those who know how to look.
