Our Lady of Pompeii

Abstract

One of the last things that Pope Francis did before his death in April 2025 was to approve the canonization of Bartolo Longo, an Italian lawyer who had spent his life building an enormous shrine to Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, next to the famous archaeological excavations. This book tells the story of that shrine, and the new city that developed around it from the 1870s onwards. In six chapters, and with the help of more than fifty photographs and maps, it shows how the ruined city of Pompeii became part of the Catholic shrine’s identity, providing inspiration for the artists, writers, and pilgrims who were drawn to the shrine and the miracle-working image of Our Lady that was housed there. It reveals the ambivalent attitude of Bartolo Longo and his collaborators to the classical past, which was seen in both positive and negative terms—that is, as an object of fascination and antiquarian curiosity, and as the dead and dusty ‘land of idols and demons’. By telling the story of the Catholic shrine and the people who lived, worked, and worshipped there, the book gives a valuable new perspective on ancient Pompeii, showing how, in this valley next to Vesuvius, archaeology and ancient history became entwined with new forms of Catholic Marian devotion.