Trastevere turned out en masse yesterday evening, eager to continue the celebration of La Madonna Fiumarola that began a week ago. (Click here for an account of the elaborate procession that kicked off the festivities and for details of the Madonna herself.) While last weekend saw the 90 kilo wooden statue touring Trastevere’s narrow streets and alleys in the company of Roman centurions, medieval knights, and mounted police, this weekend the Virgin blessed the neighborhood of Trastevere from a boat on the Tiber River that was navigated by the Vigili del Fuoco, Rome’s trusty firemen. Curious onlookers, as well as those faithfully devoted to Trastevere’s most esteemed religious image, lined the bridges and the river banks to witness the statue’s watery journey from Castel Sant’Angelo to the Tiber Island.
La Madonna Fiumarola made the journey down the Tiber River at sunset (making photographs extremely difficult to take!). A select group of clergy joined her in the fire boat (the far right boat in the photo above) and led prayers and chants by means of a loudspeaker and they slowly made their way down the river amidst police pontoons, 8-person and 4-person sculls, a riverboat full of civic dignitaries, and several boats of devoted servants who distributed colorful balloons across the river’s murky water.
Arriving at a river boat dock near Tiber Island, the Madonna was greeted by the same police band that escorted her through the neighborhood last weekend. After disembarking, she was carried amidst a huge cheering crowd to the neighborhood’s main basilica, Santa Maria in Trastevere, for an overnight visit. Later this evening, having completed her tour of duty for 2007 (the same tour she’s been doing since the early sixteenth century), the statue will be transported back to her home church of Sant’Agata, just a few blocks away.
