There are stories that keep changing while they are told.
And stories whose endings still have to be written.
This is one of those stories.

Zattere, Venice 1897.
It all started with Angelina who had agreed on that day to pose for a painting.
Roberto Ferruzzi, perched on a stool, was applying the last touch of red onto the child’s lips. Probably the little brother or the son of some woman of the people, the child had dozed off in Angelina’s lap. It’s getting late, she thought. Her mother would soon be back home and would certainly scold her.

In America it is known as The Madonna of the Streets reproduced in a mosaic at St. Peter and Paul’s Church in San Francisco. But it is also known under other names: Madonna with child, Little Gipsy, Madonna of good rest, Madonna of tenderness or Madonnella. In Islamic Dubai it was reproduced on stamps. Everyone has seen it in churches, chapels, on panels, paper or ceramic. In rosaries, in jewel cases or hanging on top of beds.
It also appeared in some movie scenes, such as “La Storia” by Luigi Comencini, “Lo Scapolo” by Antonio Pietrangeli and “Sole a catinelle” by Gennaro Nunziante and Checco Zalone.

Roberto Ferruzzi was born in Sevenico, in Dalmatia, on December 6, 1853. When his father died, he moved with his mother to a place between Venice and Luvigliano di Torreglia. After completing his studies in law, he chose to devote himself to painting and became succesful.
Maternità (Motherhood) was its title but soon it was changed into La Madonnina since everybody would call it like that by then.
In 1897 he exhibited it at the Venice Biennale.

“It was purchased by Vittorio Alinari who used it as model for an unlimited series of reproductions in many formats, on various supports and for thousands of different destinations.” Says Prof. Massimo Ferretti.
"A photograph of the courtyard at Via Nazionale shows the whole Alinari company at work: at the back, under the canopy, in front of the camera, we can recognize the famous Madonnina, probably within the same frame used at the 1897 Biennale. But it’s an altogether different painting compared to what we’ve always seen in the reproductions: its layout is horizontal. So there is a change in the relationship of figures and format, of natural setting and figures."
(Ferretti)

"It was Vittorio Alinari who trimmed its sides and changed its layout into vertical which was more used for devotional images”.
(Ferretti)

Vittorio Alinari touched it up, deleted the background and finally put it into his catalogue. He sent it to several agents scattered mainly around Europe and America. "So that there was such a flood of images derived from it that he lost control over them”.**
[** Cit. Massimo Ferretti: Gli Alinari fotografi a Firenze, pp. 134-135, e Fratelli Alinari fotografi in Firenze p. 228].

His commercial talent turned the photographic version of Madonnina into the most disseminated and best known sacred image in the world.

At least this is the story we’ve heard until now.
But then….

Until one day... It happens when you spend hours observing photographs heaped up in archives, day after day; sometimes you may start having doubts. Little, imperceptible, undefinable doubts, as annoying as the distant buzzing of a mosquito in a Summer night.
These two pictures therefore would be, respectively, Vittorio Alinari’s photographic reproduction (cut out vertically) and the so-called “original” painting by Ferruzzi with horizontal format.
The question is: is it the same picture, only cut out differently?

I decide to forget my doubts: only a few days till Christmas holidays and I must deliver the photo story. So I’d hurry up.
But then I receive a mail.
Sometimes casual coincidences are quite lucky too.
It’s from Gionata Ceretta, a researcher from Torreglia who’s been collecting material about Ferruzzi for twelve years. He talks to me at length about Ferruzzi.
“And then” he writes “the painting in the courtyard, the one shot by the camera… the one you see also in the studio, that one is not Ferruzzi’s Madonnina.”
“There we are” I think as my doubts come up again. “I’ll never be able to deliver this photo story by Christmas”.

Look at the signatures, says Gionata revealingly.
Those who are familiar with this job know (our should know) that images can be looked at again and again, in different ways.
Until finally you see something.
The first signature is on the bottom right corner of the photo reproduction made by Vittorio Alinari (photo on the top). The second one, on the contrary, is positioned on the bottom left corner of what is believed to be Ferruzzi’s original painting (photo on the bottom).
But whilst the first signature clearly reads “Roberto Ferruzzi”, the second one shows a different handwriting and, although difficult to understand, the name seems to be different too.
What kind of story is this?

I bin the photo story and start afresh.
I remember the TV show “Chi l’ha Visto?” on the recovery of what is very much likely to be the preparatory sketch of Madonnina.
I get in touch with journalist Annalisa Venditti who says she was submerged with loads of different “Madonninas” after the tv show. All of them were clearly copies. All but one.
The Ferruzzi family studied the sketch and submitted it to lab analysis that confirmed its authenticity.
So if the sketch is authentic, the hypothesis that there may be an original painting as well with vertical layout (the painting exhibited at the Biennale) becomes quite plausible.

Sometimes accidental coincidences are not only lucky but also surprising...
On December 19, 2023, I receive a mail from Gionata announcing a “casual discovery” at an antique dealer’s in Grosseto.
The attachment leaves me speechless: here it is, the painting titled Madonnina. The one considered to be the original by Ferruzzi. It looks identical to the painting photographed in the courtyard and to the one hanging in Vittorio Alinari’s studio.

But the signature, on the bottom left corner, is not Ferruzzi’s. It seems to read “Riccardo” followed by an unreadable family name. And it looks very much like the signature on the painting photographed in Vittorio Alinari's studio. But who’s its author?
And so would there be two paintings rather than one?

This story should be written again from its beginning.
Let’s try and understand the documents and the images we have and formulate some hypothesis.
At the II Venice Biennale, taking place from April 22 to October 31, 1897, Ferruzzi exhibits his oil on canvas painting Madonnina (as well as another large pastel painting Verso la Luce).
Vittorio Alinari, before the Biennale closes, purchases the painting and on May 21, 1897, registers the work (that is he deposits a copy of it) to acquire “exclusive rights of reproduction” as provided for by the Royal Decree n.1012 of September 19, 1882.
The price paid for the painting is 4000 lire. It’s a small painting with vertical layout.

Vittorio is a smart entrepreneur, with a special flair for art. He puts many reproductions of Madonnina on sale and his intuition is extremely successful.
Initially the pictures Vittorio sells bear Roberto Ferruzzi ’s signature, the Alinari brand and the acronym R.I. (Riproduzione interdetta - Reproduction forbidden).
The Madonnina on these cards is identical to the negative bearing the code ACA-F-045115-0000: therefore it’s the reproduction, without any cut, of Ferruzzi’s original painting.

Yet, soon afterwards, Ferruzzi’s signature disappears from postcards and holy pictures. And the image looks a bit different. Here comes then Vittorio’s Madonnina, that is the (vertically laid out) reproduction of the copy of the horizontal painting.
Shall we therefore assume it was Vittorio Alinari himself who commissioned this painting? Maybe he gave the commission to an employee of his or to a professional, whose name was probably “Riccardo”.

But why?
Maybe something went wrong. Maybe Ferruzzi was not in agreement with him. Maybe he didn’t totally agree with the profit Vittorio was keeping only to himself. It’s an assumption.
Or maybe Vittorio sold the painting too hastily, without making any more copies of it. Or even worse, the negative plate broke, or was scratched or, although quite unlikely, it was damaged after so many reproductions.
Or, even more simply, by reproducing it Vittorio wished to create a new work, detached from its author’s name. We are sailing across an ocean of hypotheses.

And what about this image? It might be a pretence.
You may laugh but it’s not totally impossible. Because Vittorio was an expert in photography technique but was also well aware of the “illusory” scope of photography, that is its ability to be considered credible, even “a priori”.
Quoting a brilliant book by Michele Smargiassi, photography is “An authentic lie”: no surprise then if its story is filled with cases like the present one.
Photographs provide historical credibility to what they show us and become its documentation. Regardless of whatever.
And maybe Vittorio, through these images, wanted to tell us (or not tell us) something about the Madonnina that travelled the whole world.

It’s a guess but it’s no less likely than the one according to which the horizontal painting is Ferruzzi’s original later cut out by Vittorio.
Gionata Ceretta insists: “Vittorio Alinari simply printed a maternity painting in various forms, no longer tied to its author and succeeded in creating a sort of ex-novo artwork; and in fact, till now most people know the Madonnina but not its author’s name”.
If the fame of Madonnina is no doubt due to Vittorio Alinari, this story nonetheless gives him the merit of having told us a story through a single image and without spending a single word.
A story we believed in. Not batting an eye.

We stop here.
Not because we have reached a conclusion: there are still many unanswered questions. But research work is momentarily interrupted by the difficulty to access archive material, kept in a vault.
At this point it’s crucial to consult catalogues and documents as well as check how many and which negative plates are kept there, maybe not even under Ferruzzi’s name.
Maybe, with further research, this story might reach yet another ending.

What’s certain is that the mystery still wrapping the painting, now regards its photograph too.

By the way, what about the painting?

Later on, its property went to John G.A. Leishman, American ambassador in Europe. And since then, all trace of it is lost.
It is said the painting sank to the bottom of the sea on board of the small vessel it travelled on during the first World War, hit by bombs. But apparently the Ambassador lived in Monte Carlo with his wife, where he was buried. So it’s just as possible that, on the contrary, the painting is still safely kept, by a collector or by someone else who ignores its value and thinks it’s just the umpteenth copy of the original.

And then there is the waiting-room Madonnina. The one hanging on the wall next to Al levar del sole and Madonna della spiga (two paintings that participated in the contest launched by Vittorio Alinari in 1899).
At a closer look, it doesn’t seem to be Ferruzzi’s original. Yet the richly decorated frame and its being next to two paintings, would suggest it is a painting itself.
But would it ever be possible that the paintings are actually three?
At the moment we cannot give an answer, yet we don’t want this story to be left without an ending. So let’s give the last word to the one who started the story.

Sister Angela Maria Povio grew up in an orphanage in the United States. Back to Italy in search of her family’s tracks, she finally found two old aunts of hers.
“That’s your mother” Aunt Julia told her, showing the Madonnina.
"Oh…Virgin Mary, the mother of us all” she answered in her shaky Italian.
“Yes. Actually no. This is Your mother”.

Sister Angela Maria’s mother was in fact Angelina Cian, Ferruzzi’s model. Angelina had married Antonio Bovo and migrated to America with him. She had ten children but after her husband’s premature death, she fell into depression and ended up in an asylum where she died in 1972.

She never came to know that all over the world people bowed their heads and joined their palms seeking confort and refuge in her image.