Foggia

Foggia is the capital of the Capitanata area. It stretches into the center of the Piana del Tavoliere, in the north of the Apulia region. Its province borders with the Molise, Campania, and Basilicata regions, as well as with the Adriatic Sea.

It is a Marian city by vocation and choice: the Black Virgin is venerated at the Santuario dell'Incoronata (Sanctuary of Our Crowned Lady), marking the Virgin Mary's first apparition on the face of the earth in the year 1001. The Madonna dei Sette Veli (Madonna of the Seven Veils) or Holy Table of the Icona Vetere, an ancient wooden icon depicting the Virgin Mary is venerated in the cathedral of Foggia. The finding of this table gave rise to the village around the "Taverna del Gufo", today's church of San Tommaso, in the inner city, along the transhumance route called "Via Arpi".

Transhumance was a phenomenon whereby shepherds and their herds moved from the Abruzzi region to the Apulian lowland pastures to spend the winter, returning home in the summer. This phenomenon is closely linked to the birth of the early residential settlements in this area. According to official historiography, Foggia was founded by the people of Arpi, a pre-Roman town. Under Frederick II it became an imperial town and it thrived initially under the Hohenstaufen family, then under the Angevins, and again under the Aragonese and the Spanish. A disastrous earthquake destroyed the town completely in 1731. The Bourbon restoration started off its recovery, and Ferdinand III chose Palazzo Dogana as his residence. Today, the building houses the Provincial administrative offices.

A new time of woe and destruction came with the bombings in the summer of 1943, when the city was almost completely razed to the ground, counting tens of thousands of casualties. For this reason it received the gold medal recognition for civil valor as martyr-city. It is precisely in the chronological records of the church of Sant'Anna that traces and evidence of those sad days of the past can be found, as chronicled by the Capuchin friars. Some of these records were published by the "C. Ferrini" Cultural Coterie. Places of interest: Via Arpi and its churches, the Basilica dell'Addolorata in the ancient "plain of pits" (silos dug in the ground to store harvested grains); the Cathedral, built in 1172 by William II "The Good", where one can admire the Holy Table of the Icona Vetere, the wooden crucifix by Pietro Fassa, paintings by Paolo De Maio and Giuseppe de Ribeira, the crypt with its decorations carved by Bartolomeo of Foggia, 18^th-century wooden statues from Naples, and the papier-mâché statues used for the Procession of the Mysteries.

Do not miss: the Epitaph, a 1651 monument which, departing from today's Via Manzoni, indicates what used to be the ancient sheep-track that shepherds took to the Abruzzi region; the Municipal Museum and Art Gallery, the "Vincenzo Nigri" Observatory, all of which are in Piazza Nigri, and the "Umberto Giordano" Theater, named after the great composer from Foggia, designed by Oberty and inaugurated in 1828 as "Teatro Ferdinando".
Of priceless value are the state archive, for the official documents it preserves, and the provincial library, now in Viale Michelangelo. The library was set up in 1883 and currently counts over 200,000 volumes, including rare and valuable editions.

Impossible not to visit the Santuario dell'Incoronata, about 4 miles out of town, to be reached on the S.S. 16 trunk road in the direction of Bari. The sanctuary is the destination of uninterrupted Marian pilgrimages.
The Chiesa delle Croci is in the heart of one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. It is known as the Church of Mount Calvary of the Order of the Holy Cross, and it is a national monument. With its seven chapels, each one surmounted by a cross, it is a casket of history and religiousness.

A few steps away from the "Reale Chiesa delle Croci" , built thanks to the good offices of the Capuchins in 1615 after a Lent sermon held by Padre Antonio of Olivadi, stands the "new convent" . Soon after the convent was erected, also the church dedicated to Sant'Anna was built and consecrated on May 16^th 1916 by Monsignor Salvatore Bella. In 1932 it became a parish church. Padre Pio arrived in Foggia on February 17^th 1916 and remained there until September 4^th of that same year.

He had come to assist the soul of a noblewoman, Raffaelina Cerase, whom he had already guided spiritually in writing. He was always "cheerful and facetious" with his fellow brothers. After a short stay, he fell ill with a "bad fever" and he was found to be suffering from "centers of microbes in the right apex, with light murmurs in the left one" . Illness and spiritual distress were accompanied by the devil - and it was a quite noisy devil, too.

Padre Pio would retire to his cell without dining. One evening, while the brotherhood was gathered together in the refectory, "a loud crash was heard coming from his room, which was above the refectory" . After continuous demonstrations of this kind, he would be found "dripping with sweat, and in need of a complete change of clothes" . When Provincial Father Benedetto of San Marco in Lamis informed Padre Pio that he wished for this noise to stop, Padre Pio prayed and the Lord answered his prayers. The noise stopped, but not the attacks on the part of the Devil, who "always chose the same hour, after dinner, to torment the poor Father".

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