Saint Rosalia

Rosalia Sinibaldi was born in 1130, probably in Palermo, to Count Sinibaldo, lord of Monte delle Rose and of the Quisquina, and to Maria Guiscardi, a niece of King Roger II. In other words, she came from the very top of Norman Sicily. She left the court as a girl and went to live as a hermit, first in a cave on Mount Quisquina, in the Agrigento area — where an inscription survives that reads “I, Rosalia, daughter of Sinibaldo, lord of Quisquina and of the Roses, have decided to live in this cave for the love of my Lord” — and then on Mount Pellegrino, above Palermo. She died there on September 4, 1170, alone, and for almost five hundred years nothing more was heard of her. The rest is the story that makes Palermo call her the Santuzza, the “little saint.” In 1624 the plague was killing the city. A woman, and then a hunter, said they had had a vision showing where her bones lay, on Mount Pellegrino. They found them, carried them in procession through Palermo on June 9, 1625, and the plague — so the city tells it — came to an end. Since then the Festino of Santa Rosalia, in July, fills Palermo with hundreds of thousands of people; on September 4 people walk up to the shrine on the mountain, at night, and it’s called the acchianata (“the climb”). Her relics are in the cathedral. If your name is Rosalia, today is your name day.