Description: The statue depicts the Madonna holding a white book. It was created by the sculptor Domenico Ponzi according to the instructions of the visionary and was brought to the grotto on October 5, 1947, from St. Peter’s in a procession. The news that the statue was blessed by Pius XII himself seems unfounded. Before this date, two other images of the Virgin of the Revelation were venerated in the grotto: the first placed in June, the second in July, a gift from the Military Hospital of the Celio. Entered into use: in the year 1947 Epiphany: The objects that recall the apparition of April 12, 1947, are the tuff stone on which the Madonna is said to have appeared, and the statue of the Madonna placed on it. Image: Statue
Original location of the Sanctuary: The ex-votos were placed near the grotto. Notes on the collection: The origin of the votive offerings is predominantly Italian, but there are also ex-votos from foreign devotees. Most date back to the first fifteen years of the sanctuary’s life. In 1966, Paul VI authorized the sale of ex-votos to help flood victims. Types of ex-votos: Jewelry items, Anthropomorphic figurines, Real or represented prostheses, Photographs, Other Current preservation: They are now stored in an ambulatory built behind the grotto.
Since 1947, graces and miracles occurring near the apparition grotto began to be recorded. A Medical Commission was established following the example of the Boureau des Constations of Lourdes. The President was Alberto Alliney, already a doctor in Lourdes, who in 1952 published a volume titled The Grotto of the Three Fountains. The events of April 12, 1947, under scientific scrutiny. Medical study of the miracle. Notes on some healings, Città di Castello, Tipografia Unione arti graffiche, 1952. In the third part of his book, Dr. Alliney lists a selection of fourteen miracles, considered inexplicable by science (miraculous healings), to which he adds other brief accounts of miraculous healings or graces. Alongside Alliney’s volume, the various magazines created by the devotees of the sanctuary can be considered true collections of miracles. In particular, the monthly periodical La Voce delle Tre Fontane, active since 1947 and directed by Enrico Contardi, should be noted.
The sanctuary was born following a miraculous apparition of the Virgin on April 12, 1947: Bruno Cornacchiola, an employee of the Tramway Authority and member of the Adventist Church, and his three children would have seen in a grotto near a eucalyptus forest, owned by the E.U.R. Authority, the Virgin dressed in a green mantle and a white robe with a book in her hand and a broken cross in four parts beside her. The Virgin would have appeared to Cornacchiola three more times (on April 27, May 23, and May 30), confiding in him some messages, including a secret one to be relayed only to Pope Pius XII. The pilgrimage to the sanctuary began as early as May of that year and was particularly active in the first decade despite the caution shown by the Roman Curia. Work around the grotto began immediately, albeit unauthorized: in fact, the E.U.R. Authority did not want to grant the land to the Trappist monks who intended to build a sanctuary there as it accepted only the Vicariate as an interlocutor. Only in 1956, when Cardinal Micara became Vicar General, an agreement was reached: the Vicariate would rent the land with the minimum rent, with the possibility of erecting a fence and modest constructions. The sanctuary still welcomes thousands of pilgrims every year.At the time of the apparition, Bruno Cornacchiola, who wanted to kill Pope Pius XII with a dagger that he later donated, was preparing an intervention against the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. His three children were playing when the ball ended up in one of the grottos nearby. Bruno was trying to retrieve it when, entering the grotto, he found his son kneeling with his hands clasped. He called the other two children who also fell to their knees in prayer before the beautiful Lady who gradually took shape and revealed herself to Bruno as well. ICCD – MNATP, Mariotti.
The account of the apparitions by Cornacchiola was recorded in 1947 in three pamphlets: 1) Enrico Contardi, The ‘Apparitions’ at the Grotto of the Three Fountains. First documentary on the Virgin of the Revelation, Ed. Cosmos, Rome 1947. 2) Giulio Loccatelli, The Madonna appeared and spoke in the Grotto of the Three Fountains, Ed. Unitas, Rome 1947. 3) Arduino Valente, The apparition of the Virgin of the Revelation, Rome 1948.
For four years, the sanctuary was without ecclesiastical jurisdiction and remained in the hands of spontaneous lay committees. Among these was the so-called Man of the grotto, Pasquale Perfetti, a self-proclaimed miracle worker from Lourdes, who had appointed himself perpetual voluntary custodian but was tried for appropriating part of the alms. Starting in 1952, the land where the sanctuary stood was, as mentioned, leased by the Vicariate.
Cardinal Vicar Micara asked the Conventual Franciscan friars (who had settled with the Citadel of the Immaculate nearby) to guard the grotto.
Spiritual care was originally managed mainly by lay committees. Pasquale Prefetti himself was part of a Lay Committee for the custody of the Grotto of the Revelation, whose president was Enrico Contardi. The Committee dissolved in 1948. There were two other attempts to create organized lay groups: the Pious Union of Ladies of the Grotto (of women only) and the Association of Zealots of the Virgin of the Revelation, which was born in the early ’50s and dissolved in 1970 with the death of its president Giovanni Battista Perasti. Initially, the cult was cautiously supported by the Trappist monks of the nearby abbey, who exerted political pressure (consulting Luigi Sturzo and, through him, Giulio Andreotti) to build a sanctuary around the grotto.

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