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389. The story of Festino The holy bones
On the night of Tuesday 10th February 1625, Father Pietro Lo Monaco,
chaplain of this St. Hippolytus Church, in the area of "Capo",
was summoned to the bedside of a plague victim,
who lived in the so called "Pannaria" street.
His name was Vincenzo Bonello,
and even though he was a soap maker, people used to call him "the hunter",
because of his passion for hunting rabbits on the Mount Pellegrino.
The dying man began:
"Father, I want to confess, and tell about a miracle that happened to me…"
Father Pietro Lo Monaco immediately understood that there was big stuff going on
and came back to the sick man's bedside
together with a scribe, a notary and some witnesses.
And so, they they wrote the the hunter's words down in black and white.
The man told them that in a moment of despair because of his 15-year-old wife,
"to whom I had been married for two years,
I went to Mount Pellegrino in order to fling myself into the precipice above the sea".
Just then he saw "a young pilgrim woman",
who was "beautiful, with the face of an angel, surrounded by a great light",
and told him "come with me. I'll show you my place and my cell".
Thus, she took him right to the place where her bones were found.
To crown it all, she told him peremptorily:
"On God's behalf,
I command you to let the Reverend Cardinal know,
from the mouth of your Confessor,
that the remains he keeps in his rooms are my true body and bones".
And thus the bones were delivered, by notary deed,
to the City Senate, that is, to the Commune,
so that "they could be piously kept in the Cathedral Church".
And they are still here, in a pomp of silver,
which shows that we people from Palermo spare no expanse
when it comes to being thankful.
The soap maker had his miracle, and, in fact, he died after three days.
The Cardinal Giannettino Doria surrendered
In the meantime, he took Savoy's place as vicarious Viceroy.
Of course, the inhabitants of "Capo", Bonello's neighbors,
had a beautiful image of the Saint painted on a slate slab.
It was 1624.
The picture was originally placed in front of here,
on the building of "Pannaria", the pawnshop.
At the end of the Eighteenth Century it has been moved, because of renovation works,
in the place where you can find it still today.
In Palermo nothing is so long-lasting as provisory things.
The soap maker's house was locate here.
The building fell down after an air-raid in 1943.
Nobody has ever thought to put a commemorative stone marking this place.
To be continued