The Sanctuary of Valverde and the Great Siege

My thanks to Fr Mark Cauchi OSA for drawing attention to the connection between the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Valverde near Catania, and the Great Siege of Malta of 1565 (September 17).

The story behind the two iron cannon balls now hanging in the chapel of the Crucifix of that sanctuary (not the main shrine, as illustrated) is even more compelling than the one narrated by Fr Cauchi. It makes little sense to give prominence to two ordinary cannon balls - and these are not "ordinary" in any sense of the word. According to the annals of the sanctuary, those are the cannon balls that killed the dreaded corsair Dragut on June 23, the day Fort St Elmo fell. They have been on display since 1565.

Dragut (Turgut Rais) "unsurpassed in seamanship and audacity" had been the scourge of Southern Italy for many years, inflicting untold terror and harm on the coastal cities in dreadful razzie no one seemed to be able to resist. The soldiers of the Sicilian galleys on the ramparts during the Great Siege had invoked the protection of the Madonna of Valverde when firing those iron balls, and one of them killed Dragut - uncertain if by direct hit or by dislodging a splinter of rock which smashed his skull in. The invincible corsair was 80 years old then, according to some chronicles. The soldiers later retrieved the iron balls and offered them to Our Lady as a trophy, a memento and a sign of gratitude.

I intend to write at greater length on this virtually unknown episode in a feature Great Siege - Small Morsels to be published in The Sunday Times.