The 'year 1627 was noted as a year of famine. In that year became extinct lineage of the Marquis of Monferrato and Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy House allied with the Spaniards to take over the vacant Marquis at the expense of the Dukes of Nevers, supported by France. The result was a long war and Piedmont was horribly devastated by the two hosts, namely the French and the Spanish. And it is the passage of these armies, then without the slightest organization toilet, which broke the most terrible plague that can affect humanity: "The Black Death".

These armies hungry, messy, just eager to robbery, violence and looting, destroying and smeared with the filthy traces of their passage Piedmont, battlefield and forced passage of armies, coming down from the Alps. If the policy of Charles Emmanuel I of Piedmont liberated by French troops, he could not free him from the plague Let us collect. The epidemic swept everywhere, violent, killing the dead, the rampant theft and money imbestialivano people. In all this degradation and death, there were those who took it upon himself to redeem the shame and evil of others. They were the fathers of the Reformed St. Bernard, the Theatines of the Convent of the Trinity, the Capuchins of Our Lady of the Mount (the current Monte dei Cappuccini). 

From Vercelli, Turin, Carmarthen, Savigliano, in Moncalieri, Leini, Lanzo was one and the same cry of pain. It seems that Chieri lost a third of the population, Villafranca Piemonte was almost destroyed in Carmarthen stinking corpses lay in the countryside. In Cuneo did not know how to bury the dead and Cuorgnè, died provost with 600 parishioners in Settimo Torinese 800 people remained in 90. 

And Leini? Historians say that Leini could be said to be an open-air graveyard where the dead haunt the air spreading the terrible evil. It seems that the survivors were three families, maybe five. In this extreme distress the Leinicesi turned with fervor, with ardent faith in the Blessed Virgin, because he had pity on them. Just outside the concentric stood a shrine, lonely, in which an unknown artist painted a Madonna. From there, a day at the height of the plague step one of the survivors. This man was deaf and dumb from birth and returning from the fields desolate and uncultivated as a result of the famine, he stopped before the image of the Virgin and you gave a thought to whether, for his family and for Leini. And here's a very bright light scuarciare the heavens and the Blessed Virgin that he invest in a silent language fervently implored: "... save, save Mary, Leini, hear our prayer, save us ...". The nice lady smiled at him to express the fulfillment of his prayer and in the meantime with his mighty hand he put a ring around the neck of the Holy Rosary. A shiver invest the lucky, the tongue loosed, and from his mouth came a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Virgin. He, deaf, heard for the first time a voice, that of the Blessed Mother who told him: "... goes, announces that on my honor further raising a church in this place and I will ask my son to stop the plague ... ". It was on June 1, 1630, the streets silent and desolate Leini, the successful running beside himself shouting at the miracle, announcing that the pestilential disease has ceased, that the Blessed Virgin prayed for Leinicesi. The few survivors heard the wonders of the miracle and joined with him in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. From that day he stopped the plague, the sick healed, and the survivors were able to meet, appalled by the depth of the evil that he had scourged and for the wonderful grace that the Virgin had given them powerful. The voice of the miracle leinicese, quickly ran from house to house and from village to village and residents near and far flocked to the shrine depicting the Blessed Mother to ask in prayer for the end of the plague and countless other favors, Our Lady of Grace Mother Benigna, granted by His blessings and consolations. ... The lady asked them a sanctuary, the Leinicesi the solemn promises you built it ... That the revered shrine was built to commemorate the great benefit as the inscription who has been affixed on the front: "Sacellum hoc BM Gratiarum Virgini Matri against pestiferam emu to majoribus dicatum year 1630". The Leinicesi celebrated every year on the Our Lady of Grace, August 15.

 

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