The Madonna del Sangue. A Miraculous Print in Bagno di Romagna

The Madonna del Sangue is a rare Italian single sheet woodcut, survived for centuries thanks to a miracle occoured in 1498. Unpublished letters by Camaldoli general Pietro Dolfin shed new light on the event, compared with the known tales on the miracle and with similar cases, like the Madonna del Fuoco in Forlì or the Madonna Bianca of Portovenere. The legend appears as the product of combined effort by different personalities in the Camaldolese order, from abbot Benedetto Tenaci to humanist Pietro Candido. Changing the viewer, so change the role and the way of considering the image. The Madonna di Bagno emerges also as one of the first, reliable dated, elements in a chain of similar images, related to indulgences, fast and widely spread across Europe thanks to woodcut's replication potential.