The Chapel of the Madonna del Popolo has always been a place of great devotion for all Veronese citizens. Here, beneath the golden statue created by Vincenzo Cadorin in 1920, depicting Mary and her Child seated on a throne and surrounded by cherubs, stands the altar on which is placed the urn containing the famous relic known as the ‘spina’, the fish bone believed to have been used to behead the Christian martyrs Fermo and Rustico on the banks of the River Adige. Tradition and popular devotion dictate that it be displayed during periods of severe drought to invoke the intervention of the Virgin Mary, to beseech her to bring rain.
