This statue is the most successful work of sculptor Fr Michele Filippo Cattaneo (1815-1886), the Canon who by his example of charity was a model for Louis Orione.
Fr Cattaneo had a particularly interesting artistic vein. After delighting in painting, ceramics and sculpture, he devoted himself above all to modelling sacred works, some of which were intended to adorn chapels devoid of devotional images. These include the statue for the Don Bosco’s church.
The statue was personally brought to Don Bosco by Fr Cattaneo, who undertook a long journey by train to Valdocco to deliver it.
The statue, initially white and blue, was later gilded by Don Bosco. It was normally placed in a niche of the Basilica and was carried in procession by the young people from the Valdocco Oratory on the annual festival of 24 May. Later it was placed on the altar of Saint Anne.
Louis Orione, during his years in the Salesian Institute, often visited the statue and led his dearest companions and his fellow villagers to visit "his Madonna" and was always in front of the statue sculpted by his Canon who on 29 January 1888 offered his life so that the Lord would prolong Don Bosco's valuable life.
For this reason, many years later, in 1964, Fr Lorenzo Nicola, an Orionian from the parish of Vallette in Turin, wrote to the then Rector Major, Fr Renato Ziggiotti, asking to be able to bring Cattaneo’s statue to Spain, where a new seminary for 200 students would be opened, dedicated to Fr Orione.
When the seminary closed in 1996, the statue was moved again, for the final time, to the Nuestra Señora de Fátima school in the municipality of Posada de Llanes, where it was welcomed in early 1997.
Source: Salesian Bulletin
