On 16 June 1864, 10 armed and masked men kidnapped the landowner Father Giuseppe Mazzenga and his coachman to Vicalvi, in the Fontana Castellana district, dragging him around the the Melfa Gorges for 12 days. The lawyer Chiara Recchia recounts this in *Le facce Travisate di Farina*, in which she describes how he was released after paying a substantial ransom. But in people’s imaginations, the story takes on different shades and hues, making the memory all the more intriguing.
The poor man Mazzenga He was tied to a raft suspended over a cliff on the Tracciolino. His captors were ordered to cut the rope and let him fall if they saw the police approaching, and poor Don Giuseppe vowed to erect an icon of the Virgin Mary at the site of his abduction, should he survive.
The negotiations dragged on. The bandits, whilst waiting for the loot, kept asking for wine and food, warning them not to try poisoning it because the prisoner would be the first to taste it. One of them betrayed them and passed on the correct information. But how could Mazzenga be freed when his life was literally hanging by a thread?
They had to evade the guards’ watchful eyes. It was therefore decided to send them some good wine laced with a sleeping potion. The bandits all fell asleep and, when they awoke, found themselves in chains. Mazzenga was taken to Alvito on a ladder used as a stretcher, and woke up in his bed at home. The vow was honoured, and the Virgin Mary is depicted in the photograph kindly sent to us by Angelo Capoccia, which was restored in 1967.
