Prodigi ematici nell'Italia degli anni Trenta del Novecento: crocifissi sanguinanti, stigmate e apparizioni fra Asti e Voltago

During the 1930s, the town of Asti (Piedmont) was the scene of a blood prodigy (the bleeding of a crucifix) brought to the fore by the local and national press. The event, soon censured by the Church, was intertwined with the mystical and stig- matic experiences of a visionary from Asti and some girls from Veneto, brought to Asti by the rector of the town’s most popular Marian shrine. Although delegiti- mised by the ecclesiastical authority, these phenomena were widely propagated in an eschatological key by those who, among the exponents of the clergy and intransigent Catholic culture, saw their potential in the anti-modern mobilisation.