Last year while visiting Turin I attempted to try and find out a little more about Luigi Crosio. He is the man who painted the ‘Mother Thrice Admirable’ picture, previously known as ‘Refugium peccatorum’. Within Schoenstatt Luigi is the most famous non member. Despite his close ties through the painting he neither knew of Schoenstatt, nor lived long enough to become aware of how important his creation had become within the movement’s history. My personal interest lies in simple curiosity, plus a feeling that he deserves a little more recognition from Schoenstatt who in a real sense owe him so much.

Last year’s investigation were almost a disaster as my visit to Turin coincided with Feragosto, the Italian summer holidays where life shuts down for at least a week. . Being an amateur in this field trying to find information was proving problematic as most potted biographies simply repeat the same few points. Fortunately a few details were unearthed last year which allowed me to quickly take up where I left off. I visited both the National and Civic libraries to find out when he died and if there was perhaps an obituary. Luigi is reported to have lived between 1835 and 1915. The National Library only had a few fragile ragged copies of ‘La Stampa’ for 1915 while the Civic Library thankfully had the whole year on micro film and for two days I trawled through 365 days worth of obituaries and death notices and found nothing.

It was most discouraging it felt as if the man had disappeared totally from view. Two towns vie with each other claiming Crosio was born there. The one most quoted is Alba which lies about an hour and a half by bus from Turin. Travelling to Alba’s local community archive I checked the records there and no one with the name of Crosio was in the local graveyard. Positively the woman at the desk gave me the address of the records office in Turin and next day I tried city archives for births, marriages and deaths and here I hit my first success.

Yes they had Luigi’s death on record and the reason I could never find him was because he died aged 81 years at 10:30 am on Saturday 15th January 1916, not 1915. With a copy of his death certificate I even discovered his wife was called Paolina. This completes the names of all the Crosio family, who are Luigi and Paolina the parents, and the four daughters Camilla, Annette, and Bianca Carola.

Going back to the Civic Library I could immediately search the death notices for 15th January 1916 and sure enough in both ‘La Stampa’ and in the ‘Gazzetta dell Popolo’ there was his name and the Turin address, 106 Via Nizza where he stayed. What was rather sad was that there was absolutely no further information, no obituary or formal death notice inviting friends and associates to the funeral. He was close to his daughters, but I think the lack of information lay in the other articles that crammed the newspaper columns. Europe and Italy were sinking deeper into the events of the First World War. Each page screamed the sad stories of military plans, deaths and battles. With all this the death of an old romantic painter from another era must have been seen as a minor event in a world that was tearing itself apart.

One last hope was to find his grave. He was not in Turin according to my search last year nor was he not in Alba, perhaps Acqui Terme his true birth place mentioned on the death certificate. Sadly this proved another dead end. Yes the local graveyard had Crosio graves but if they were related they were of a much later generation. All this brings me back to opening title: ‘Where is Luigi?’ To misquote the television programme the X files: ‘the answer is still out there’.

History hunting has ended for this year. My own notes need revised and the details of the accepted biographical notes need examined more closely. I can see a few more walking shoes will need to be purchased to draw a complete picture.

On the top is a link to the biography of Luigi Crosio.

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