The Shield of Saint Michael

The Legend

The Shield of Saint Michael, a sweet bread enriched with sugar on the top and suitable for breakfast or snack, is presented as a traditional product linked to the feast of the apparition of the Madonna to Mario Omodei that took place on September 29, 1504.

At dawn, the blessed was heading to his farm to gather figs in the place where today the sanctuary stands.

Here the Virgin appeared to him accompanied - according to tradition - by the archangel protector of the same Mario and by the archangel Saint Michael.

Michael is one of the most important angels of the celestial spheres: he was the one who cast Lucifer into hell when he rebelled against God and today he protects man and sacred places from the devil's danger.

Since 1589, his statue towers above the dome of the Basilica of Tirano giving rise to various legends; it is also a weather vane and can thus help in making weather predictions (when it points towards Switzerland, it is supposed to be good weather), Michael above the dome is the exact center of the Basilica square and for more than 400 years, he has watched over pilgrims and the entire city of Tirano.

That's why his shield becomes a sweet token of good fortune.

The shield is divided into several parts, and in one of them, a fig is hidden.

Whoever finds it will be touched by the gaze of Michael?

On September 29, for over 500 years, in Madonna di Tirano, one of the oldest celebrations in the Alpine arc has been held, the Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the Tirano Mario Homodei that occurred in 1504.

Over the centuries, around the Feast of the Apparition, traditions that are now over a century old have emerged, such as the famous Fair of Saint Michael, scheduled for the Sunday before the day of the apparition, that is, September 29.

A fair of goods and livestock among the oldest in the Alpine arc, which constituted a long-awaited business event for all of Valtellina and to which merchants from neighboring regions and European cities gathered with all kinds of goods.

Other traditions are more recent but have already fully entered the local culture, such as that of the Shield of Saint Michael.

Created on the occasion of the first 500th anniversary of the Apparition, the result of the ingenuity of the bakers of Madonna di Tirano, the Shield of Saint Michael has now become a typical sweet of the city's gastronomic tradition.

Produced every year from September 1 to October 15, this sweet was born specifically to celebrate the Apparition of the Madonna who, accompanied by the archangel Michael, promised the end of the plague that until then had plagued our valleys. 

The Shield of Saint Michael is a sweet votive bread enriched with sugar granules on the top and divided into wedges, one of which contains a fig, symbol of the Blessed Mario's basket of figs. 

Tradition holds that the humble Mario, while in his garden gathering figs, was transported by angels to the place where today stands one of the most important sanctuaries in Lombardy, the Basilica of Madonna di Tirano, the place of religious identification for the people of Valtellina. 

Whoever finds the fig in the wedge of the Shield will be protected throughout the year by the gaze of Saint Michael, who in Christian belief is the Archangel protector against the demon.

The typical shape of this sweet bread, which by tradition is made exclusively by the bakers of Madonna, resembles the shape of a shield, an element of the iconography of this warrior Archangel whose statue has towered over the dome of the Sanctuary for over four hundred years, holding sword and shield.