Do you remember Fr. Foster? His new Latin Academy is located in Rome on the Via della Gatta… "Kitty Avenue".
"But Father! But Father!", you ask, scratching your heads, "Why is it called "Cat Street? Are there cats there?!?"
In the Via della Gatta, there is a little cat perched up on the edge of a building.
The cat had its origin in a Temple of Isis, which had been a street or so over. Romans tooks old stuff from these ancient buildings and used it, incorporated it, and generally played with it in their buildings. Someone clearly had a sense of humor with this cat.
In any event, many streets here ften acquired their names from what sort of merchandise was sold there or some little detail to be found along the way. You can just imagine a conversation:
"EEUU MASSIMO!… Let’s meet later for a forchettata and a quartino!"
"Where???"
"We’ll meet over on that street where the cat is."
"The cat? Oh yah! The street with the cat. See ya there!"
Ecco. Via della Gatta.
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The Madonnela is more beautiful than the cat…
Sidney…. Yahhhhhhh…. but that isn’t the name of the street, though. Is it?
Why there is a Madonnela in every corner of Rome?
Sidney: There isn’t one on every corner. There are quite a few, roughly one per neighborhood as they were loosely conceived long ago. People in their neighborhoods were very attached to their images of Mary and many of them still well maintained. You can often find fresh flowers, as a matter of fact.
Beautiful tradition. Thanks.
Many Frenchmen had their bellies cut for trying to remove our Madonnella’s during Napoleon’s invasion of Italy and his anti-Catholic oppression.
“m’hai comprato ‘n cortelluccio genovese
che po’ sbucia’ li muri de le case
figurete la panza de ‘n francese”
(you bought me a little kife made in Genoa
one that could cut a house’s wall
imagine what it’ll do to the belly of a Frenchman)