LUCEDIO's PRINCEDOM 

 
 
 
 
Lucedio's Princedom

 
 
Naming

The name "Lucedio" is derived from the Latin word "Lucus" meaning "Wood".  In Italian it sounds like "God's Light" because "Luce" means "Light" while "Dio" means "God".

Lucedio's Princedom and its Abbey is a fortified monastery built by Ranieri, Monferrato's Manquis in 1123.

It's probably years before there could be a Roman settlement.

Economy

Lucedio's monks have been very useful for agriculture.  They introduced the rice culture to this area by using a very wet ground with water layers.

You have to imagine that in these places around cities like Vercelli or Novara there were woods and marshes hidden by dense fog.  The ground was very acidic and wet.  People once cultivated corn here which was very expansive and difficult to farm.

With the introduction of rice, poeple discovered an alternative food that grew in this area.

They could work these fields they owned without trying to reclaim the marshy lands for the more expansive and rare corn.


 

Legends


Fog

Even if a winter fog is normal in these lands, here it is strange.

All around this land there is a two foot tall level of fog while usually it's as tall as a man or more.

It's like a floor and someone tried to justify this event with a geological explanation:  there are too many water layers here that are not so deep.


 
The evil presence

It's a longer story...
It all began in the nearby Darola farm, one of the bigger of this land. 

This farm was built over the ruins of an older castle of which we can only see its clipped tower today.

Not much farther from this farm, along the road to Lucedio, there is a graveyard now abandoned for many years.

People say that here is where the Devil meets witches to dance and perform their rituals.  Some say you can hear singing and shouting in the middle of some scary nights.


It's documented that in the year 1684 many young girls living in this area met the Devil in their dreams. 

He seduces them and young novices from the near Lucedio's Abbey.  These girls then went to the monks and converted them to Satanism.

From that moment on began a time of evil rituals, torments, cruelties and abuse against the people.  Word of these abuses made in the Devil's name arrived in Rome where Pope Pio VI decided to excommunicate the Abbey and its monks.  It was September 10, 1784.


 
The crying column

In an Abbey's room there is a column that mysteriously gets wet.  It's called "The crying column".

Legend has it that it cries because its seen all the cruelty and abuse between her walls.

This room is called the "Judgment Room".  This was the very room where the monks decided their sentences about people's crimes.


 

 
Guardians

This legend is about the S. Maria's crypt.  There's a crypt under the church where the abbots are buried. 

It seems as though they are down there to be the keepers of something evil blocked in the crypt.  People say that an evil presence was captured and caged under the church. 

To be certain it would not escape, guardians were needed to keep a forever watch. 

The guardians had to be powerful religious  men, like abbots, so they've been buried in a sit position, in circle.

There may could be a trapdoor or a box in the middle of the circle that contains the presence.

Another strange thing is the fact that all these abbots become mummified in a natural way. Mabye because there's an underground river called "Lino" that flows under the church and keeps the crypt wet.

You can find more pictures surfing the Italian version by clicking on the yellow/orange painted words.

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