Nettuno

Three of us visited Nettuno Sunday, arriving first at the church where Saint Maria Goretti is buried on our way to find the house where she had lived and been stabbed.  Asking one of the nuns there how we could get the house,  we were happy when a parishioner offered to drive us the distance out there.

He drove us first through the town, to the hospital where Maria had died after they’d rushed her there following the attack.  A chapel marks the room today.

Then we drove out to Ferriere where her family had moved three years before her death.  Sharing a home with the Serrenelli family, the kitchen and dining area were in common.  The Serrenelli’s youngest, the 19-year-old Alessandro, repeatedly attempted to approach the 11-year-old Maria, till on July 5th, 1902, he stabbed her 14 times when she resisted his attempt to rape her.

   

Our visit to the home was on a lovely sunny day.  Our transporting host dropped us off at the house, and the three of us were able to celebrate Mass in the chapel in the former kitchen.

Confirming that there were no busses running on Sunday, we hiked the 11 kilometers back into town, where we found a well-appreciated lunch before visiting the crypt where Maria is buried.

Nettuno lies on the Mediterranean, and together with the neighboring Anzio was the landing site for the Allies invasion of Italy in Operation Shingle on January 22, 1944.  With 83,000 casualties on both sides, of which 12,000 were fatalities, the attack was a punishing stalemate that filled the cemeteries near the towns.  Today’s peaceful harbor and beaches bear little mark of the recent past, except perhaps Nettuno’s designation as the ‘City of Baseball’, a local pursuit born from the time the Allies spent here during the war.