The practice of offering ex-votos to give thanks or to invoke a favor goes back to ancient times. In ancient eras, and beyond, even the construction of a sanctuary or temple was often a result of a favor received; for example, the Basilica of St. John the Evangelist in Ravenna was built by Galla Placidia as a thanksgiving for having escaped, along with her son, the storm that struck the ship she was on during a journey between Ravenna and Byzantium.
Terracotta or wooden ex-votos addressed to minor deities, such as the goddess Mefitis, are often found during archaeological excavations. In Roman times, as testified by the greatest writers of the period—Virgil, Cicero, Horace, and Tibullus—it was customary for sailors to hang painted votive tablets around their necks, dedicated to Isis, the goddess who protected from storms, or to Neptune, Castor, and Pollux, the protective gods of sailors. The tablets depicted the scene in which they had been protagonists during a danger or storm; there was also another reason for displaying ex-votos publicly: begging to recover at least part of the value of the goods lost during the storm. Widely used on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Near East, the ex-voto is, however, a phenomenon known elsewhere as well, for instance in regions bordering Italy such as Switzerland, the former Yugoslavia, and Austria.
It is curious that the craftsmanship of votive tablets produced in Italy is quite uniform, whether made in the north, center, or south, as if they had been produced by a single workshop. The guidelines for producing votive tablets were followed according to fairly precise rules, although this form of expression falls under what is very generally defined as “folk art.” The votive tablet is a real treasure trove of information and, through it, one can track the evolution of our maritime tradition; from drawings dating back to the 1500s onward, we see dramatic events such as waterspouts or rough seas breaking against the coasts, or pirate attacks involving all kinds of boats and crews. Trabaccolos, galleys and galeasses, 17th-century saettie, tartanes, Sorrentine polaccas, and felucones are the vessels depicted; the boats are represented in various shapes and with different types of rigging and sails, following the progress of naval architecture up to depictions of steamships colliding with sailing ships, almost emphasizing the definitive shift from traditional to “automated” navigation.
The technique used for creating votive tablets is generally oil painting on wooden panels; occasionally, watercolors on paper were pasted onto a panel. In the 18th century, canvas was widely used, while from the last century other materials such as zinc, cardboard, masonite, and glass have been introduced. The favor requested or received is depicted in two or three successive scenes within the same painting, and the position of the interceding deity—usually the Madonna—is always at the top, sometimes centered but more frequently at one of the two upper corners of the panel; in the 1500s and 1600s formulas like V.F.G.A or V.F.G.R., “Votum fecit et Gratiam Accepit or Recepit,” were usually drawn in the lower left and repeated as many times as favors received. In later centuries, the acronyms P:G:R: or P.G.O., meaning “for favor received or obtained,” were used. Rarely dated and never signed, ex-votos are cataloged precisely based on the scenes depicted: the type of clothing, architecture, customs prevalent at a given period, and the iconography of the Madonna are the elements studied for correct dating.
Undoubtedly, ex-votos serve as the “thermometer” of devotion to one saint over another: the more votive tablets collected in a church or shrine, the greater the popular devotion to that divinity to which the place is dedicated; for example, in the Sanctuary of the Madonna dell’Arco thousands of ex-votos dating from the 1500s onward are gathered, covering a wide range of subjects, from volcanic eruptions to road accidents, from episodes of exorcism to simple falls. The sanctuary also houses a considerable number of maritime votive tablets, which are often collected in chapels near the sea. In the charming little church of Albori, a village on the Amalfi Coast, there is an abundance of ex-votos related to the maritime world. Among those who most frequently and consistently use ex-votos are certainly members of ship crews, united by danger and isolation with a constant sense of anxiety and religiosity; often resolved with the help of magic, the saint, or a miracle.
