Museum of Tears, Syracuse

The Museum of Weeping is the most important of the three Museums of the Sanctuary because here are exhibited documents, photographs, and newspaper articles concerning the “”Weeping of the Madonna in Syracuse,”” but also numerous objects related to this event such as some cloths used to clean the weeping statue of the “”Little Madonna,”” the test tubes and tools used to analyze the chemical composition of these tears (which turned out to be “”human”” with a chemical composition similar to that of a child’s tears) as well as the wooden desk that confirmed the authenticity of the tears shed by the “”Madonna,”” the trowel with which the “”First Stone”” of the Sanctuary was raised in 1964 used by the then Cardinal of Sicily Ernesto Ruffini, the pontifical ring of Monsignor Ettore Baranzini who was Archbishop of Syracuse during the years in which the cult of the “Madonna of the Tears” developed (1953 – 1973), the gold “Cross” of Monsignor Sebastiano Rosso, first rector of the nascent “Sanctuary,” various liturgical objects including a silver Chalice and Monstrance donated by the Cassone family and numerous rather precious Ex votos.