Inside the Corpus Domini Basilica in Turin, there is an iron railing that closes in the place where it came true the first Eucharistic miracle that happened in Turin in 1453.
An inscription inside the railing describes the miracle: "Here the she-mule, that was carrying the Divine Body, fell prostrate - here the Sacred Host, having freed Itself from the bag that was imprisoning It, rose by Itself high - here clement came down among the suppliant hands of the Torineses - here then the place made holy by the miracle - remembering it, praying on your knees let it move you to venerate or to be in fear (June 6, 1453)".
In the Alta Val Susa, close to Exilles, the army of the duke, close to Exilles, the army of René D'Angiò met the army of the duke Ludovico of Savoy. Here the soldiers indulged in plundering the town and some of them entered the church.
One of them, forced open the tabernacle's little door and stole the monstrance with the consecrated Host. He wrapped up all that he had stolen in a bag and a mule he headed for Turin. On the main plaza, close to St.
Sylvester's church, near the Holy Spirit church, where later the Church of Corpus Domini was built; the she-mule stumbled and fell.
Then suddenly the bag opened and the monstrance with the consecrated Host rose over the surrounding houses while the people were filled with wonder. Among those present there was also Don Bartholomeo Coccolo.
He ran with the news to the Bishop, Ludovic of the Romagnano's Marquises.
The Bishop, accompanied by a cortege of people and clergy, went to the plaza, prostrated himself in adoration and prayed with the words of the Emmaus disciples, "Say with us, Lord".
Meanwhile a new miracle had happened: the monstrance had fallen on the ground, had let the consecrated Host free and shining, as a second sun.
The bishop who was holding a chalice in his hands, lifted it up high, and the consecrated Host slowly started coming down and landing in the chalice.
The devotion for the miracle of 1453 was at once adopted by the town that first promoted the building of an aedicule on the place of the Miracle, and then soon administered by the church dedicated to the Corpus Domini.
But the most significant display of this is expressed by the celebrations organized in occasion of the centenaries and fiftieth anniversaries (1653, 1703, 1853, and partially 1903). The documents that describe the miracles are many.
The most ancient are the three Capitulary Acts of 1455, 1455 and 1456, and some writings contemporary of the Turin Municipality. In 1853 the Blessed Pope Pius IX solemnly celebrated the fourth centenary of the miracle.
In this celebration Saint John Bosco and Don Rua participated. Furthermore, Pius IX on this occasion approved the Official and the Mass Proper of the miracle for the Turin archdiocese.
In 1928 Pius XI raised the Church of Corpus Domini to the dignity of minor basilica.
The Relic of the miracle was kept till the XV century when the Holy See gave order to consume it, "to not oblige God to make the miracle an eternal miracle by keeping always incorrupt, as they had been doing, those very same Eucharistic species".
Then suddenly the bag opened and the monstrance with the consecrated Host rose over the surrounding houses while the people were filled with wonder.
To those miraculous Host's tabernacle he built in the cathedral at Turin. The Host was removed from the tabernacle in 1492 when the works for the new cathedral begun. The miracle was planned by Meo del Caprino, were started.
In 1530, on the spot where the miraculous event took place, the oratorio of Matthew Smithlich and John Stephen Scaparone, paintings that were exalting the most important phases of the event.
These artworks are in the convent church of Corpus Domini, on the Acacia Venesia in 1604.
The building of Corpus Domini was decided by the community in order to keep alive the memory of the epidemic of the plague, and also to answer to a request made by the Holy Spirit Confraternity.
Luigi Vacca (1853), frescoes that decorate the basilica's vault and illustrate the stages of the miracle.
G.A. Rocchi, frescoes that describe the miracle and that are at the town hall of Turin.
Box of cypress made by the town of Turin in 1672 to keep the documents about the miracle.
The vein with which the monstrance Host had been preserved was transferred to Turin from Emilia in 1673 and in 1684 it was donated to the municipality that still today keeps it among the deposits of the municipality's historic archives.
Plaque on which is said that the Host of the miracle was consumed, to not oblige God to perform an eternal miracle...
Anonymous, Miracle of the Blessed Sacrament, occurred in the very famous and glorious town of Turin, in the year 1453 on June 6 about 8:00 P.M., engraved plate attached to The Secular Year (Simeon Collection, Turin, 1671).
The miracle represents the elevation of the consecrated Host at Emilia, the falling down of the mule, the ascension of the Host, and its depositing into the chalice. The two lateral arches are surmounted by the city's coat of arms.