Madonna della Guardia

Being a treasured icon for three generations of Italian-American Catholics at Corpus Christi Parish in San Francisco, the Madonna della Guardia has been restored after a destructive fire. In 1941, a group of church members traveled to Genoa, Italy, to procure such a statue and found her. The church brings it out once a year for the Feast of the Madonna della Guardia in late August.

In 2006 an arsonist broke into the church and set the blanket-covered statue on fire after dousing it with gasoline. While beating out the flames, firemen broke off pieces of arms, hands, and heads. The church was able to find a sculptor to recreate all of the missing pieces, sculpting several of them from scratch, using old photos of the statue for reference. Tragic story, but personally, I think the burned version is really beautiful.