Immaculate Conception

Placed in a niche decorated with a neo-Renaissance frame inside the chapel dedicated to the Canossa family, the sculpture is one of the rare examples of representation of the sacred theme present in the Monumental Cemetery of Verona. In the white marble the Virgin Mary is carved while she is crushing with the foot the head of a snake, symbol of Satan. The work represents the Genesis passage which reads: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel”: the phrase is part of the curse directed by God to the serpent that had tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden and is considered the first announcement of the advent of the Messiah through the immaculate conception.