The Rosa Mystica apparition in Montichiari Cathedral

Pierina Gilli was born on 3 August 1911. She was a nurse's aide in Desenzano and a postulant of the Handmaids of Charity. Her first vision of the Madonna came in November 1946. A Lady in purple, three swords piercing her heart. By 13 July 1947 the swords lay on the floor. Three roses, white, red and gold, rested on her chest.

Then the visions moved into the Duomo of Santa Maria Assunta in Montichiari. 16 November 1947. 22 November. 7 December. On 22 November, by Gilli's account, the Lady said: "I have come down to this place because here will be great conversions." She would return on 8 December at noon. On the eve, Gilli saw two children in shining white robes holding the Lady's hands. She knew them as Francisco and Jacinta Marto of Fátima.

Mgr Agostino Gazzoli, acting for the Bishop of Brescia, discouraged her from going. At 11:30 she said: "Now it is necessary that I go." She arrived alone at noon. The cathedral was packed. Estimates run from about 1,000 people to thousands. During the Rosary she began the Miserere, and the people joined in.

Then she saw it. A great white staircase, lined on both sides with white, red and gold roses, coming down from a light to the church floor. The Lady descended several steps with great majesty. "I am the Immaculate Conception. I am Mary of Grace, the Mother of my Divine Son Jesus Christ." She asked to be called the Mystical Rose, and for an Hour of Grace for the whole world each 8 December at noon. No one else saw her. The crowd saw only Gilli.

Three healings were claimed that day. Ugo Senici, a boy with polio who could not stand, suddenly ran and jumped. Teresina Magli, 26, unable to speak, sang out a song of praise. Lauriana Zamboni, 36, was said to be healed at home while her family prayed in the basilica. No medical verification of these cures has been found.

A diocesan commission questioned Gilli. A later press account says it found a "hysterical personality", hallucinations and a nature "prone to lying and falsification". She was reportedly kept apart for 40 days, without confession, Communion or family. In May 1949 Bishop Giacinto Tredici asked her to stay out of public view. She spent 19 years as a servant at the Franciscan convent in Brescia. In 1984 Bishop Bruno Foresti wrote that the apparitions "do not present motives of credibility." The Holy Office under Ratzinger rejected the matter too.

From 2016, new experts for the diocese found Gilli "normal, humble, not histrionic, well oriented in time and space." Mgr Alba called the first process "summary and lacunose". On 7 December 2019 Bishop Pierantonio Tremolada made Fontanelle, the spring where Gilli reported later apparitions in 1966, a diocesan shrine.

5 July 2024. Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote, with Pope Francis's approval, that the spiritual proposal "does not contain theological or moral elements contrary to the doctrine of the Church." It came with cautions. It is not a ruling that anything supernatural happened. The apparitions remain, in one Italian paper's words, still not recognised.

Gilli died on 12 January 1991. Her words "I am the Immaculate Conception" echo Lourdes. The Rosa Mystica devotion now reaches around the world, with statues, a medal and the noon Hour of Grace.