Votive tablets in Trastevere

On the wall of the former orphanage Madonna degli Orfani in Trastevere, Rome, numerous votive tablets frame a portrait of the Madonna. Votive gifts or votive offerings (from the Latin vovere, “vow”) are objects that are offered publicly as symbolic sacrifices after rescue from an emergency and in a special, cultic place. Votive offerings were originally gifts to deities, which could be both supplications and thank offerings. In Europe, examples of votive offerings have been documented since the Stone Age. In the Catholic Church, votive tablets were particularly widespread in the Baroque period. They testified to a miraculous salvation from an emergency and were marked with the written note ex voto (lat. “because of a vow,” from votum, “vow”).

Ex voto on the wall of the former orphanage Madonna degli Orfani in viale Trastevere, Rome, Italy; color photography, 2014, photographer: Sergio D'Afflitto; source: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014-03-29_Ex_voto_Roma_viale_Trastevere.jpg,  Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.