Erba della Madonna, part two. How Dr. Balatri rediscovered the plant’s medicinal powers in Florence and how Giacomo and Orti Dipinti inherited its legacy (and that of a saint).
Sergio Balatri was still practicing medicine that evening in October 1978 in the San Giovanni di Dio Hospital in Florence. Today, the ancient hospital still has beautiful marble inlays. And Dr. Balatri still wears his mustache curled.
Some two thousand years earlier, St. Mark was walking through the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, when he saw a shoemaker who had injured himself while repairing a shoe. Well, there and then, the saint made an ointment out of earth and saliva, and healed the wound. A miracle!
FLORENCE AND EGYPT, AND TWO DISTRACTED SHOEMAKERS
That evening in 1978, another shoemaker named Antonio showed up at the hospital. He had injured himself repairing a shoe. The doctors told him he might end up losing his toe. A disaster! Well, just then, Dr. Balatri remembered something.
He remembered a plant called «della Madonna» which his mother had used to treat certain wounds on fingers and toes. Antonio had nothing to lose – except his toe – so he accepted the doctor’s proposal and made compresses out of that herb that carried such a holy name.
THE DOCTOR’S (AND ST. MARK’S) LEGACY
You guessed it. Antonio recovered. Completely. A miracle? Not at all. Dr. Balatri began to do research – which is ongoing today – on the medicinal properties of erba della Madonna, which Florence’s gardens had preserved in its flower pots and its memory.
You’ve also guessed which garden inherited the legacy of Dr. Balatri, St. Mark and the shoemakers healed in Alexandria and Florence. Orti Dipinti. Managed and cared for by Giacomo. With a lot of research. But also with the desire to tell fascinating stories.
