The Weeping Madonna of Civitavecchia: Blood Matched to a Local Man's DNA

In February 1995, a small plaster Madonna statuette in the home of Fabio Gregori in Civitavecchia, Italy, was reported by approximately 60 witnesses to have wept blood on multiple occasions. The statue — bought as a souvenir at the Medjugorje shrine in Bosnia — was only 16 inches tall. News of the phenomenon spread rapidly, drawing pilgrims and international attention.

The local bishop, Girolamo Grillo, was initially cautious. He had the statue removed to his residence for safekeeping and notified police, who had the blood substance tested. Results established it was human blood typed as male. When investigators requested DNA samples from Fabio Gregori and the male members of his household to determine whether the blood originated from within the family, the family declined.

The diocesan commission appointed to investigate included no chemist, physician, or scientist — only theologians. It concluded there was no evidence of fraud but made no positive finding of supernatural activity. Meanwhile, chemist Luigi Garlaschelli at the University of Pavia demonstrated that capillary attraction through a fault in the glaze of a porous plaster statue can draw internal moisture to the surface, producing apparent 'weeping' without any external intervention.

In 2008 a related Italian criminal case established a precedent directly relevant to the Civitavecchia statue: church custodian Vincenzo Di Costanzo was tried for faking blood on a statue of the Virgin Mary. Forensic experts matched the blood's DNA to Di Costanzo's own saliva sample. The Civitavecchia case itself was never formally resolved by civil authorities, but the combination of male blood DNA, the family's refusal to be tested, and the adjacent criminal conviction left the phenomenon with no credible supernatural account.