fra' claudio 6

Santa Lucia di Piave [bij Venetië]...

boasts a splendid church and a very high bell tower... 

the work of local artisans and artists, among which the sculptor Fra' Claudio Granzotto stands out.

His earthly pilgrimage began on 23 August 1900, and ended on 15 August 1947, the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary into heaven, as predicted by the holy pilgrim.

Interrupted school attendance at the beginning of the third year of elementary school, due to the sad family situations created after the death of his father, then still named Riccardo works, as an apprentice, in the workshops of artisans and as a bricklayer in the small construction company of his brother Giovanni, who will also build the beautiful bell tower, the pride of the parish of Santa Lucia.

Riccardo, from an early age, felt a strong inclination towards art. 

A natural, innate artistic vocation. Encouraged and supported by his family, and by the parish priest Don Vittorio Morando, Riccardo moved to Venice. 

He takes and passes the artistic high school exams, an indispensable prerequisite for enrolling in the sculpture school at the Academy. He will come out of it, after four years (1929) with the title of professor of sculpture, with full marks 10/10 with honors.

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Professor Riccardo is an established sculptor by now. 

But his success, his fame leaves him restless. 

Why?

He feels that the path followed so far does not satisfy him. 

There must be another one, perhaps more difficult, but one that excites him to walk. 

He perceives that 'beauty' and 'good' are inseparable... 

both in art and in life.

Riccardo meditates, prays, suffers, seeks. 

It also happened to Francis of Assisi at the beginning of his conversion.

He spends entire nights in front of the Blessed Sacrament, by which he will be more and more enlightened and motivated in his radical choice of life: 

a clean break with the world !

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On November 27, 1933... 

he entered the convent, in San Francesco del Deserto... 

to devote himself exclusively to God and to sacred art.

Four months after his dressing, he must leave the enchanting island of the Venetian lagoon for the first, grandiose work commissioned from him by his superiors: the Lourdes Grotto in Chiampo.

He goes to Lourdes to study and contemplate the original. 

In one year, he made this immense sculpture with incessant work of trowel and chisel. 

The finished cave renders the Lourdian environment with such truth, that it makes him say: 'Many will come here to pray!'

The cave was inaugurated on 29 September 1935. 

Riccardo returned to San Francesco del Deserto to begin the canonical year of the novitiate, as a lay brother (7 December 1935). From that day on, Prof. Riccardo Granzotto will simply be called Fra' Claudio.

Cardinal Albino Luciani, patriarch of Venice, during a concelebration at the Grotto of Chiampo, in 1976, surprised everyone by saying: 

'In this cave, Fra Claudio gave, without knowing it, the touch of Franciscan art to Franciscan theology on the Immaculate Conception. With the most devoted statue of him, he gave a marble seal to the books of his theological confreres.'

[bron]