The Bavarian Christ Child in Puglia: A Sacred Artifact on a Roots Journey
Sacred art in Puglia carries centuries of migration, faith, and cultural exchange. In a bustling sunlit piazza in the heel of Italy’s boot, I once met a small Bavarian Christ Child that told a story of movement, identity, and the unexpected ways we are found by grace.
When I took my mother to Puglia for her 80th birthday, I thought I was simply giving her a gift: a return to the place of her father’s birth. A chance to stand where her lineage began. But pilgrimage has a way of offering gifts you never expect. I planned those sixteen days with the same obsessive devotion I bring to genealogy research, meticulously researching and laying out each itinerary item in its perfect place. Coastal drives, sacred churches, hidden trattorias, the October sun pooling over whitewashed stone — all stitched together into a journey that was meant to be hers and somehow, inevitably, became mine too.
