The little church of the Madonna del Ladro Buono, in Sicilian Madonna di lu Tribonu or di lu Latru Bonu, stands on the road climbing Monte Bonifato above Alcamo: a little above the bottino, the old aqueduct reservoir, at the second bend. It keeps an image of the Madonna of Pity with the dead Christ. According to tradition a thief lived here as a penitent, devoted to that image.
What to see
The legend of the good thief, according to the historian Francesco Maria Mirabella in a letter of 1931, was an invention of the Alcamo dialect poet Liborio Dia, and Tribonu would simply be a corruption of the dialect word tribona, a niche above an altar or a shrine. Research by Professor Carlo Cataldo found the name already in the seventeenth century: a notarial deed of 1674 mentions on the mountain an enclosure called la Tribona, with trees and sumac, and the name appears again in documents of 1723, 1810 and 1928.
In 1989 the little church was restored by its owners, the Mancuso family, who wrote the name Madonna del Ladro Buono on the façade. In place of the old print of Our Lady of Sorrows and the dead Christ there is now a canvas by the Alcamo painter Stefano Papa. Entering, to the right of the altar, is an old cistern: the faithful drank its water, believed to purify soul and body.
Visiting
The little church is private and lies along the Monte Bonifato road; openings should be checked, but the Fridays of March are still feast days.
Our editors' tip
In the early thirties, every Friday in March people climbed here in pilgrimage, on foot or by cart; but the pilgrimages had turned into country outings, so much so that the dialect poet Giuseppe Fulco complained of it in a poem, and from 1930 the March Fridays were also celebrated at the sanctuary of Maria Santissima dell'Alto.
