Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Softcover, 47 pages, is a beautiful history of the famous painting of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, translated from the original Italian by Fr. Francis J. Connell, C.S.S.R. and originally published in 1940. Tradition holds that the original of this miraculous painting was created by Saint Luke the Evangelist and that the most famous copy of it is now in Rome. This is the story of that painting. Here are a few words from the Italian forward to this book: "This historical account of the celebrated picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help enjoys a notable advantage over the narratives hitherto published, in that it is based on a recently discovered document of great importance. When the picture was exposed for public veneration in the Church of Saint Matthew in Rome, toward the end of the fifteenth century, a brief account of the events surrounding its coming to the Eternal City was written on parchment in the Latin language. This document, affixed to a wooden tablet, was then suspended from the wall of the church near the high altar.
"This important record was unfortunately lost in 1798, when the Church of Saint Matthew was destroyed. However, a few years ago, there was found in the Vatican Library three copies of this document, made while the original was in existence. Thus, for all practical purposes, we have the very same document that hung for many years on the wall of Saint Matthew's Church. In the following pages, the story of how the picture came to Rome is, for the greater part, derived from this ancient record."
The original was destroyed by the Muslim invaders who conquered Constantinople in 1453. It had been venerated there since the 5th century.