This relief is on a large brass plate located between the two doorways to the Sacred Heart Italian Church. The accompanying plaque reads:
"November 28, 1887, Piacenza, Italy
Bishop John Scalabrini
sends his first four missionaries to the
Americas to minister to Italian immigrants.
This sculpture was donated by
FRANK AND JEAN PRIVITERA.
Frank was baptized in this church on
March 25, 1932"
The relief's own inscription reads:
"November 28, 1887, Piacenza, Italy
Bishop John Scalabrini
sends his first four missionaries to the
Americas to care for the Italian immigrants.
In September of 1888 Father Francisco Zaboglio, a
Scalabrinian is installed First Pastor
of the Scared Heart italian Parish.
This sculpture was donated by
FRANK AND JEAN PRIVITERA.
Frank was baptized in this church on
March 25, 1932
The artist is Richard Aliberti.
This website (
visit link) also informs us:
"Sacred Heart Church
A house of worship has stood in North Square, America’s oldest public square, since 1649. The first of two Congregational churches burned to the ground in 1676; the second in 1770. The present building was constructed in 1833 and for 38 years served as a Seamen’s Bethel where the Methodist Minister Rev. Edward T. Taylor preached; his name became a household word among the seamen of his time. Herman Melville, author of “Moby Dick”, made frequent visits to the Bethel; Charles Dickens also visited to hear him preach. Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson eulogized Rev. Taylor’s passing. The Boston Port Society, the original owners of the Bethel, in 1847 erected the Mariners House on the opposite side of the square, which remains a seamen house even to the present day.
In 1884, a group of Italian immigrants forming the Saint Mark Society, purchased the building. In 1888, it was called the Sacred Heart by Archbishop Williams and entrusted to the Scalabrini missionaries who came to America to minister to Italian immigrants. Sacred Heart Italian Church was the first church in Boston under the Congregation of Saint Charles Boromeo, whose Scalabrini Fathers staffed the church from the time of its opening in 1889 till 2004."