Apparition of the Virgén del Pilàr to Saint James and his disciples

The "ancient pious believing", probably dated back to the Ascension of Jesus, is attested in a XIII century document preserved in the cathedral of Saragozza, saying that the Virgin (yet living) appeared in Spain on a pillar in the night of the 2nd january 40 a.C. to Saint James apostle, brother of John, during a meeting with his eight disciples on the banks of the Ebro, telling them to build a church around the pillar. The painting, probably from the oratory of the pillar of Fidenza, destroyed in 1944, reproduces the tale of the apparition as told by the aragonese tradition, that maybe reached Parma through the devotion of the duchess Luisa Elisabetta of Borbone (1727-1759).