[2] Leonard of Port Maurice, who died in 1751, appears to be the first to have composed a full-length hymn entitled Evviva Maria as praises in honour of the Virgin Mary with 39 verses.
This devotion struck many pilgrims and travelers, as in 1836.,[12] in 1838, the English voyager William J. Alban Sheehy,[13] and similarly, French Trappist monk Ferdinand de Géramb.
[15] In 1866, Scottish historian James Aitken Wylie recalls hearing ciociari pilgrims singing Evviva Maria at the sanctuary of Loreto "at the top of their voices".
"[20] After the proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception was pronounced, Pope Pius IX encouraged Marian devotion by his brief of 10 July 1854 annexing an indulgence of three hundred days to the recitation of this hymn.
Thus, in 1852, archbishop of Dublin Cardinal Paul Cullen headed one of his letters as Evviva Maria as he led the movement toward the emancipation to obtain freedom for Catholics in Ireland.
[26] In her 1866 novel A Sisters' story, French author Pauline Marie Armande Craven confirms that Evviva Maria had become a classical piece in France as well, as it could be sung on major feasts, such as Christmas.
[27] In 1873, the Franciscan friars of Tuscany included the Evviva Maria in their missionary effort to encourage Marian devotion[28] From 1867, it became more and more universal and reached youth movements in ordinary parishes as it became one of the hymns of the Daughters of Mary, founded by Lateran canon Alberto Passeri.
After the Second Vatican Council, in 1969, it was still an impressive expression of religious feelings in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome[38] but around the same time, it was associated with "black old women clutching candles as tall as themselves [shrieking] in unison" in Calabria.
[39] Through the 1980s[40] and until today, this hymn remains widely popular on feast days of the Virgin Mary and in sanctuaries devoted to the Blessed Mother in Rome, at the Santuario della Madonna del Divino Amore[41] in Southern Italy, Sicily[42] where it is sung along the Dio vi salvi Regina and also in Corsica since the first mission of Leonardo di Porto Maurizio.
In her 1866 novel A Sisters' story, French author Pauline Marie Armande Craven confirms that Evviva Maria had become a classical piece in France as well, as it could be sung on major feasts, such as Christmas.
[49] American novelist Mary Agnes Tincker refers to Evviva Maria in her novel The Two Coronets (1887) which she associates with "little dirty children [...] sitting in the dust of the road".
[51] Evviva Maria was featured as a diegetic musical background[52] "caricaturing [...] church processions honoring the Virgin Mary"[53] in The Miracle,[54] directed by Roberto Rossellini, starring Anna Magnani and Federico Fellini, and which was condemned by the National Legion of Decency as "anti-Catholic" and "sacrilegious" and in February 1951 the New York State Board of Regents, in charge of film censorship for the state, which then revoked the license to show the film.