“La sacra cintola! La sacra cintola!”
I knew what the Virgin’s girdle would be like, for had I not seen her handing it to St. Thomas in Lippo Lippi’s picture in this same town of Prato, as she flew up to heaven in the radiance of her youth and beauty, standing on cherubs’ heads and escorted by angels? But now so far as I could see this tasselled belt, it seemed to correspond ill with the waist measurement of the little mother of Nazara.
Some white pigeons fluttered round the priest’s head and settled on the pulpit, and a great sigh of ecstasy went up from the people.
I looked round at the little Bacchus. But he was still smiling.
I stood before an altar in a little church, but this time a sweet-faced woman in a wimple stood beside me.
“The wall is behind the altar,” she said. “And once a year the miraculous image of the Madonna of the Bed is shown to the people of Pistoja and the pilgrims, exactly as Our Lady of the Graces impressed it on this piece of wall here when she appeared to the sick girl. Very beautiful is she in her crown and mantle, clasping to her arms the crowned Bambino as she flies upwards.”
“And where is the bed?”
“The bed was removed from this sanctuary, which it blocked up disproportionately. A separate little chapel was built for it.”
We passed to the bed-chapel by way of the old cloisters of the Ospedale, and saw in a small room a heavy brownish wooden bed with a red quilt, made as for an occupant. A Madonna and Child was painted on the headpiece, and a Madonna and Child at the foot, and a Madonna and Child hung on the wall.