Vede la Madre
E non vede il figliuolo.’
[10] I took another opportunity of asking the one who was familiar with Loreto, about Cirollo, and she explained its introduction into the story to mean that he was not to pay a hasty visit, but a thorough one, even though it was done so rapidly. ‘Cirollo,’ she said, ‘is a poor village with few houses, but the church is fine, and the Crucifix is reckoned miracolosissimo.’ In Murray’s map it is marked as Sirollo, close by the sea, without even a pathway from Loreto, about five miles to the north; and he does not mention the place at all in his text.
Subsequently I was talking with another who called herself a Marchegiana, i.e. from the March of Ancona, in which Loreto is situated, and boasted of having been born at Sinigallia, the birthplace of Pio Nono. ‘Have you ever been to Loreto?’ I asked by way of beginning inquiry about Cirollo.
‘Yes; six times I have made the pilgrimage from Sinigallia, and always on foot.’ she replied with something of enthusiasm. ‘And you who have travelled so far, you have been there too, of course?’
‘Not yet,’ I replied; ‘but I mean to go one day;’ and just as I was coming to my question about Cirollo, she added of her own accord:
‘Mind you do, and mind when you go you go to Sirollo too (she pronounced it Sirollo like the spelling in the map). ‘Everyone who goes to Loreto ought to go to Sirollo. There is a Crucifix there which is miracolosissimo.’ [↑]