Legends of the Monti Sibillini

The book, published by Edizioni “Voce del Santuario Madonna dell'Ambro” (Montefortino, AP), is already in its 5th reprint. The price of €8.00 seems more than reasonable for a text of considerable value which first of all arouses curiosity and then, in a second moment, gives plenty of answers.

The Monti Sibillini are a mountain group whose very name speaks volumes about the legends that have gathered around them.

The aura of mystery also speaks through the many other names we find all over the group: Pizzo del Diavolo (Devil's Peak), Lago di Pilato (Pilate's Lake), Grotta delle Fate or della Sibilla (the Fairies' or the Sibyl's Cave), Gole dell'Infernaccio (roughly, “Wretched Hell” Gorge) and Passo Cattivo (the Wicked Pass). The sacred and the pagan intertwine right back to the most remote recesses, the earliest beginnings of the history of the Renaissance.

Giuseppe Santarelli offers us a careful, meticulous rereading of the historical writing on the two best-known legends of the Sibillini: the various versions of the legend of Lago di Pilato and the equally numerous versions of the legend of the Grotta della Sibilla. Santarelli manages to thrill the reader with a narrative that makes room both for imagination and for precise historical reconstruction.

Giuseppe Santarelli

A Capuchin friar, born in 1936 in Monte Giberto (FM), he graduated from the Università Cattolica in Milan – where for a decade he was assistant and lecturer in Italian Language and Literature (1967/1976) – and is the author of various well-regarded essays on literature, history and art. He is director of the Congregazione Universale della Santa Casa di Loreto, of the magazine “Il Messaggio della Santa Casa” and of the “Collana Lauretana di Studi e Testi” series. His literary interests have turned to Tasso's sacred verse (Premio Tasso 1971), to the Capuchins in Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed) and to Alfieri's comedies. On the historical side he has made a decisive contribution to the “Loreto question”. Among his historical studies we would mention: the previously unpublished “Virginis Mariae Loretae Historia” (c. 1468) by G. Ricci, Loreto 1987; I graffiti nella S. Casa di Loreto, Loreto 1994; and the substantial essay La Santa Casa di Loreto. Tradizione e ipotesi, Loreto 1997.

In the field of hagiography there are the Lives of Santa Sperandia (975), Beato Bernardo da Offida (1994) and San Serafino da Montegranaro (2004).

In the field of art: Oggetti d'arte presso i cappuccini di Jesi, 1999; I Tabernacoli lignei presso i cappuccini delle Marche, 1999. On Loreto: Loreto nella Storia e nell'Arte, Aniballi, Ancona 1997; La santa Casa di Loreto. Un'esperienza di fede e di arte attraverso i secoli, Mondadori, Milan 1999; L'arte a Loreto, Aniballi, Ancona 2005.

If you want to walk in the places of the legends, read the trip report A trip to the Monti Sibillini.