WHO WE ARE

INFORMATIONS

WHERE WE ARE

CURIOSITY OF CASTELLUCCIO

CURIOSITY

LEGEND

Mounts Sibillini are, probably, the most legendary ones all over Centre-Italy. Maybe the harshness itself of those mountains, swept by a hissing wind, eroded by steeply torrents and drilled by extravagant karst phenomena, had a not little contribution in favouring a long series of whitchy legends and in making it, during the XIVth and XVth centuries, an out outstanding place, famous all over Europe for magical tales and negromantic initiations. The names of some of these places seem to confirm it: Pizzo del diavolo; Fossa dell'Infernaccio; Valle Scura; Passo cattivo; Passo delle Streghe... Why "Sibilla's Cave"? Betwixt the end of the XIVth and the beginning of the XVth century, rumors begin to arise around the cave as a magically enchanted place and abode of a mysterious queen, may Sibilla, Alcina, or Venus be are name. They speak of a kind of the Virgilian Sibilla from the Cuma's den in to the Sibillini's cave, event that must have come about along with the coming of Christianity. Some tales account that the Sibilla had been exiled in a dreadfull spot of the Sibillini Mountains, just before the entrance of hell, and that she was not allowed to die before the end of the world itself. In many authors' opinion, above all French and German ones, Sibilla is an enchantress Circe, devoted to inveigle knights, set forth on adventure, and looking for love: a sorceress accomplished in magic arts, owner off a glimmering royal palace, saturated with lustfullness. Other authors believe that the Sibilla is an uncontaminated prophetess and, exactly to this respect, in many Italian authors' opinion there is a spontaneous linking between the tradition of the Cuma's Sibilla and the Appennine one, also because of the analogy concerning the places (cave-lake) and because of the spreading of the medieval Virginian legend. Many tales originated around this character, tales that are still handed down by the local people