It had been several nights now that that fire returned to the fall of darkness. Very hard to explain because no one seemed to have lit it near the old well from which, for some time, water was no longer taken. The recurring fire aroused curiosity, but also fear among the people of the hill of Pozzano, not far from the sea where the brackish breeze came. And none of them had come close.

It was an autumn afternoon, the 13^th of November 1875, when the group of the faithful, who used to gather in the valley of Pompeii to pray the Rosary together with the Neapolitan Bartolo Longo, saw appearing a barrow usually used for the transport of manure. The carter, a certain Angelo Tortora, stopped in front of what was remaining of the church of SS. Salvatore, used as a parish for the very few souls living in the countryside at the feet of the Vesuvius, and disposed an square object wrapped in a blanket.