3. Pilgrimage Places

It is impossible to enumerate the pilgrimage places which serve as local centers of the cult, on account of miraculous pictures or relics. Every century since the beginning of the Middle Ages has seen new places of this sort arise; and the nineteenth has not been behind the others. France has had La Salette Places. (1848) and Lourdes (1851), Italy New Pompeii (1880), and Germany Marpin gen near Treves (1878) and Dietrichswalde in Eastern Prussia (1877). As long ago as 1872, Gumppenberg's Atlas Marian= could describe more than twelve hundred miraculous pictures or images, of which about half were in Germany. Many of these, of course, have long since fallen into decay; but others, especially the newer ones, retain their attraction in spite of all criticism. The mir aculous picture of the Madonna di Pompeii, orig inally bought from an antiquary for four francs, now reposes on a throne valued at one hundred and fifty thousand franca; the image was solemnly crowned by Cardinal Valletta in 1887 before a throng of devotees numbering many thousands. In Russian Poland the miraculous Madonna of Czenetochap is venerated as "Queen of Poland" and protectress of the Polish rate. In France the famous miraculous spring at Lourdes (q.v.), desig nated to the fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous by a vision on Feb. 11, 1858, attracts thousands of pilgrims every year, and the cures wrought there have been so remarkable as to engage the serious attention of men of science. Among the more ancient which have preserved their fame undimin ished through centuries, mention should be made of those of Assisi (the Portiunculs) and Loreto (q.v.) in central Italy, of Maria Einsiedeln and Maria Stein in Switzerland, of Moneerrat dal Pilar and Guadalupe in Spain, of Hall in Belgium, and in Germany of Kevelaer, with its miraculous picture much visited since 1842, and Aachen, where for nearly a thousand years the alleged garment of the Virgin and swaddling-clothes of the infant Jesus have been preserved and occasionally exhibited.