There are countless traditions connected with the death of Conradin. Men say that as his head fell an eagle swooped down from the sky, dipped its wing in the blood, and flew off again across the city. Another and more constant tale is that the poor boy's mother, when she heard of his captivity, gathered a great sum of money to ransom him, and came herself to Naples, but was too late, and landed in deep mourning from her ship, and came into the Church of the Carmine, poor and mean in those days, and gave the monks all the money she had brought to sing Masses for ever for her son's soul. These may be fables. But to pass to truth, it is a fact that in the year 1631, when the pavement of the Church of the Carmine was being lowered, a leaden coffin was found behind the high altar. The letters R. C. C. were roughly cut on it, and were interpreted to mean "Regis Corradini Corpus," the body of King Conradin. The coffin was opened. It contained the skeleton of a lad, the head severed and lying on the breast. There were some fragments of linen, which turned to dust immediately, and by the side lay a sword unsheathed, as bright and speckless as if it had but just come from the maker's hands. One would give much to know that the boy-king still slept there with his sword beside him, but when the coffin was next opened, at the wish of one of his own family in 1832, the sword had gone. The Church of the Carmine is, as I have said already, a vastly different building from that into which the body of Conradin was carried. Whether the tradition speaks truly of the benefaction of the unhappy mother or no, the fact remains that a splendid reconstruction of the church took place about that time. The origin of the church is curious. The records of the monks declare that towards the middle of the seventh century the hermits of the Mount Carmel, fleeing from the persecution of Saracens, came to Italy, some to one city, some to another. A handful of them rested at Naples, bringing with them an antique picture of the Madonna, said to have been painted by St. Luke, and established themselves in this spot close outside the city walls, near a hospital for sick sailors of which in later days they obtained the site. There they built a humble church, and either found or excavated a grotto underneath it, in which they placed their picture. The image became famous, and to this day is known amongst the people as "La Madonna della Grotticella," or more commonly as "La Bruna." Indeed there was no similitude of Our Lady of Sorrows in all south Italy which wrought more wondrous miracles or better earned her sanctity; and when the jubilee came round in the year 1500 the Neapolitans could think of no better deed than to take La Bruna out of her grotto and carry her in procession to Rome, which they did accordingly, and many were the marvels which she wrought upon the long journey through the mountains.