The evening of 14 August 1730, the Friars Minor of the convent of San Francesco placed 351 consecrated Hosts in a ciborium and then, as they did every year, closed the church and went to the cathedral, together with all the townspeople, for Vespers on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, protectress of Siena. When they returned home, the friars found a terrible surprise: the . . .