The Sanctuary of the Madonna di Loreto bears witness to the influence of the Basilian monks by recalling in its very structure, that of the bell tower, the typical architecture of their "cenobi". The monks were linked to the cult of the Virgin Oidighitria and the Black Madonna. The Basilian monks (i.e. of the order of St. Basil), or more correctly as Italian-Greeks. They fled from the Balkans, Syria and Asia Minor at the time of the Gothic-Byzantine war (6th century), and above all following the iconoclastic persecutions (8th century). The Basilians allowed the improvement of living conditions throughout the Cilento with skilful industriousness, during the period of medieval decline. Shepherds and small woodland communities gathered around the small convents they founded. Thus the first nucleuses of many Cilento towns arose. The beautiful ceiling paintings are attributed to Brother Angelo, the last hermit and guardian of the sanctuary, who lived in the miserable room next to the entrance door. The legend of Marian apparitions near the sanctuary is widespread. The legend that wants the Madonna stubbornly linked to that site so much as to appear several times to two shepherd children on the trunk of a holm oak, on which she would be irremovably seated, is similar to many other legends, to which the history of the Marian sanctuaries of Cilento is linked. , founded and spiritually governed by Basilian monks. The Pozzo della Madonna, a few meters from the Sanctuary, exalts the sacredness of water as a totemic value in a peasant civilization.