Basilica della Santa Casa
The Basilica della Santa Casa (English: Basilica of the Holy House) is a Marian shrine in Loreto, in the Marches, Italy. The basilica is known for enshrining the house in which the Blessed Virgin Mary is believed by some Catholics to have lived. Pious legends claim the same house was flown over by angelic beings from Nazareth to Tersatto (Trsat in Croatia), then to Recanati, before arriving at the current site.[1][2]
This article is about a church in Loreto, Italy. For a church in Prague, see Loreta (Prague). For a chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, see Loretto Chapel.Basilica della Santa Casa
Loreto, Marche, Italy
16th century
The basilica is also known for enshrining the Madonna and Child image of "Our Lady of Loreto". Pope Benedict XV designated her under this title as patroness of air passengers and auspicious travel on 24 March 1920. Pope Pius XI granted a Canonical Coronation to the venerated image made of Cedar of Lebanon wood on 5 September 1922, replacing the original Marian image consumed in fire on 23 February 1921.[3]
The church[edit]
The basilica containing the Santa Casa is a Late Gothic structure built starting from 1468,[4] and continued by Giuliano da Maiano, Giuliano da Sangallo, and Donato Bramante.[5] It is 93 metres (305 ft) long, 60 m (200 ft) wide, and its campanile is 75.6 m (248 ft) high.
The façade of the church was erected under Sixtus V, who in 1586 fortified Loreto and gave it the privileges of a town; his colossal statue stands on the parvis, above the front steps, a third of the way to the left as one enters. Over the principal doorway there is a lifesize bronze statue of the Virgin and Child by Girolamo Lombardo; the three superb bronze doors executed at the latter end of the 16th century under the reign of Paul V (1605–1621) are also by Lombardo (1506–1590), his sons and his pupils, among them Tiburzio Vergelli (1551–1609), who also made the fine bronze font in the interior. The doors and hanging lamps are by the same artists.[5]
The richly decorated campanile (1750 to 1754), by Luigi Vanvitelli,[5] is of great height; the principal bell, presented by Leo X in 1516, weighs 11 tons.
The interior of the church has mosaics by Domenichino and Guido Reni and other works of art, including statues by Raffaello da Montelupo. In the sacristies on each side of the right transept are frescoes, on the right by Melozzo da Forlì, on the left by Luca Signorelli and in both there are some fine intarsias; the basilica as a whole is thus a collaborative work by generations of architects and artists.
The Hall of the Treasury[edit]
The Hall of the Treasury dates from the beginning of the 17th century. It contains votive offerings, liturgical objects and vestments. The frescoes on the vaulted ceiling are exquisite examples of late Roman Mannerism and were created between 1605 and 1610 by Cristoforo Roncalli, known as Pomarancio.[15]
Traditional account[edit]
1st-century Judaea[edit]
Late medieval religious traditions developed suggesting that this was the house in which the Holy Family (Mary, Joseph and Jesus) had lived while in Judea at the start of the first century AD.[5] According to this narrative, this is the Nazareth house in which Mary had been born and brought up, received the Annunciation, conceived Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and had lived during the childhood of Christ.[6] After Jesus's Ascension, the house was converted into a church where the Apostles placed an altar, at which Saint Peter celebrated the first Eucharist after the Resurrection.[16]
1291 miraculous translation to Dalmatia[edit]
Just before the final expulsion of the Christian Crusaders from the Holy Land, in order to protect it from Muslim soldiers, the house was miraculously carried by angels and initially deposited in 1291 on a hill at Tersatto (now Trsat, a suburb of Rijeka, Croatia), where an appearance of the Virgin and numerous miraculous cures attested to its sanctity. The miraculous translation of the house is said to have been confirmed by investigations made at Nazareth by messengers from the governor of Dalmatia.[17]
1294: miraculous translation to Italy[edit]
As pilgrims were prey to bandits, in 1294, angels again carried it across the Adriatic Sea to the woods near Ancona (although the reasoning is not clear as to why this happened); from these woods (Latin lauretum, Italian Colle dei Lauri or from the name of its proprietress Laureta) the chapel derived the name which it still retains (Latin sacellum gloriosæ Virginis in Laureto). The house that gave rise to the title Our Lady of Loreto, applied to the Virgin.[17]
1295–1296: three more translations[edit]
"By the will of God", it was afterwards moved again thrice: in 1295 to a hill near Recanati, but being too close to the sea and therefore exposed to the dangers of Turkish raids, after eight months it was again moved to a hill a mile away, Monte Prodo, near Loreto. Here two counts sought to acquire title to the land in order to profit from the pilgrimages. In 1296, the Santa Casa is moved for the fifth time to the road that goes from Recanati to Porto Recanati, and therefore not on private property.[17]
Modern era[edit]
In 1797, Napoleon's troops sacked the church.[4] The treasury was emptied, either looted by soldiers, or its contents requisitioned by the pope who needed money for the payments required by the Treaty of Tolentino, which he had signed with Napoleon.[4] Still, by 1821 the Black Madonna had been returned from the Louvre via Rome, and the treasury was again filled with valuable offerings.[4]
Papal support[edit]
Papal support of the Loreto tradition comes relatively late. The first Bull mentioning the translation is that of Julius II in 1507, and is a rather guarded expression. Julius introduces the clause "ut pie creditur et fama est", "as is piously believed and reported to be".[19]
On 4 October 2012, Benedict XVI visited the Shrine to mark the 50th anniversary of John XXIII's visit. In his visit, Benedict formally entrusted the World Synod of Bishops and the Year of Faith to the Virgin of Loreto.[32][33][34]
On 20 June 2020, during the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pope Francis added three invocations to the Litany of Loreto: Mother of mercy, Mother of hope, and Solace of migrants.[35][36] He later approved the extension of the Jubilee Year of Loreto to 2021. The jubilee year marks the 100th anniversary of the official proclamation of Our Lady of Loreto as the patroness of pilots and air passengers. It began 8 December 2019 and was due to end 10 December 2020, the feast of Our Lady of Loreto, but was extended to 10 December 2021 because of disruptions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.[37]
Similar traditions[edit]
Nazareth[edit]
A competing tradition holds that the location of the Annunciation was at or near the site of the present Basilica of the Annunciation, whose lower level holds the Grotto of the Annunciation, said to be the remains of Mary's childhood home.[38] (The Church of Saint Anne in Jerusalem is also said to have been built on the site of Mary's childhood home.)[39] Some proponents of Loreto maintain that the Holy House and the Grotto were originally part of the same dwelling.[21][40]
Walsingham, England[edit]
The shrine at Walsingham is the principal shrine of the Blessed Virgin in England. The legend of "Our Lady's house" (written down about 1465, and consequently earlier than the Loreto translation tradition) supposes that in the time of St. Edward the Confessor a chapel was built at Walsingham, which exactly reproduced the dimensions of the Holy House of Nazareth. When the carpenters could not complete it upon the site that had been chosen, it was moved and erected by angels' hands at a spot two hundred feet away.[41]
In popular culture[edit]
Due to Our Lady of Loreto being the patroness of aviators, Charles Lindbergh took a Loreto statuette with him on his 1927 flight across the Atlantic, and Apollo 8 carried a Loreto medallion on its 1968 flight to the Moon.[18]