Santa Casa di Loreto

(The Holy House of Loreto)

H. Thurston write:

"Since the fifteenth century, and possibly even earlier, the "Holy House" of Loreto

has been numbered among the most famous shrines of Italy. Loreto is a small

town a few miles south of Ancona and near the sea. Its most conspicuous

building is the basilica. This dome-crowned edifice, which with its various

annexes took more than a century to build and adorn under the direction of many

famous artists, serves merely as the setting of a tiny cottage standing within the

basilica itself. Though the rough walls of the little building have been raised in

height and are cased externally in richly sculptured marble, the interior measures

only thirty-one feet by thirteen. An altar stands at one end beneath a statue,

blackened with age, of the Virgin Mother and her Divine Infant. As the inscription,

Hic Verbum caro factum est, reminds us, this building is honoured by Christians

as the veritable cottage at Nazareth in which the Holy Family lived, and the Word

became incarnate. Another inscription of the sixteenth century which decorates

the eastern facade of the basilica sets forth at greater length the tradition which

makes this shrine so famous. "Christian pilgrim", it says, "you have before your

eyes the Holy House of Loreto, venerable throughout the world on account of the

Divine mysteries accomplished in it and the glorious miracles herein wrought. It

is here that most holy Mary, Mother of God, was born; here that she was saluted

by the Angel, here that the eternal Word of God was made Flesh. Angels

conveyed this House from Palestine to the town Tersato in Illyria in the year of

salvation 1291 in the pontificate of Nicholas IV. Three years later, in the

beginning of the pontificate of Boniface VIII, it was carried again by the ministry of

angels and placed in a wood near this hill, in the vicinity of Recanati, in the

March of Ancona; where having changed its station thrice in the course of a year,

at length, by the will of God, it took up its permanent position on this spot three

hundred years ago [now, of course, more than 600]. Ever since that time, both

the extraordinary nature of the event having called forth the admiring wonder of

the neighbouring people and the fame of the miracles wrought in this sanctuary

having spread far and wide, this Holy House, whose walls do not rest on any

foundation and yet remain solid and uninjured after so many centuries, has been

held in reverence by all nations."

That the traditions thus boldly proclaimed to the

world have been fully sanctioned by the Holy See cannot for a moment remain in

doubt. More than forty- seven popes have in various ways rendered honour to the

shrine, and an immense number of Bulls and Briefs proclaim without qualification

the identity of the Santa Casa di Loreto with the Holy House of Nazareth. As

lately as 1894 Leo XIII, in a Brief conceding various spiritual favours for the sixth

centenary of the translation of the Santa Casa to Loreto, summed up its history

in these words: "The happy House of Nazareth is justly regarded and honoured

as one of the most sacred monuments of the Christian Faith; and this is made

clear by the many diplomas and acts, gifts and privileges accorded by Our

predecessors. No sooner was it, as the annals of the Church bear witness,

miraculously translated to Italy and exposed to the veneration of the faithful on

the hills of Loreto than it drew to itself the fervent devotion and pious aspiration of

all, and as the ages rolled on, it maintained this devotion ever ardent." If, then, we

would sum up the arguments which sustain the popular belief in this miraculous

transference of the Holy House from Palestine to Italy by the hands of angels, we

may enumerate the following points: (1) The reiterated approval of the tradition by

many different popes from Julius II in 1511 down to the present day. This approval

was emphasized liturgically by an insertion in the Roman Martyrologium in 1669

and the concession of a proper Office and Mass in 1699, and it has been ratified

by the deep veneration paid to the shrine by such holy men as St. Charles

Borromeo, St. Francis de Sales, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Alphonsus Liguori, and

many other servants of God. (2) Loreto has been for centuries the scene of

numerous miraculous cures. Even the skeptical Montaigne in 1582 professed

himself a believer in the reality of these (Waters, "Journal of Montaigne's Travels",

II, 197-207). (3)

The stone on which the original walls of the Santa Casa are built

and the mortar used in their construction are not such as are known in the

neighbourhood of Loreto. But both stone and mortar are, it is alleged, chemically

identical with the materials most commonly found in Nazareth. (4) The Santa

Casa does not rest and has never rested upon foundations sunk into the earth

where it now stands. The point was formally investigated in 1751 under Benedict

XIV. What was then found is therefore fully in accord with the tradition of a

building transferred bodily from some more primitive site. . . ."

Of the older works on Loreto it will be sufficient to mention ANGELITA, Historia della Translatione

etc. (first printed about 1579, but written in 1531). It is founded upon Baptista Mantuanus,

Teramano, and a supposed "tabula, vetustate et carie consumpta". The official history of Loreto

may be regarded as contained in TURSELLINUS, Lauretanae Historiae Libri V (Rome, 1697); and

MARTORELLI, Teatro istorico della S. Casa nazarena (3 vols., fol., Rome, 1732-1735). In more

modern times we have VOGEL, De ecclesiis Recanatensi et Lauretana (written in 1806, but printed

only in 1859), and LEOPARDI, La Santa Casa di Loreto (Lugano, 1841). Both these writers showed

an appreciation of the grave critical difficulties attending the Loreto tradition, but they did not

venture openly to express disbelief.

A new epoch in this discussion, already heralded by FATHER GRISAR at the Munich Congress; by

M. BOUDINHON in Revue du Clerge Francais, XXII (1900), 241; by L. DE FEIS, La S. Casa di

Nazareth (Florence, 1905), and by LE HARDI, Hist. de Nazareth (Paris, 1905), was brought to a

climax by CHEVALIER, Notre Dame de Lorette (Paris, 1906). Among the learned Catholic reviews

which have openly pronounced in Chevalier's favour may be mentioned the Analecta Bollandiana,

XXV (1907), 478-94; Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, II (1906), 373; Revue Biblique, IV (1907), 467-70;

Revue Benedictine, XXIII (1906), 626-27; Zeitschrift f. Kath. Theologie, XXVI (1906), 109-16;

Theologische Quartalschrift, XCIX (1907), 124-27; Revue d'Histoire Ecclesiastique, VII (1906),

639-58; Historisches Jahrbuch, XXVIII (1907), 356; 585; Revue des Questiones Historiques, LXXXI

(1907), 308-10; Revue Pratique d'Apologetique, III (1906), 758-61; Revue du Clerge Francais, XLIX

(1906), 80-86, and many others. On the same side may further be mentioned BOUDINHON, La

Question de Loretto (Paris, 1910); BOUFFARD, La Verite sur le Fait de Loretto (Paris, 1910); and

CHEVALIER, La Santa Casa de Loretto (Paris, 1908). See also the articles on Loreto in the

Kirchliches Handlexikon (Munich, 1908), and in HERDER'S Konversations-Lexikon (Freiburg, 1907).

The articles that have openly taken part against Chevalier's thesis are comparartively few and

unimportant, for example in L'Ami du Clerge (1906-1907); a series of articles by A. MONTI in La

Scuola Cattolica (Milan, Jan.-Dec., 1910); and other articles of more weight by G. KRESSER in

Theol. praktische Quartalschrift (Tubingen, 1909), 212-247. Isolated works in favour of the Loreto

tradition are those of ESCHBACH, La Verite sur le Fait de Lorette (Paris, 1908); F. THOMAS, La

Santa Casa dans l'Histoire (Paris, 1909); POISAT, La Question de Loreto (Paris, 1907);

FALOCI-PULIGNANI, La Santa Casa di Loreto secondo un affresco di Gubbio (Rome, 1907).

For an account of Loreto in English reproducing the old traditions from an uncritical standpoint see

GARRATT, Loreto the New Nazareth (London, 1895).

(Herbert Thurston

Transcribed by Herman F. Holbrook)

(For Bothers Ambrose Bettencourt & Augustine Senz, O.S.B.)

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIII

Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, D.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York