TRANSLATING THE SACRED: PIETY, POLITICS AND THE CHANGING IMAGE
OF THE HOLY HOUSE OF LORETO
by
ADRIANNE HAMILTON
A THESIS
Presented to the Department of Art History
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Arts
June 2008
11
"Translating the Sacred: Piety, Politics and the Changing Image of the Holy House of
Loreto," a thesis prepared by Adrianne Hamilton in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the Master of Arts degree in the Department of Art History. This thesis has been
approved and accepted by:
~per 0 "'\
Date
Committee in Charge:
Accepted by:
Dr. James G. Harper, Chair
Dr. Richard Sundt
Dr. Regina Psaki
-- --------- ---
Dean of the Graduate School
© 2008 Adrianne Hamilton
III
-~--- - -- ---
IV
An Abstract ofthe Thesis of
Adrianne Hamilton
in the Department of Art History
for the degree of
to be taken
Master ofArts
June 2008
Title: TRANSLATING THE SACRED: PIETY, POLITICS AND THE CHANGING
IMAGE OF THE HOLY HOUSE OF LORETO
The Holy House of Loreto is steeped in centuries of pious legend and sacred
ritual. Its identification as the house of the Virgin, and site of the Annunciation, makes it
unique to the Catholic tradition as a spatial relic where earthly and celestial domains
converge. Legend describes the relic's translation in the geographic sense, but the house
also underwent a theoretical translation in the early modem period. While late-medieval
iconography of the Holy House privileges its connection to local religious identity, later
imagery reflects Papal appropriation of the site's jurisdiction. Through an ambitious
building and artistic campaign, including the talents ofLuca Signorelli and Donato
Bramante, among others, Rome amplified the universality and renown ofthe site,
stamping it as specifically Roman. Finally, pilgrimage souvenirs and architectural
replicas of the house spread the cult of Loreto throughout Europe, making it a truly
international symbol of Christianity.
CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME OF AUTHOR: Adrianne Elizabeth Hamilton
GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
University of Oregon, Eugene
Oregon State University, Corvallis
DEGREES AWARDED:
Master of Arts, Art History, 2008, University of Oregon
Master of Arts, Italian Language and Literature, 2008, University of Oregon
Bachelor of Arts, Art History, 2001, University of Oregon
AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
Italian Renaissance Art
Devotional Art and Pilgrimage Ritual
Sacred Geography
Marian Iconography
Prints and Printmaking
Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Italian Literature
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of Romance Languages, University of
Oregon, Eugene, 2006-08
Assistant to the Director of Overseas Perugia Program, University of Oregon,
Perugia, Italy, Summer 2006
Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of Art History, University of Oregon,
Eugene, 2004-06
v
Vi
Co-Director, Art History Association, University of Oregon, Eugene, 2005
Kerns Graduate Intern, Visual Resources Collection, University of Oregon,
Eugene, 2003-04
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Curatorial Intern, Department of
Painting and Sculpture, San Francisco, Summer 2003
Peggy Guggenheim Collection Intern, Venice, Italy, September-January 2001-02
Curator, Cultural Forum Art Gallery, University of Oregon, Eugene, 2000-01
Jacob's Art Gallery Mayor's Art Show Intern, Eugene, Oregon, 1999-2000
GRANTS, AWARDS AND HONORS:
Hatzantonis Scholarship, Department of Romance Languages, University of
Oregon, 2006
Collegio Ghislieri Residency Award, Universita degli studi di Pavia, 2005
Marian C. Donnelly Graduate Book Prize, Department of Art History, University
of Oregon, 2005
Architecture and Allied Arts Travel Grant, Department of Art History, University
of Oregon, 2005
Perugia Program Summer Scholarship, Department of Romance Languages,
University of Oregon, 2004
Marian C. Donnelly Graduate Book Prize, Department of Art History, University
of Oregon, 2004
Graduate Kerns Internship Award, Department of Art History, University of
Oregon, 2003
Marian C. Donnelly Undergraduate Book Prize, Department of Art History,
University of Oregon, 2001
Summa cum Laude, University of Oregon, 2001
VB
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Professor Richard Sundt for his contribution to this project
as well as Professor Regina Psaki, an inspired and inspiring donna di lettere. Special
thanks to Professor James G. Harper, whose knowledge and guidance have illuminated
my graduate studies. Thank you also to the University of Oregon Department of Art
History for the strength and quality of its program and faculty.
Vlll
For my beloved husband Chris, who nourishes my existence, and for Nancy, my
divine Mother, full of grace, beauty and strength.
Chapter
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
IX
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. THE HOLY HOUSE OF LORETO: HISTORY AND
DEVELOPMENT OF THE LEGEND AND EARLY
ICONOGRAPHy 8
III. THE HOLY HOUSE OF LORETO: IMPORTATION
OF SACRED SPACE AND IDENTITY IN THE EARLY
RENAISSANCE CHAPEL 35
IV. THE REFORMATION AND THE HOLY HOUSE OF
LORETO: ARTISTIC IMPORTATION AND DEVOTIONAL
EXPORTATION IN THE RENAISSANCE RIVESTIMENTO 51
V. THE COUNTER-REFORMATION AND THE HOLY
HOUSE OF LORETO: EXPORTATION OF SACRED
SPACE AND IDENTITY IN THE RENAISSANCE AND
BAROQUE REPLICA 72
VI. CONCLUSION 86
BIBLIOGRAPHY 90
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Illustration from Iter Lauretanae domus 7
2. Devotional Print of the Virgin ofLoreto 7
3. Ricard de Montcroix Manuscript.. 11
4. Ampulla from the Holy Sepulcher.. 11
5. Devotional Print Depicting the Translation 16
6. Devotional Print Depicting the Translation 16
7. Panel Paintings Depicting Scenes from the Translation 19
8. Devotional Print Depicting the Translation 19
9. Devotional Print with Miracle Cycle 24
10. Ex-voto with the Virgin of Loreto 24
11. Devotional Print with Votives 25
12. Illustration from Le pelerin de Lorette 25
13. Devotional Print Depicting the Translation 33
14. Devotional Print with Fortifications 33
15. Illustration from Sancta Maria de Loreto 41
16. Plan of the Basilica of Santa Maria di Loreto 41
17. Melozzo da Forli, Chapel of Saint Mark 42
18. Melozzo da Forli, Entry into Jerusalem, Chapel of Saint Mark 42
19. Melozzo da Forli, Chapel of Saint John 45
20. Luca Signorelli, Incredulity o/Saint Thomas, Chapel of Saint John 45
21. Luca Signorelli, The Conversion o/Saul, Chapel of Saint John 46
22. Luca Signorelli, Two Apostles, Chapel of Saint John 46
23. Devotional Image of the Holy House with the Four Evangelists 50
x
Figure Page
24. Loreto Pilgrimage Badge 53
25. Loreto Pilgrimage Badge 53
26. Illustration from De Idolo Lauretano 56
27. Illustration from Clypeus Lauretanus 56
28. Papal Medal with Bramante's Design for the Basilica 59
29. Central Nave of the Basilica of Santa Maria di Loreto 59
30. Andrea Sansovino, Annunciation 63
31. Printed Design for the Impression of the Sacramental Host 63
32. Domenico D'Aima, Dormition 65
33. Illustration from The Lives ofSt. Edmund and Fremund 65
34. Domenico D' Aima, Dormition and Translation 66
35. Girolamo Lombardo and Tommaso Della Porta, Prophets and Sibyls 66
36. Illustration, Prediche Miscellanee 70
37. Sansovino and Raffaele da Montelupo, Nativity 70
38. Illustration from La Oratione di Santa Maria Dell'oreto 75
39. Wooden Model of the Santa Casa di Loreto 75
40. Design for the Holy House Replica at the Sacro Monte ofVarallo 79
41. Holy House Replica at the Oratorio dei Rossi in Parma 79
42. Holy House Replica at Hradcany in Prague 80
43. Tourist Print Depicting the North Wall of the Holy House 80
Xl
1CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
According to pious legend, in 1291 the house in which the Virgin Mary was born
and received the Annunciation was lifted from Nazareth and carried away by angels to
prevent its destruction by Mamluk Turks who had conquered the Holy Land. Its final
resting place was the modern-day town of Loreto in the Italian Marches, located near the
shores of the Adriatic. Subsequently, devotion flourished around the house and the new
Loretan appellation of the Virgin, and a sanctuary was constructed to accommodate the
dramatic influx of pilgrimage activity. Drawn by reports of her miraculous powers of
intercession, the faithful have continued for centuries to venerate both the Virgin of
Loreto and the relic of the Holy House.
The classification and veneration of the relic as a house (identified in Italian as the
Santa Casa or sacello), immediately suggests two essential elements of its efficacy.
First, the terrestrial connotation of the word "house," as an entity connected to the realm
of human living, lends it a level of domestic accessibility; and in the context of sacred
place, a "house of God" is where the liturgical rite transcends the division between the
temporal and the divine. Thus, the relic of the Santa Casa venerated at Loreto, through
its identification as the house of the Virgin Mary, becomes a tangible confluence of
earthly and celestial domains, a unique devotional vehicle for those faithful who, stepping
across its threshold, find spiritual shelter within its four walls, and by symbolic extension,
2beneath the protective mantle of the Virgin herself. This idea of the relic as protective
vehicle is underscored by the prevalent legend of its miraculous journey, when at the will
of the Virgin, the angels made their transport across the Adriatic. Just as the Virgin had
already assured protection of the relic itself, so too would she shield devoted pilgrims
from ailment, calamity or enemy invasion. Popular devotional imagery often highlights
her universal powers of protection, as demonstrated in one seventeenth-century print, for
example, in which the Virgin eradicates allegorical depictions of Death, War and Plague
(see figure 1). The spatial aspect of the relic, however, the ability to enter the very
saeello in which Christ was conceived, suggests more than a simple protective function.
Not only was the relic a tangible link to the origins of Christianity, it was a piece of
Palestine itself, transferred to the territory of the Western Church. At a time when
pilgrimage to the Holy Land was hindered by the increasing threat of the advancing
Ottoman Empire, the Santa Casa afforded an appealing and accessible alternative. In
entering the Holy House, pilgrims were transported to the loea saneta where the cycle of
Christ's Passion began. Moreover, the relic reinforced liturgical practice as essential to
human redemption, materializing the doctrine of the Incarnation, where "Verbum caro
factum est." In these ways, the Holy House was a unique and indispensable relic,
fulfilling both devotional and ecclesiastical concerns within a greater economy of sacred
ritual.
Louis Richeome, in a late sixteenth-century pilgrimage guide to Loreto,
emphasizes "that pilgrimages are pleasing to God" and that Loreto "is one of the most
-----------------------------------------
3
notable and famous in Christendome."1 "In a pilgrimage wisely undertaken," Richeome
continues, "we must know the place whither we go, which is the end and mark we shoot
for ...The knowledge of the place, of the situation, of the qualities and conditions thereof,
provoketh, encourageth, and strengtheneth a man to go and visit it."z This thesis, though
in a different way from Richeome's narrative, intends to serve as a textual and
investigational pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Loreto. Its primary aim is to guide
readers on an academic journey, and to fulfill a scholarly vow of redemption on behalf of
a current body of art historical inquiry that tends to under-emphasize the singularity and
complexity of the Loretan shrine. Though Loreto is widely acknowledged as a major
pilgrimage destination for Marian worship, its centrality to the ideological and theoretical
fashioning of devotional and ecclesiastical concerns in early modern Europe is often a
theme only partially developed in the literature.3 Moreover, art historical investigation
has most often favored historical analysis of the shrine, while iconographic interpretation
has been limited to individual components of the sanctuary (for example, Luca
Signorelli's frescos for the Chapel of Saint John, or Andrea del Sansovino's marble
1 Louis Richeome, The Pilgrime ofLoreto (originally published in French in 1597). Translated into English
by Edward Worsley (Great Britain: The Scolar Press, 1976),2.
Z Ibid., 3.
3 With the exception of Ferdinando Citterio and Luciano Vaccaro, eds., Loreto: Crocevia religioso tra
Italia, Europa ed Oriente, a collection of essays that effectively addresses a variety of overarching social,
historical and theological concerns related to the site at Loreto, the majority of the Loretan literature seems
to consider such topics fleetingly or in isolation from their greater theological or devotional context.
Floriano Grimaldi's La Historia della chiesa di Santa Maria de Loreto (Loreto: Tecnostampa di Loreto,
1993) is perhaps the most comprehensive study of the history and artistic legacy of the site. However,
while it is an excellent compendium of central themes and images, it remains nonetheless superficial in its
descriptions, lacking detailed analyses of imagery as well as potentially meaningful and unifying
connections between principle ideas. Giuseppe Santarelli's L 'arte a Loreto (Ancona: Aniballi Grafiche,
2001) presents a more extensive consideration of individual artistic features of the site, though it remains
excessively faithful to stylistic description while lacking in meaningful thematic interpretation.
4sculptures for the rivestimento) as if they were separate and unrelated entities; studies that
simultaneously address the history and iconography of such works as they relate to
overarching thematic concerns, such as the role of Loreto as a principal ecclesiastical
center of devotional and theological dissemination, are too often limited to cursory
descriptions.
This study proposes a more encompassing investigation; it seeks to define the
salient political and religious factors that contributed to the formation of the Loretan
legend and to the imported artistic production that, in turn, crystallized the devotional
implications of that legend and distributed them throughout the Western world. In
elucidating the complex devotional climate in which Loretan iconography emerged, it
will be apparent how the celebrated frescoes of Luca Signorelli, the elaborate marble
sculptures of Sansovino-as well as other devotional imagery-fit within a greater
network of sacred identity at Loreto, Rome and beyond. Moreover, an examination of
the subsequent exportation ofLoretan ideals and artistic traditions to major European
devotional centers will evidence the crucial role of the Santa Casa in the promotion and
legitimization of the Catholic faith.
Pilgrims who visit the Holy House today will find that the basic iconography of
the Virgin of Loreto as depicted in devotional prints and on souvenirs has actually
changed very little since the sixteenth century. While the context of such imagery has
varied widely according to the individual concerns of devotees, the Virgin herself most
often appears seated or standing above the elevated house, while angels lovingly support
it from below (as in figure 1). Such representation emerged as a result ofthe popular
5legend of the translation of the relic from Nazareth to Loreto, which gained in popularity
at the end of the fifteenth century. While devotional prints foreground the popular
narrative of the translation, the political and theological concerns of the Papacy are more
readily visible in the artistic and building campaigns that followed papal appropriation of
the site's jurisdiction in the late fifteenth century. Specifically, the amplification and
fortification of the sanctuary, along with the decoration of the transept chapels
surrounding the relic itself, reveal an attempt to temper the popular devotional flavor of
the relic within a theologically articulated framework. Additionally, in the early sixteenth
. century, the marble rivestimento further legitimized Papal claims to the relic, identifying
its liturgical and redemptive function through an ambitious pictorial cycle dedicated to
the life of the Virgin. As the centrality of the Loretan cult to both popular devotion and
ecclesiastic authority spread throughout Europe, so did the house itself in the form of
architectural replicas, which sought to duplicate the sacred (and political) associations of
the site. In this way, Loreto was translated throughout the world as a major and lasting
emblem of Christian doctrine and devotion.
To commence this textual pilgrimage, one does well to follow the example of
Richeome, who prefaces his own guidebook with a foundational account of the Loretan
narrative: "1 will speak first of the first, and of the house of Loreto, which is the end and
motive of all this action, and after [I will speak] of the means to go thither, and
accomplish the voyage."4 In order to better understand how the spiritual and political
identity of Loreto is formed in Renaissance and Baroque devotional imagery, it will first
4 Ibid., 3.
be useful to consider the earliest textual and iconographic sources of the legend, which
have continued to foster the popularity of the Loretan cult and to define its centrality to
both sacred ritual and theological exegesis.
6
Figure 1. Illustration from Iter Lauretanae domus, 1661.
Figure 2. Devotional Print of the Virgin of Loreto, 1490.
7
8CHAPTER II
THE HOLY HOUSE OF LORETO:
HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE LEGEND AND EARLY ICONOGRAPHY
A documented history of the Holy House at Loreto begins not in 1291, when the small
chamber ofthe Virgin is thought to have taken flight from Nazareth, nor in 1294 when it
is supposed to have reached its final destination in the region of Recanati, but rather
beginning in the late fifteenth century. While there are a few contradictory references to
the existence of a church under the denomination of Santa Maria di Loreto prior to this
time, there is no mention of either the relic or its miraculous transfer known until the
1470s.5 The primary devotional focus of the quattrocento cult seems to have been a
statue of the Virgin Mary, which pilgrims worshipped for its miraculous powers of
intercession. Not until 1449 did the early cult gain ecclesiastical attention, when Pope
Nicholas V, taking notice of the substantial deposit of ex-votos and devotional offerings
that adorned the Marian shrine, felt compelled to intercede in the jurisdiction of the site.
Concerned that a corrupt Recanati diocese was failing to utilize such offerings for the
betterment of the dilapidated sanctuary, Nicholas V temporarily suspended local
ecclesiastical custody of the church.6 His successor, Paul II, similarly exercised papal
5 There is also a surviving reference to a Church of Santa Maria di Loreto in a document of 1194, which
predates the actual transfer of the house. Early documentation is difficult to authenticate and thus only
serves to complicate the history of the site. For a more detailed discussion of such fragmentary references
to the early development of the church, see Giuseppe Santarelli, La Santa Casa di Loreto: Un 'esperienza di
arte e difede attraverso i secoli (Loreto: Congregazione Universale, 1999),252.
9control over the administration of the site, stripping the local and regional powers of
jurisdiction, and declaring instead the shrine's universal authority.7 Given the steadily
increasing flow of pilgrims, it is not surprising that the Papacy deemed it necessary to
intervene in the gestation of the shrine, thus establishing an initial axis of connectivity
between Rome and Loreto.8 Underscoring this connection was the Pope's declaration
that Loreto surpassed other Marian shrines not only for the "innumera et stupenda
miracula" that occurred there, but particularly because it possessed, he claimed, an
"'ymago" of the Virgin that had been transported there by a court of angels.9 Indeed, as
he relates, it is the image--of mysterious origins-that perpetuates the miracles
performed at Loreto. Here, then, in 1460, is the fIrst documented reference to a
miraculous transfer by angels of a relic associated with the Virgin Mary; official mention
of the Holy House itself remains surprisingly absent.
The Pope's assertion of a miracle-working image at Loreto indicates a nascent
stage of the development of its legend and of the popular and enduring form of the
narrative yet to emerge (and which would focus more completely on the house itself),
6 This document contains the earliest reference to interference in Loretan affairs by the Holy See.
Discussed in Giorgio Cracco, "AIle origini dei santuari mariani: il caso di Loreto," eds. Ferdinando Citterio
and Luciano Vaccaro, Loreto: Crocevia religioso tra Italia, Europa e Oriente (Brescia: Editrice
Morcelliana, 1997), 124.
7 Lucetta Scaraffia, Loreto (Bologna: II Mulino, 1998), 14.
8 Pope Pius II also displayed an intense personal affinity for the Virgin of Loreto, attributing his recovery
from an illness in his youth to her miraculous powers of intercession.
9 The term "ymago" is somewhat elusive, being unclear whether it refers to a small painted picture (which
seems to have been venerated until the fourteenth century in an early chapel dedicated to the Virgin at
Loreto), or if it indicates rather the statue of the Virgin (which was considered to be of the school of Saint
Luke), worshipped at Loreto until its disappearance during the Napoleonic siege. Pope Paul II's mention of
the "ymago," as well as his pronouncement of the miracles performed at Loreto, are detailed in a letter of
1469 and are further discussed in Cracco, 127.
10
which is essential to understanding the early iconographic development of related Marian
imagery. Fifteenth-century woodblock prints often privilege an iconic representation of
the Virgin of Loreto, figuring her statuesque form beneath a raised tabernacle or
baldachin, surrounded by a company of angels (see figure 2). Such imagery seeks to
reproduce and exalt the statue itself, with minimal (if any) acknowledgment of the Holy
House motif. Some scholars have identified a rudimentary or summary form of the
Virgin's reliquary chamber in the columned architectural structure that surrounds her.
Jaroslav Folda, for example, cites a thirteenth-century manuscript image of the
Annunciation as stylistic evidence of an early artistic association between the form of the
tabernacle or baldachin and the Virgin Mary's dwelling in Nazareth (see figure 3).10
Given the Pope's focus on the miraculous image of the Virgin, however, as well as his
failure to indicate any knowledge of or interest in the significance of the house itself, it is
not surprising that early images of the Virgin would reflect a similar lack of references to
the relic. There are countless images of the Virgin, for example, that rely on similar
architectural devices, such as pillars or canopied columns, to physically delineate sacred
space, framing the deity and thereby recreating a place of worship in the nature of an
altar. A sixth-century ampulla from the Holy Sepulcher reflects a similar trend of
demarcating holy space, as seen in the columned support framing the relic (see figure 4).
Raffaele Riera's sixteenth-century description of the altar at Loreto includes a reference
to the statue of the Virgin, which he describes as being displayed under a baldachin,
10 Jaroslav Folda, The Nazareth Capitals a/the Crusader Shrine (University Park: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1986).
Figure 3. Ricard de Montcroix Manuscript, Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, Francais 2810,1294.
Figure 4. Ampulla from the Holy Sepulcher, Sixth Century.
11
12
surrounded by small columns. II As Floriano Grimaldi has suggested, this arrangement
could have been in place a century prior, when a similar artistic motif was prevalent in
Loretan devotional imagery. 12 This connection could, in part, explain the insistence in
fifteenth-century designs of the Virgin of Loreto on the tabernaclelbaldachin theme.
Regardless of its origin, however, the motif remains a prominent one in the earliest
images representing her. Indeed, the devotional spotlight of such imagery remains
focused on the miraculous properties of the statue, rather than on any explicit reference to
the house motif yet to emerge.
By the end of the fifteenth century, the development of the Loretan legend
accelerated and a modified image of the Virgin subsequently emerged to supplant the
more conventional iconography of the previous decades. After the death of Pope Paul II,
who had favored Loreto so particularly above other Marian shrines, the success and
importance of the site as a pilgrimage destination threatened to diminish. This was
primarily due to the successive Pope Sixtus IV's more tempered appraisal of the
singularity of the site, an attitude he betrayed by granting equal ecclesiastical privileges
(such as indulgences) to a rival cult of the Virgin emerging in the nearby port town of
Ancona. His motive was likely strategic, stemming from a desire to avoid the
marginalization of a city that maintained a geographically crucial position at the edge of
the Adriatic: Ancona was a ripe political opportunity to establish a symbolic "bridge
11 Quoted in Floriano Grimaldi, La Historia della Chiesa di Santa Maria di Loreto (Loreto: Tecnostampa,
1993),300.
12 Ibid., 300.
13
between East and West.,,13 This would have seemed particularly important after the fall
of Constantinople just a decade earlier, as well as after Pius II's failed attempt at a
crusade in 1463. In Pope Sixtus IV's lukewarm sanction of their cult, the administrative
authorities at Loreto must have recognized an imminent need to crystallize the shrine's
position as the spiritual heart of Marian worship, to defend its singularity and thereby
justify its centrality to pilgrimage ritual.
Pietro di Giorgio Tolomei, often referred to as Teramano, was Rector of Loreto at
this critical moment of identity formation. 14 His position as custodian of the building
made him "testimone" to the oral and written accounts of the "innumera et stupenda
miracula" which Pope Paul II had cited as evidence of Loreto's heightened importance
among Marian sanctuaries. A miracle-working icon, however, lacked distinctiveness in a
period heavily saturated by devotional imagery; one miraculous image among many was
not likely to sustain Loreto's reputation above the flourishing multitude of competing
shrines dedicated to the Virgin. Teramano's published account of the Translatio
Miraculosa Ecclesie Beate Marie Virginis de Loreto, which traces the relic of the Holy
House on its voyage from Nazareth to the province of Recanati, is the first documented
narrative referencing the now celebrated flight of the Virgin's sacello. This account,
which dates to the early 1470s, forges a critical realignment of the history of Loretan
religiosity; it is a salient moment in which a narrative condensing generations of popular
piety gives rise to an intriguing and enduring legend. Teramano's text effectively
13 M. Caravale and A. Caracciolo, Lo Stato pontijicio da Martino Va Pio IX (Torino, 1978), 115; 368.
14 For a more detailed biographical description of Teramano, see Giuseppe Santarelli, La Santa Casa di
Loreto, 375.
14
fashioned a new historical and spiritual framework in which to situate the significance of
the site at Loreto, permanently solidifying its unexampled importance among Marian
monuments.
The account of the Trans/atia begins with a triumphant pronouncement of the
origin of the chapel at Loreto: "Nota che la chiesa di Sancta Maria delloreto fu chamera
della chasa della vergine Maria madre del nostro signore Giesu Christo: la qual chasa fu
nelle parti di Hierusalem di Giudea nella cipta di Galilea chiamata Nazaret [sic]."15
Teramano specifies that it was in this very room that the Virgin was born, received the
Annunciation and subsequently raised ("nutri") her son until the age of 12. Shortly
before her own death, the camera was consecrated as a church in Nazareth, converting
the earthly dwelling of the Virgin into a house of God, where Christ's disciples
administered "i divini offici".16 According to Teramano, when the Christian population
in Nazareth succumbed to Turkish rule, angels rescued the relic from imminent violation,
carrying it safely to Fiume in the territory of Sclavonia on the Dalmatian coast of modern
day Croatia. 17 This stop was merely temporary, however, as the Virgin judged the level
of local devotion to be inadequate and thus charged the angels once again with their holy
transfer, now directed toward the territory of Recanati in the Italian Marches. Twice
more, attempted locations for the Holy House in Recanati proved undesirable. The first
was in a forest ("selva") in the custody of a noblewoman named Loreta, who could not
15 The 1495 Italian translation of Teramano's original Latin text is reproduced in Floriano Grimaldi, La
Chiesa di S. Maria di Loreto nei documenti dei secoli XII-XV (Ancona: Archivio di Stato, 1984), 161-164.
16 Ibid., 161.
17 Ibid., 162.
15
prevent the perpetration of violence against pilgrims traveling to the site, and the second
was in the care of two brothers, who fought over the cache of riches left in offering to the
Virgin. A host of late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century images illustrate the hesitant
itinerary of the relic, highlighting the various sojourns relayed in Teramano's text. One
example, dating to 1492-93, spatially condenses the entire narrative cycle into one visual
frame, synchronously unifying the extended travel sequence within a single landscape
(see figure 5). This stylistic approach privileges a cohesive reading of the narrative,
suggesting the continuity oftime and space and therefore the inextricability of beginning
and end-the latter as the inevitable trajectory of the former. A later image betrays an
amplified interest in the geographical terrain of the legend, plotting chronologically the
extended course of the angels on a detailed topographical map (see figure 6). The
iconographic diachrony that distinguishes these two works is likely a result of divergent
influences: the earlier example bespeaks residual medieval hagiographic trends, while the
later reflects the emerging interest in cartography and geographical expansion that
captivated the sixteenth-century imagination (and that had, inevitably, certain claims to
"truth value").
As depicted in both images of the translation, the Virgin's final destination was a
small hill overlooking the Recanati countryside, an elevated position on a "via comune"
providing sweeping views of the Adriatic. According to Teramano, this relic of
inestimable sacred value no longer defined the Palestinian landscape, but represented
rather the thriving Eastern legacy-a microcosm of the Holy Land-made manifest in
Italy, a region that claimed to be the new spiritual capital of the world. The Loretan hill,
Figure 5. Devotional Print Depicting the Translation, 1492-93.
Figure 6. Devotional Print Depicting the Translation, 1573.
16
17
in the district of Recanati, had appealed to the Virgin Mary above all other possible
locations as the proper and worthy home-a new Nazareth-for her own earthly
dwelling. Having fled the terrain ofLoreta and the two brothers, the relic rightly
belonged to the entire community of Recanati, whose merit, demonstrated through "gran
divotione a questa chiesa,"18 justified the Virgin's decision to remain there.
As Giorgio Cracco aptly notes in his discussion of the Translatio, there is an
essential mechanism of "localismo" inherent in Termano's foregrounding of Recanati in
his development of the legend.19 Not only did the Santa Casa ensure an "unicum
assoluto" for the territory of Recanati, elevating its spiritual importance above that of
neighboring Ancona, it also privileged the local community as custodian of its legend and
authenticity. It is significant that more than half ofTeramano's narrative is dedicated to
events occurring after the arrival of the Santa Casa in Recanati, beginning with the
apparition ofthe Virgin to a holy man ("sancto huomo"), to whom she reveals the origin
of the relic and the details of its translation. A second appearance to a reclusive friar
identified as Paolo, confirms the Virgin's miraculous presence in conjunction with the
little house. The inclusion of the apparition motif within an otherwise unconventional
narrative lends it a universal credibility, situating the legend within a standard
hagiographic framework, while not infringing on its distinctiveness. Additionally, that
the Virgin chooses to disclose the details of her account to local devotees, both in a
position of religious authority, suggests not only a level of authenticity through "witness"
18 Ibid., 162.
19 Cracco, 135.
18
testimony, but also reinforces her allegiance to the community of Recanati. Late
fifteenth-century images dedicated to the Virgin of Loreto often allude to this "veridical"
aspect of the legend by including the apparition scene in devotional prints picturing the
shrine (as in figure 5).
In addition to emphasizing a local current within the Loretan legend, Teramano
reinforces the connection between Recanati and the Holy Land by including an episode
aimed at suspending disbelief regarding the transfer of the house from Nazareth. To
verify the authenticity of the relic, a retinue of sixteen "notabili," having taken careful
measurements of the structure at Loreto, set out for Palestine where their calculations
could be compared against the remaining, original foundation of the house of the Virgin.
Their findings: the measurements corresponded "ad unguem," an irrefutable affirmation
that the little church of Recanati truly was the Santa Casa of Nazareth. This confirmation
solidified Loreto's special position as host to this important relic, while also affirming an
explicit connection between the territory of Recanati and the Eastern cradle of
Christianity. It is a unique narrative moment in the hagiographic tradition, and one that
translates well in visual terms, particularly as part of a continuous narrative cycle
dedicated to the events of the legend. A seventeenth-century French example is one of
surprisingly few images that depict this specific moment of expedition and verification
(see figure 7). Relying on a "before and after" representation of the chapel, the image
produces a binary visual anchor between Loreto and Nazareth, substantiating their
essential relatedness. In depicting the last vestiges of the foundation in Palestine, the
19
Figure 7. Panel Paintings Depicting Scenes from the Translation, Musees de Troyes, Seventeenth Century.
Figure 8. Devotional Print Depicting the Translation, Late Sixteenth Century.
20
painter reminds (or convinces) the viewer of the true origins of the relic, but also of the
Virgin's abandonment of those origins in favor of a more worthy land and people. It is
somewhat perplexing that so few images depicting this aspect of the legend have been
cited in the Loretan literature; there is, perhaps, more art historical work to be done in
unearthing additional examples of this unique episode, which could help to further
contextualize its literary and artistic significance within the broader development of the
Loretan legend.20
The conclusion of Teramano's Translatio once again draws on oral testimony to
reinforce the validity of the legend. As confirmation of the events relayed in the first
three quarters of the narrative, Teramano cites how "lavolo dellavolo" (l'avo dell'avo) of
two local residents beheld firsthand the appearance of angels carrying the church initially
into the forest of Recanati and later to the hill owned by the two brothers described in the
narrative.21 The author thus furnishes witness testimony to the extraordinary flight that is
the nucleus of his hagiographic text. More than an attempt to authenticate a prodigious
event, however, the reliance on oral tradition further reiterates the local undercurrent,
asserting a certain claim to proprietorship by right of generations of local history and
interaction.
Popular devotional imagery from Loreto-produced after the publication of
Teramano's narrative---often engenders a similar pride in localism, encasing iconic
representations of the Virgin within panoramic views of the sacred topography of
20 For a brief discussion of the French panels, see Grimaldi, La Historia della Chiesa di Santa Maria de
Loreto, 297.
21 Teramano, translated in Grimaldi, La chiesa di S. Maria di Loreto, 164.
21
Recanati. In one example, the translation unfolds amidst an array of geographical and
architectural features that define the Marchegian terrain: rivers, ports, towers, castles and
hills are all identified through accompanying textual indicators (see figure 8). In this
way, the drama of the miraculous translation unfolds not in a spatial vacuum in which an
iconographic sign (the Virgin with her house) appears as a dislodged, isolated entity, but
rather within a contextualized and individualized space: that is, against the backdrop of
Recanati itself. In terms of geographical context, the region of Recanati lends a structure
or physicality to Teramano's account, while the narrative inversely effects the history, or
memory, of Recanati. Philip Sheldrake, in a theoretical study of sacred place and the
construction of identity, discusses how "the hermeneutic of place progressively reveals
new meanings in a kind of conversation between topography [and] memory ... every
encounter of the sacred is rooted in a place, a socio-spatial context that is rich in myth
and symbol."22 In displacing the relic at Loreto from its original landscape, there is a
certain loss of "lineage and memory associated with physical place,'>23 and thus
Teramano's narrative serves to (re) contextualize that lineage within the memory and
situation of Recanati, forming a new association between place, memory and
apperception. While the identity of the Santa Casa undoubtedly retains traces of its
Eastern origins-indeed, they are emphasized in Teramano's text as central to the
sacredness of the relic and as an impetus for the Translation legend-it is necessarily
refashioned as an expression of local memory, and therefore of local identity. There is,
22 Philip Sheldrake, Spaces for the Sacred: Place, Memory and Identity (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2001), 17.
23 Ibid., 17.
22
then, a crucial link in Teramano's account, as well as in popular devotional imagery,
between physical geography and the geography of memory in constructing continuity,
sacred history, meaning and identity formation.
The reference to generations of oral testimony as part of the miraculous
translation of the Santa Casa establishes a dialogic connection between place, memory
and identity (made manifest when local experience syncretically intertwines with sacred
history). As the relic passed from one part of the region to another, it left an indelible
impression on the social, historical and religious topography of the area, forever altering
local connections to tradition and experience of the divine. According to Teramano, it
was also the "infiniti miracoli," which the Virgin "ha facto et fa... per mezzo di questa
chiesa" that confirmed her predilection for local wellbeing.24 In general, this statement
was a simple reiteration of Pope Paul II's previous affirmation that the spiritual
importance of the shrine was rooted in the experience of the "innumera et stupenda
miracula"25 that had been performed there. However, Teramano's narrative directly and
inseparably linked that local experience to the presence of the house itself, with the
Virgin acting "per mezzo di questa chiesa.,,26 A demonstrated history of miracle working
is essential to the localization of any cult, for it allows devotees to weave their individual
concerns and stories into a larger web of spiritual meaning. The Santa Casa becomes in
24 Teramano, translated in Grimaldi, 162.
25 See note 9 above.
26 Teramano, 162.
23
this way a central protagonist, a mediator of such meaning, within the local framework of
religious identity and identification.
Popular religiosity, as expressed in certain prints and ex-votos, reveals an interest
in "documenting" the collective memory of such miraculous interventions. In one
seventeenth-century example, a series of vignettes encircles the statue of the Virgin of
Loreto, relaying the various circumstances in which the Madonna's favor was granted to
those in need (see figure 9). Among the afflictions pictured are shipwreck, demonic
possession, plague, tsunami ("onde del mare") and a Turkish assault on the house itself.
Images of Mary as mediator against plague and Turks are widespread in the Late
Medieval and Renaissance periods, and the Virgin of Loreto is often associated with
these particular dangers. In the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, registers of votive
offerings left at the shrine record countless such miracles performed at the behest of the
faithfuU7 Details of such narratives, recorded in the inscriptions that accompany images
of the miracles, range from generic indicators of identity ("un uomo") to the naming of
specific individuals ("Antonio Facino, chierico, nativo di Macerata"). There are also
examples of "public" miracles, granted to entire communities in need of intercession,
generally as a result of plague or natural disaster. Ex-votos, which are similarly
dedicated by both individuals and communities in gratitude for divine favor, are often
accompanied by brief texts detailing the narrative circumstances of the miraculous event
portrayed (see figure 10). Many images also illustrate the practice of adorning the shrine
27 Various manuscripts detailing accounts of the miraculous intercessions of the Virgin of Loreto are
housed in the Arehivio Storieo della Santa Casa in Loreto and are partially reproduced in Grimaldi, La
Historia della Chiesa di Santa Maria de Loreto, 349-410.
Figure 9. Devotional Print with Miracle Cycle, Seventeenth Century.
Figure 10. Ex-voto with the Virgin ofLoreto, Museo Pinacoteca di Loreto, Sixteenth Century.
24
Figure 11. Devotional Print with Votives, Sixteenth Century.
Figure 12. Illustration from Le pelerin de Lorette, Louis Richeome, 1604.
25
26
with wax votives in the shape of hands, legs, arms or even breasts, alluding to specific
ailments against which the afflicted appealed for divine healing. A few of these, standing
for the many, are visible in several devotional prints depicting the shrine (see figure 11).
One can imagine the spiritual impact of beholding thousands of such stories literally
appended to the walls of the Santa Casa, functioning as collective testimony to a shared
experience of the divine.
After the publication of Teramano's Translatio, a pamphlet detailing the events of
the narrative was affixed to the exterior of the house so that, like an ex-voto, it served as a
physical testament to the miraculous powers of the Virgin, and to the Eastern origins of
the relic.28 In addition, this text would have reinforced, in the minds of locals as well as
pilgrims, Recanati's role in the sacred history of the relic. As pilgrimage activity
increased, and ex-votos began to reflect an identity that surpassed Recanati's borders, it
would have become increasingly difficult to separate local from universal concerns. In
subsequently "translating" Teramano's legend across the Italian peninsula and throughout
the Western world, pilgrims essentially appropriated and extended its significance: the
miracles occurring at Loreto were clear manifestations of God's divine favor not just
toward Recanati, but rather toward all of Christendom. More than this, though, the relic
at Loreto reinforced such favor at an essential moment of political and spiritual tension,
when the West had lost its spiritual core in the Holy Land and thus needed to (re)
28 At least by 1478, there was a version of the translation legend "appesa a un pilastro del tempio di Santa
Maria," as Nicola di Manopello describes in his transcription of that text. Additionally, in 1489, there was
a "tabella" of the legend, which Giovanni Battista Spagnoli records having seen amidst numerous other
"tabelle" (presumably ex-votos). See Floriano Grimaldi, La Historia della Chiesa di Santa Maria de
Loreto, 79; 174.
27
establish a lateral station of spiritual (and political) dissemination. It is not surprising,
then, that rather than condemn Teramano's folkloric account of the Translatio as a
superstitious product of local storytelling, the Papacy sought to cultivate, and
simultaneously "rationalize," the essential narrative elements of the legend. What
followed was the Historia of the Santa Casa of Loreto, written by the humanist
ecclesiastic Giacomo Ricci sometime between 1473 and 1477.29 Unlike Teramano's text,
written in Italian and following broad hagiographic conventions, Ricci's Latin
interpretation purports to be "la verita della storia" of the Loretan legend and quotes
liberally from classical sources, including Virgil and Cicero.3D In dedicating his text to
the Camerlengo Latino Orsini, the author pronounces his papal affiliation, thereby further
establishing a spiritual and symbolic connection between Rome and Loreto.
Giorgio Cracco, in a well-developed examination of Ricci's Historia, has defined
the work as a "counter-legend" to Teramano's earlier, and primarily localist, version.3l A
major difference between the texts is Ricci's self-conscious insistence on the incredibility
of the story: he specifically addresses the improbability ofthe flight of an inanimate
structure:
29 The manuscript is not dated, though as Giuseppe Santarelli notes, Ricci, in his Preamble to the Historia,
identifies himself as Canon of the Cathedral of Brescia, a rank he attained in 1473. In addition, Latino
Orsini, to whom the work is dedicated, died in 1477, placing the publication of the text as most likely
between these definitive dates. See Giacomo Ricci, Virgin is Mariae Loretae Hisoria. Edited and translated
into Italian by Giuseppe Santarelli (Loreto: Congregazione Universale della Santa Casa, 1987), 19.
30 All quotations from Giacomo Ricci's Virginis Mariae Loretae Historia are taken from Giuseppe
Santarelli's translation, which includes the original Latin text as well as the Italian version used here. The
present citation is from page 107 of this edition.
31 Cracco, especially 144-57.
28
Ma perche dico «fosse trasportato»? Infatti, una cosa non movibile non pUO
essere trasportata. Perche, dunque, riferisco cose incredibili? Parlo 0 taccio?
Ma e bene rivelare Ie opere di Dio. Sappiamo anche che tutto e possible a Dio.
Ecosa piu meravigliosa, infatti, pensare in che modo, percossa la roccia, ne siano
scaturite acque gradevoli per il popolo assetato; oppure in che modo il mare pote
dividersi perche gli ebrei potessero passare a piedi asciutti,32
Ricci's solution to this dilemma reveals his knowledge of biblical exegesis in that he
likens the mystery of the translation to such Old Testament miracles as the parting of the
Red Sea. The illustrations of certain pilgrimage texts pictorially employ a similar
comparison between Old Testament symbols and the translation of the Holy House. In
an illustration from an early seventeenth-century edition of Louis Richeome's guide, for
example, the Virgin and her relic are visually equated with the Exodus, the Ark of the
Covenant and Jacob's ladder, all of which are narrative treatments of the flight from
turpitude (see figure 12).33 The reference to the Ark of the Covenant is particularly
significant in this context as it was also considered a literary metaphor for the Virgin
herself as the Templum Dei of the Christian faith.34 Ricci additionally eliminates all
traces of Teramano's localism, transferring the geographical emphasis of the legend from
Recanati to the entire Italian peninsula. The Virgin leaves Dalmatia, Ricci writes,
because she feels like "una estranea" and desires instead to be with her own people, "miei
italiani".35 In this way, the Papacy-through Ricci's account-successfully circumvents
32 Ricci, translated in Santarelli, 117.
33 Regarding Louis Richeome, see note 1 above.
34 William Bareham, "Giambattista Tiepolo's Ceiling for S. Maria da Nazareth in Venice: Legend,
Traditions, and Devotions," The Art Bulletin 61, no. 3 (Sep 1979): 442.
35 Ricci, translated in Santarelli, 119.
29
the local claim to proprietorship that had been a principal motive of Teramano's
narrative, confirming instead the universal importance of the Christian shrine. According
to Ricci, the Virgin had chosen not Recanati as her new Nazareth, but rather Italy, the
seat of Christ's vicarage on Earth and where all sacred things are at home ("Ie cose sacre
abiano nelle regioni italiane una naturale sede").36 Just as the Santa Casa signified the
incarnation of Christ, and hence the rebirth of humankind, so did its presence in Italy
signal a rebirth of the origins of Christianity within the Western world. Such a treasure
could certainly not be left to local religious authorities; the camera was a symbol of
Christianity itself, and must therefore pertain directly to the universal authority of the
Pope himself.
Even within the edifying and exegetical structure of Ricci's text, there does
remain an underlying emphasis on popular devotional practice. In the preamble, the
author defines the act of writing as itself an ex-voto, his fulfillment of a promise made to
the Virgin of Loreto in exchange for divine favor:
Fate voti al Signore Dio vostro e adempiteli. Poiche la precedente estate, al
sorgere di Sirio, a causa di un'eccessiva equitazione fui colpito da una non lieve
malattia che mi assali con dolori estremi, al punto che mi sembrava di aver perso
i sensi e la conoscenza, dal momenta che la medicina non era stata in grado di
eliminare tali e tanti improvvisi dolori, e poiche Ie membra indebolite erano
acerbissimamente tormentate per lungo tempo, ero costretto a emettere
continuamente alte grida fino al cielo. Ma mentre un giorno restavo cosi,
gridando mi venne da pensare: se facessi voto alIa Vergine Maria, denominata
Loreta, potrebbe capitare che io ne esca salvo. Per la qual cosa, se mi fosse stata
concessa la salute, proposi di scrivere esattamente e distesamente, secondo Ie
forze, la verita della storia della stessa, la quale per certo (come ritengo) enota a
pochi in questa nostra provincia. Molti infatti vanno dicendo molte cose in
proposito, rna pochi sanno come effettivamente sta la realta. Dopo che espressi
con parole il mio proposito, subito percepii la presenza della potenza divina, il
36 Ibid., 143.
30
cui aiuto avevo invocato: ecco la malattia farsi debole, Ie forze che avevo del
tutto perso a cause dell'eccessiva spossatezza delle membra, ritomano, e poco
dopo cominciai a riavermi. 37
Ricci introduces his history, then, by emphasizing that (1) it is important both to make
and keep votive promises to God; (2) urgent appeals for mercy will not go unanswered;
(3) the history of the Virgin of Loreto is largely unknown or misunderstood; (4) Ricci's
history promises to be a "truthful history"; (5) the Virgin herself desired to have her story
known and therefore restored the author's health to enable him to write it; and (6) the
Virgin sanctions Ricci's history as truthful. This votive framework not only encourages
pilgrimage and devotion to the Virgin of Loreto, but it also masterfully establishes the
veracity of the account to follow. Instead of relying solely on local oral testimony to
legitimize the truth of his text, as does Teramano, Ricci claims direct endorsement from
the Virgin herself. Moreover, he suggests the universal accessibility of the Virgin of
Loreto by confirming that her favor extends to all who seek it-even those yet unfamiliar
with her history. To conclude this discourse on the importance of the votive act, Ricci
repeats the line with which he began: "Fate voti al Signore Dio vostro e adempiteli," an
Old Testament citation from Psalm 75, and follows with a citation from Saint Augustine
on the importance of fulfilling votive promises.38 In this way, Ricci reaffIrms the
scriptural and patristic basis of his text and appropriates the pious legend of Teramano
under the auspices of doctrinal authority.
37 Ibid., 104.
38 Ibid., 104.
31
The respective texts ofTeramano and Ricci evince the dialectical nature of the
Loretan problem: an ongoing tension between legend or popular devotion on the one
hand and doctrinal substantiation on the other permeates the literary and artistic identity
of the shrine. While this conflict is certainly not unique to Loreto within the Catholic
tradition, there seems to emerge a particularly successful fusion of legend and history
within the Loretan iconography. Beginning in the last decades of the fifteenth century-
that is, after the publication of Teramano and Ricci's narrative accounts-there is a
perceptible shift in both the style and subject of imagery related to the shrine. The iconic
function of earlier works (which principally depict the Virgin of Loreto) is now
secondary to a didactic one (which foregrounds the translation of the house as an
essential component of Loretan religiosity). One sixteenth-century print describes the
translation both visually and textually, dedicating the entire lower register of the
composition to a detailed description of the events first relayed by Teramano (see figure
13). At the lower right of the print, an instructive key identifies the various stages of the
translation, which correspond to accompanying indicators in the image above. Each
entry simultaneously identifies both a visual representation and a textual description of
one stage of the translation itinerary. Images like this one force the viewer to read
through a didactic lens, sustaining the veracity of the origins of the relic as well as of its
extended narrative. Just as Ricci presents his own account as a "history" of the
translation, sixteenth-century artists deploy visual and textual signifiers within a
historicizing structure. In addition, the text accompanying the painting begins, as Ricci's
narrative does, with a description of the Annunciation, intertwining sanctioned biblical
32
history with the popular legend of the Santa Casa; both thus establish a specific
theological climate within which to interpret the miraculous nature of the event. In this
way, moreover, the legend of the translation becomes a visual and literary extension of a
canonical biblical narrative.
The circulation of such documentary-style prints reinforced the legend as
historical, instructing viewers both on the events of the translation and on its place within
ongoing Christian history. Perhaps Teramano's story of the notabili, who traveled to
Nazareth to verify the dimensions of the relic, enjoyed such short-lived popularity within
the Loretan iconographical tradition because there was no longer any need to "verify" the
relic's provenance: by the last two decades of the fifteenth century its identity as the Holy
House of Nazareth was solidified and successfully transferred to the protection of
Christ's vicar in Rome. If the first translation occurred in 1291, the legendary date that
both Teramano and Ricci uphold as the initial moment of the relic's departure from
Nazareth, the narratives of the 1470s can be described as representing a second,
theoretical, translation. That is, in consolidating the importance of the relic as the house
of the Virgin Mary, Teramano and Ricci successfully "translated" the relic, Teramano in
terms of local and Ricci in terms of universal, identity. It is perhaps not surprising that
no written accounts of the translation surface prior to the 1470s, given the intensity of the
historical moment in which they did emerge: when the religious and political foothold of
the Papacy in the Holy Land was lost. In identifying the nature of the church at Loreto as
part of this same Eastern landscape, the translation narratives compensate this loss,
Figure 13. Devotional Print Depicting the Translation, 1570.
Figure 14. Devotional Print with Fortifications, Late Fifteenth Century.
33
simultaneously assuring a continued and tangible connection to the origins of
Christianity.
34
35
CHAPTER III
THE HOLY HOUSE OF LORETO:
IMPORTATION OF SACRED SPACE AND IDENTITY IN THE EARLY
RENAISSANCE CHAPEL
The symbolic shifting of power from Recanati to Rome, achieved in part through Ricci's
fashioning of the translation story, was administratively reinforced in 1476 when Pope
Sixtus IV elected his cardinal nephew Girolamo Basso della Rovere to the bishropic of
Recanati. This strategic papal move subverted the power of the local diocese, allowing
the Pope to further reinforce the spiritual and political connection between Rome and its
Loretan outpOSt.39 Basso della Rovere, through his building and artistic campaign, would
prove a critical figure in the establishment of curial authority at Loreto, as well as in the
identification of the shrine as a new Nazareth and "capitale mistica" of Christianity.40
Robert Ousterhout, in a study on the replication of sacred architecture within a
civic context, describes the medieval phenomenon of traveling objects-such as
ampullae, flasks, relics, images or even narrative descriptions-in terms of
"topographical transfer," by which "the myriad spiritual associations of one location
could be made mystically present in a new setting."41 Pilgrimage paraphernalia allowed
the memory of place and ritual to be extended into the everyday realm, functioning as
portable signifiers of sacred identity and experience. The tangibility of such objects, as
39 Scaraffia, 20.
40 Grimaldi, La Chiesa di Santa Maria di Loreto, 183.
41 Robert Ousterhout, "Flexible Geography and Transportable Topography," Jewish Art 23-24 (1997-98):
402.
36
well as their association with the memory of sacred place, allowed them to function as a
kind of portal, collapsing the temporal and spatial divide between holy and mundane.
Such items were an essential part of the ritual experience of Holy Land pilgrimage, as
much as the architectural settings built to house and glorify the sacred spaces and objects
of the Palestinian landscape. It is not uncommon, in fact, to find anachronistic pairings of
object and architecture on pilgrimage tokens, as visible on the ampulla from the Holy
Sepulcher cited above, in which a scriptural reference to the Resurrection of Christ is
conflated with contemporary architectural details of the shrine.42 In the economy of
sacred ritual, it would seem that historical accuracy is significantly less meaningful than
the memory of lived experience. That which defined meaning for pilgrims was rather the
tangible nature ofplace, the ability to "see and touch the places where Christ was present
in the body."43
Several medieval pilgrimage narratives foreground a similar connection between
ritual, memory and sacred place. The so-called Bordeaux Pilgrim, for example, in a
sixth-century pilgrimage journal, describes the Palestinian landscape as a physical
projection of scriptural narrative:
Inside Sion, within the wall, you can see where David had his palace ... As you
leave and pass through the wall of Sion, towards the Gate of Neapolis, down in
the valley on your right you have some walls where Pontius Pilate had his
house ... On your left is the hillock Golgotha where the Lord was crucified, and
42 For a study on architecture of the Holy Land as it appears on pilgrimage tokens, see Robert Ousterhout,
"Architecture as Relic and the Construction of Sanctity: The Stones of the Holy Sepulchre," The Journal of
the Society ofArchitectural Historians 62, no. 1 (2003): 4-23.
43 From Paulinus of Nola in Epistles 49: 402; quoted in Simon Coleman and John Elsner, Pilgrimage Past
and Present in the World Religions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 16.
37
about a stone's throw from it the vault where they laid his body, and he rose
again on the third day.44
In this account, the Bordeaux Pilgrim perceives the topographical features of place as
testimony of the events relayed in scripture, thereby mapping biblical history onto the
surrounding landscape. Moreover, the act of witnessing the holy places described in the
Christological narratives empirically reinforces their historical and theological truth.
Certainly, the hope of beholding the places of Christ also led to the fabrication of holy
sites, a result of projecting scriptural references onto existing topography, regardless of
authenticity.45 As pilgrimage to the Holy Land escalated in the Middle Ages, so did the
number of architectural monuments celebrating the life of Christ, including shrines or
churches built both to house sacred relics and to accommodate the increasing number of
visitors. Soon the historical events and settings were synonymous with their
contemporary recreations and the shifting architecture of the Holy Land became part and
parcel of the experience-and memory-of the spiritual journey.
By the 1470s, the idea that architecture could both validate place and shape ritual
experience was well established through the Holy Land model. Whether any pope truly
believed that the little chapel in Loreto was actually the Holy House of the Virgin Mary,
or that it had been miraculously transferred there by angels, is irrelevant to the scope of
this investigation; what the Curia did know was that the relic provided a spiritual and
symbolical transfer of sacrality precisely when "the Holy Land has been so utterly
44 From The Journal ofthe Bordeaux Pilgrim (592-94), quoted in Coleman and Elsner, 15.
45 Ibid., 16.
38
lost ... that now no one so much thinks about recovering it, and there is no longer any way
to recover it, unless it should please God."46 With the holy places slipping out of reach,
the relic at Loreto--quickly gaining fame as the chamber of the Virgin-legitimized the
Western Church as rightful custodian of a representative portion of the Holy Land,
transferred from Palestine to Italy. The translation of the relic, then, also assured a
transfer of sacred memory: the places of Christ would not be lost to the collective
consciousness but rather reborn to a new generation of devotees in the West. It is
significant that in 1489 Cardinal Basso della Rovere called the Carmelite Order to Loreto,
charging them with the maintenance of the shrine. According to several fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century legends, the Carmelites had also been guardians of the relic previously,
when it still occupied the Holy Land in the time of Christ.47 Whatever his motive in
brining them to Loreto, by doing so Basso della Rovere further solidified the image of
Loreto as a new Nazareth.
Cardinal Basso della Rovere, who gained administrative custody of the shrine at
the heightened moment of political tension in the East, must have recognized a need to
assimilate the relic more permanently into its surroundings, as he immediately began to
accelerate the building program for the new basilica, which had begun in 1470.48 A
decade later, the imminent threat of Turkish assault-a fear fueled by the Ottoman
46 From the memoirs of Friar Felix Fabri, who journeyed twice to Jerusalem in the early 1480s; quoted in
Bernard Hamilton, "The Ottomans, the Humanists and the Holy House of Loreto," Crusaders, Cathars and
the Holy Places (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 17: 11.
47 See for example, Orazio Torsellino, The History ofour Blessed Lady ofLoreto, translated into English in
1608. Edited by D.M. Rogers, (London: Scolar Press, 1976), 140.
48 Arnaldo Bruschi, "Loreto: citro santuario e cantiere artistico," in Citterio and Vaccaro, eds. Loreto:
Crocevia religioso tra Italia, Europa e Oriente, 455.
39
occupation of Otranto in I480-led to fortification of the basilica and its precious relic.
Several images from this period reflect the construction of four lateral towers, which
surrounded the sanctuary as part of a fortified enceinte and would have conveyed an
imposing sense of impenetrability to approaching ships (see figure 14). The
Santa Casa had already escaped once from the hands of infidels; now Basso della Rovere
feared that Ottoman armies would target the Marches, "especially to attack Santa Maria
di Loreto. "49 In several popular prints depicting the apotropaic powers of the Virgin of
Loreto, her ability to "allontanare i Turchi" is a salient and recurring theme (as in figure
9). As Bernard Hamilton notes, the Turkish threat spurred a fierce defensiveness on the
part ofthe Curia, whose failed crusade campaign could now be directed toward
protecting the Holy House. 5o If the Christian West could not claim the recovery of the
Holy Land, it could at least boast of defending a symbolic microcosm of the East in the
form of the Virgin's relic. A printed image from a late sixteenth-century history of the
site depicts a group ofpilgrims approaching the basilica and waving the standards of the
holy crusaders (see figure 15). Such imagery reaffirms the role of the Santa Casa as a
newfound emblem of crusade and pilgrimage activity after the fall of Constantinople.
Not only the exterior fortification of the site occupied Cardinal Basso della
Rovere in the 1480s, but also the interior decoration of the basilica. A true humanist, he
directed his energies toward safeguarding the aesthetic wealth of the sanctuary in addition
49 Girolamo Basso della Rovere in a letter dated March 28, 1485 to Domenico dell'Anguillara, his
representative at Loreto, expresses his ongoing concern for a Turkish threat at Loreto, and orders that all
efforts should be made to resist an attack; quoted in Eva Renzulli, "Loreto, Leo X and the Fortifications on
the Adriatic Coast," Italy and the European Powers: The Impact ofWar, 1500-1530 (Leiden: Brill, 2006),
64.
50 Hamilton, 17: II.
40
to defending its financial and spiritual prosperity. His major concern was the decoration
of the four small transept chapels surrounding the Santa Casa, which he commissioned
sometime between 1479 and 1489.51 When considered independently of the political
history of the site, as is so often the case, the pictorial cycle of the transept chapels seems
perplexingly digressive in a church dedicated to the most important relic of the Virgin
Mary. There is, after all, no reference to either the Virgin or the Santa Casa. However,
viewed in the political context of the late fifteenth century, when the Church was
concerned first with confirming its administrative authority at Loreto as well as abroad,
second with affirming the sacred provenance of the relic, and finally, with transferring
the memory and experience of Holy Land pilgrimage to the West, Basso della Rovere's
iconographic aspirations seem an apt and timely initiative.
Positioned at the crossing angles of the transept, the four chapels encircle the
main altar where the relic of the Holy House is located (see figure 16). The space around
the altar accommodated pilgrims as they circumambulated the house while also providing
access to the surrounding chapels. In close proximity to the relic itself, the chapels were
an essential feature of the ritual experience at Loreto. However, those of Saints Mark and
John were the only two to receive their projected artistic treatments in the 1480s.
Whether for lack of financial resources or otherwise, the chapels reserved for Saints Luke
and Matthew remained undecorated at the end of the fifteenth century.52 The work of
51 For more information concerning the difficulty in dating the activity of Melozzo da Forli and Luca
Signorelli at Loreto, see Giuseppe Santarelli, L 'Arte a Loreto (Ancona: Aniballi Grafiche, 2001),120; 132.
Figure 15. Illustration from Sancta Maria de Loreto, 1589. '
Figure 16. Plan of the Basilica of Santa Maria di Loreto, Archivio Storico della Santa Casa.
41
Figure 17. Melozzo da ForB, Chapel of Saint Mark, 1479-89 ca.
Figure 18. Melozzo da ForB, Entry into Jerusalem, Chapel of Saint Mark, 1479-89 ca.
42
43
Melozzo da Forli in the chapel of Saint Mark is distinguished by a breathtaking
manipulation of jewel-toned color and architectonic harmony. The artist evokes, across
the eight-sided interior of the chapel, a panoramic illusion oflandscape and architectural
detail; through a series of fictitious colonnades, the viewer was intended to gaze at
naturalistic vignettes of the Holy Land beyond (see figure 17). The apex of the cupola
bears the arms of Cardinal Basso della Rovere while the base is inscribed with eight Old
Testament prophets, who are in turn surmounted by angels bearing the instruments of
Christ's Passion; the lower register of the chapel remains incomplete.53 Each of the eight
bays was to represent a narrative from the cycle of Christ's Passion-as corresponding to
the arma Christi represented above-though only the Entry into Jerusalem was fully
realized (see figure 18). Here, the illusory base of the architrave recedes into the painted
landscape, projecting the viewer across time and space to witness the last days of Christ's
life on Earth. The Apostles in the foreground gaze directly outward, an act that denies
the limitations of the painted surface and invites the viewer to transcend the division
between real and illusionary space. In the background, the architectural skyline of
Jerusalem delineates the horizon. Here, then, is the same opportunity afforded the
Bordeaux pilgrim on his journey to the Holy Land: to visualize scriptural narrative set
against the topographical features of the Eastern landscape. Just as the Santa Casa acted
52 A few theories have emerged regarding the intended pictorial cycles for the unfinished chapels. The
most widely acknowledged is that of Gloria Kury, who suggests that the Saint Luke chapel would have
illustrated episodes from the infancy of Christ while that of Saint Matthew would have focused on scenes
from His ministry. See Gloria Kury, The Early WorkofLuca Signorelli 1465-1490 (New York and
London: Garland, 1978), 127-64.
53 It is uncertain why the lower register of the chapel of Saint Mark was never completed; speculation is
complicated by the difficulty in identifying the exact years in which Melozzo da ForB was employed at
Loreto.
44
as a vehicle of sacred memory, transporting the faithful to the very origins of Christianity,
the chapel of Saint Mark similarly performed a ritual transfer. With its panoramic vedute
of the end of Christ's life, Melozzo da ForB's pictorial cycle appropriately complements
the theme of the Incarnation, as symbolized by the relic of the Holy House. In moving
from the relic itself to the chapel of Saint Mark, pilgrims were continuously "translated"
to the origins of Christianity to witness the beginning and end of Christ's mortality and to
meditate on their own role within Salvation history.
While the Saint Mark chapel recreates the sacred topography of the Holy Land in
tandem with the relic, the chapel of Saint John reaffirms the authority of the Western
Church in Christian history. Specifically, the frescoes of Luca Signorelli are dedicated to
the defense and propagation of the faith after the Resurrection of Christ. Emerging
amidst swirling folds of elegant drapery, a chorus of angels lyrically crowns the cupola of
the chapel (see figure 19). Just below, the four Evangelists are pictured in contemplative
study, interspersed with the early Church Fathers, Jerome, Augustine, Gregory and
Ambrose, who are equally engaged in reading and writing. The lower register is
composed of seven pictorial sections, which include fives pairs of Apostles who
animatedly discuss scriptural passages, and two narrative scenes dedicated to The
Incredulity a/Saint Thomas and The Conversion a/Saul (see figures 20 and 21). By the
early Renaissance, the "doubting Thomas" motif was a well-established allegory of the
importance of faith in the mysteries of Christ, and its inclusion seems particularly
appropriate in a basilica dedicated to a relic of miraculous origins. The adjacent
composition expertly mimics the scene of the Incredulity: one Apostle looks on
Figure 19. Melozzo daForli, Chapel of Saint John, 1479-89 ca.
Figure 20. Luca Signorelli, Incredulity a/Saint Thomas, Chapel of Saint John, 1479-89 ca.
45
Figure 21. Luca Signorelli, The Conversion o/Saul, Chapel of Saint John, 1479-89 ca.
Figure 22. Luca Signorelli, Two Apostles, Chapel of Saint John, 1479-89 ca.
46
47
thoughtfully as another points his attention toward an open book (see figure 22). In the
same way that Christ's wound provides proof of His Resurrection for Thomas, the Holy
Scriptures act as a tangible witness to the presence of God, as well as to the role of the
Church in disseminating the Christian faith. The Bible, then, can be seen as the signifier,
or physical manifestation, of Christ, whereas the signified, the act of Redemption, is
visually reinforced in The Conversion ofSaul. Moreover the message of having faith in
the "incredulity" of the divine mysteries would have extended to the miraculous legend
of the site's main relic.
Located above the doorway to the chapel, the Conversion is the only scene that
interrupts the compositional similitude-that is, of two figures set within an
architecturally delineated space---ofthe lower register, lending it a stylistic as well as
spatial distinction. Saul of Tarsus, who became known as the apostle Paul after his
conversion, had been a zealous persecutor of Christians, oppressing the church of
Jerusalem and its followers "to the point of death by binding both men and women and
putting them in prison. "54 One day, on the road to Damascus, Saul perceived a great,
blinding light and a divine voice ordering that he redeem his sinful life in the service of
the Lord. Theologically, his conversion to Christianity bespeaks the possibility of
redemption through faith and service to God. In the context of the late fifteenth century,
Saul would have served a diametrical function: both as the archetypal infidel (he who
seeks to eradicate Christianity), and as the faithful pilgrim who, (like those who journey
to Loreto), seeks absolution for his sins. In the niche opposite the entrance to the chapel,
54 Paul recounts his conversion story in Acts 22:3-12.
48
a small window casts natural light both on the conversion scene, materially furnishing the
divine light described in the narrative, and on the viewer who stands just below. In this
way, there is a consolidation of past and present, "real" and mimetic, as the viewer
simultaneously perceives the light of Christ. Moreover, the scene of the Conversion, like
that of the Incredulity, becomes a visual manifestation of the scriptural narratives, which
the Apostles consult and discuss throughout the lower register. There is, then, as in the
chapel of Saint Mark, a condensing of time and space-as well as of word and image-
by which the present moment is transposed into early Christian history: it is a numinous
moment, possible only upon entering the enclosed space of the chapel. In this way, the
chapel performs a thaumaturgic function similar to that of the Holy House, as an
architectural space in which the word is materialized as flesh. In the chapel of Saint
John, the miracle of the Santa Casa-that is, the ability to recreate the mystery of the
Incarnation-is ideologically framed by biblical exegesis. Read vertically, moreover, the
Church Fathers and Evangelists of the central register should be construed as
compositionally mediating the empyrean and terrestrial realms, thereby facilitating the
sacred encounter. Less than a decade after Teramano and Ricci's accounts of the
translation, it would have been impractical to memorialize the still inchoate legend on the
new walls of the basilica. Instead, Basso della Rovere aimed to provide an authoritative
scriptural and theological context in which to view and interpret the mystery of the Santa
Casa at Loreto.
Surrounding the relic at its four corners, the chapels are an essential part of the
sacred landscape that defines the experience of the divine at Loreto. As an architectural
49
extension of the house itself, they necessarily reinforce the experience of being
"translated" to the origins of Christianity, as in the chapel of Saint Mark. The four
Evangelists stand, moreover, as "witnesses" to the divine mysteries; in circumscribing the
relic of the Holy House, they attest to its authenticity as well as to its predestined role in
symbolizing the Catholic faith. A sixteenth-century pilgrimage souvenir print seems to
reinforce a similar theological concept (see figure 23). Moreover, the longstanding
debate between local and curial authorities over the proper jurisdiction of the Santa Casa
prompted the need for a decorative program that would reinforce the universal authority
of the Church, not only at Loreto but also in the East, where Saul-like enemies threatened
the foundational sites of the Christian faith. Alternating images of the Evangelists and
Church Fathers in the chapel of Saint John succinctly affirm the essential role of the
Church in both East and West, past and present, straddling the geographical and historical
divide between the two main poles of Christianity. Just as the Bordeaux Pilgrim affirms
that "witnessing" the scriptural topography lends spiritual and historical accuracy to the
biblical narratives, Basso della Rovere effects a similar contextualization of the relic of
the Holy House within the geography of sacred and curial authority.
Figure 23. Devotional Image of the Holy House with the Four Evangelists, Sixteenth Century.
50
51
CHAPTER IV
THE REFORMATION AND THE HOLY HOUSE OF LORETO:
ARTISTIC IMPORTATION AND DEVOTIONAL EXPORTATION IN THE
RENAISSANCE RIVESTIMENTO
The seemingly indomitable force of the Ottoman Empire was of course not the only
threat that menaced Catholicism in the early sixteenth century. A much closer peril, one
that endangered the ecumenical soundness of the Western world, threatening to divide
Christendom and its united forces from within, emerged in the Protestant movement,
which was intent on doctrinal and practical reform. Among their many critiques of
Church practice, Lutheran reformists identified the flourishing cult of Mary as a
particularly dangerous theological abuse in need of eradication. The devotional shift of
the role of the Virgin Mary in the late Middle Ages from the more passive Theotokos to
that of beloved divine Mediatrix was largely due to the perception of the Mother of God
as a merciful and compassionate champion of the cause of human salvation. As Queen of
Heaven, Mary is afforded the privilege of direct intercession with her son, thus
cooperating in a shared responsibility of salvation, in which her own misericordia often
palliates the harsh retribution of Christ's justice. For devotees, the Virgin Mary
embodied ''jiducia and hope of the world, [for] she represents love and pity."55 As Beth
Kreitzer observes, the singing of the Marian hymn Salve Regina, which identifies the
Virgin as the "life, sweetness, and comfort" of her followers, had become a regular
55 Heiko A. Oberman, quoted in Beth Kreitzer, Reforming Mary: Changing Images ofthe Virgin Mary in
Lutheran Sermons ofthe Sixteenth Century (Oxford: University Press, 2004), 15.
52
liturgical as well as popular devotional practice by the beginning of the sixteenth
century.56 Hymns were an essential component ofpopular Marian devotion, as reflected
in the rise of the Ave Maria, which cited the words of the angelic salutation from the
biblical account of the Annunciation. The connection between popular piety and the
theme of the Ave Maria had particular resonance at Loreto, where the Santa Casa
provided access to the physical site of the mystery of the Incarnation. A fifteenth-century
iron pilgrimage badge from Loreto underscores the importance of this relationship in
early Renaissance pilgrimage culture (see figure 24). The peripheral script, which reads
"Ave Maria gratia plena," circumscribes a central figural group dominated by the image
of the Virgin ofLoreto under a baldachin and flanked by two angels. It is interesting to
note the iconographic development in later pilgrimage badges, which after the texts of
Teramano and Ricci, favor an image of the Virgin together with her sacello (see figure
25). Moreover, the controversial use of "gratia plena" is later changed to "ora pro nobis,"
reflecting Post-Tridentine doctine that privileged the Virgin as intercessor.
Lutherans were particularly severe in their condemnation of the Pope and other
clergy, accusing them of idolatrous exaltation of the Mother of God. As certain reformist
sermons argued, the primary Catholic justification for Mary worship stems from the
interpretation of the meaning of the angel's salutation in the Annunciation text. Lutheran
reformist Johannes Heune, in a sermon on the theme of the Annunciation, laments the
fate of those who have decided that "[since] Mary is full of grace...they ought to call
upon her justly for help, but Mary is not full of Grace ... [and] cursed be all those who
56 Kreitzer, 33.
Figure 24. Loreto Pilgrimage Badge, Fifteenth Century.
Figure 25. Loreto Pilgrimage Badge, Sixteenth Century.
53
54
invoke creatures and falsely interpret the word of God in order to confirm their
abominable idolatry, with high contempt for the Son of God, with great insult to the all-
holy Virgin Mary, and with certain ruin for their souls' salvation."57 As the Catholic
theological justification for the cult of the Virgin Mary hinged primarily on Gabriel's
address, the Annunciation text became a primary theme of contention in the ideological
restructuring of religious doctrine during the Reformation.58 Visual and textual emphasis
on the scene of the Annunciation encouraged the commandment-breaking tendency to
aggrandize the importance of the Virgin Mary, an error that reformists condemned as
detracting from the centrality of Christ in the act of redemption.
Given this intensified climate around the mystery of the Annunciation, it is not
surprising that the Holy House ofLoreto would enter prominently in the debate, serving
the ideological armory of Catholics and Protestants alike. In what was perhaps the most
widely read sixteenth-century polemical treatise on the relic of the Santa Casa, reformist
Pietro Paolo Vergerio il Giovane condemns the popular Mariolatry around the shrine at
Loreto.59 Such idolatry, Vergerio maintains, detracts from the pure evangelical truth that
reformists championed as the authentic agent of redemption. He further contests the
prodigious origins of the Marian chapel, decrying the lack of historicity that characterizes
the account of Teramano's transportation legend. Vergerio further admonishes his
57 Kreitzer, 32.
58 Ibid., 28-32.
59 Pietro Paolo Vergerio il Giovane, Della camera, et statua della Madonna chiamata di Loreto, la quale e
stata nuovamente difesa da Fra leandro Alberti Bolognese, e da Papa Giulio III con un solenne privilegio
approvata, first published in 1544.
55
Catholic contemporaries who propagate such unsubstantiated miracle stories, including
Fra Leandro Bolognese who
in un suo libro stampato in Bologna nell'anno 1550 ha tolto a celebrare per cose
verissime, catholice [sic] e sante il concorso de popoli alla statoa e a i muri di
Loretto, il sangue uscito fuor dall'hostia di Boisena, gli altari fatti e consecrati
per mana di S. Michele Arcangelo suI Monte Gargano e altre simili facende. Et
papa Iulio terzo ha tutto cia approvato e confermato onde ogn'huom potra far
giudicio lui et la sua chiesa Roma esser risoluta di volersi mantenere in tutte Ie
consuete sue superstitioni, buggie, idolatrie, e errori in disprezzo degli huomini e
di Dio.60
The Pope himself does not escape Vergerio' s tirade against the propagation of popular
"superstitions" and "lies" that justify and breed Mariolatry at Loreto. Vergerio visually
reiterates his textual condemnation of the Loretan cult through the inclusion of imagery
that corrects the Catholic iconography associated with the site. One of the illustrations to
Vergerio's text displays the Santa Casa carried by angels, but with the Virgin removed
altogether from the image (see figure 26). In this way, Vergerio echoes Luther's mandate
that, due to the myriad dangers associated with the adoration and invocation of the Virgin
Mary, "it would be better to leave her out altogether, and concentrate on believing in
God. "61 The inclusion of this illustration challenges idolatry by eliminating the idolatrous
constituent, but moreover willfully undermines the devotional legend of the translation by
ousting Mary at the apogee of the miraculous act piously attributed to her will.
60 Grimaldi, Illibro lauretano: Secoli XV-XVIII (Loreto: Tecnostampa di Loreto, 1994),93.
61 Kreitzer, 30.
Figure 26. Illustration from De Idola Lauretano, Pietro Paolo Vergerio il Giovane, 1554.
Figure 27. Illustration from Clypeus Lauretanus, Ludovico Centofiorini, 1643.
56
57
While Luther and his followers focused on anathematizing the idolatrous nature
of the cult at Loreto, targeting both the Holy House and the Virgin herself, the Papacy
began to reestablish and reinforce the miraculous properties and divine origins of the
relic, propagating with renewed vehemence the Santa Casa's centrality to both devotion
and redemption. The frontispiece of a seventeenth-century apologist treatise illustrates
how Catholic reformers continued to privilege the authenticity of the sacello as a shield
against heretical accusations of idolatry (see figure 27). Here, the relic is physically
transformed into a bulwark of Catholic faith, resisting the heretical arrows launched from
the Lutheran arsenal. As the attacks increased in advance of the Reformation, in 1507 the
Santa Casa was officially appropriated directly into the jurisdiction of the Bishop of
Rome, finally transferring its custody entirely from the local Recanatese diocese to the
Pope himself.62 Along with the mandate for custodial reassignment, Pope Julius II issued
a bull entitled In sublimia, which affirmed-though in cautious terms-the pious belief
of the miraculous origins of the relic: "ut pie creditur et fama est.,,63 While the Pope does
not explicitly confirm the historical veracity of the legend, his words are a direct
reference to Ricci's Historia, the late fifteenth-century text purporting to reveal the true
history of the translation legend. In the bull, concessions were also made for papal
indulgences to be issued to those visiting the shrine in pilgrimage.
At the time these new classifications were issued, Pope Julius II had already
begun to visualize the construction of a much grander Loretan complex, one that would
62 Gualtiero da Servigliano, Loreto nel Cinquecento: Sviluppo del centro sociale (Loreto: Archivio Storieo
e Biblioteca della Santa Casa, 1970),5.
63 Ibid., 5.
58
befit a Papal Chapel and represent adequately the splendid resources and talents at the
disposal of the Church of Rome. In a letter dated November 9, 1507, the pontifical
commissary elaborates on the Pope's vision for Loreto: "Le cose di S. Maria sono ad core
molto ad N(ostro) S(ignore) et hami detto vole fare Ii cose magne et presto mandera
Bramante per disegnare molte opere che vole fare et resarcire quello bisogna."64 In 1507
and again in 1509 Bramante went to Loreto by order of the Pope, where he contributed to
the continued architectural amplification of the sanctuary; he also conceived the "disegno
e ordine" 65 of the rivestimento, a decorative marble encasing intended to both preserve
and adorn the relic. A papal medal issued in 1509 celebrates Bramante's proposed design
for the church's fayade, though the project was never fully realized (see figure 28). In
1513, Bramante's design was entrusted to Andrea Sansovino for execution under the
patronage of the newly appointed Pope Leo X; in the same year the marble was quarried
from Carrara and the opus divinum was officially underway.66 With the contributions of
such celebrated artistic minds as Bramante, Sansovino and Antonio da Sangallo il
Giovane, who took over the project during its final phase of construction from 1531 to
1538, the rivestimento of the Santa Casa became a transmigrate amalgamation of the
genius of Papal Rome, exported from the religious and cultural capital ofItaly to this
geographically peripheral yet theologically central outpost. In tandem with the sculptural
64 Ibid., 6; Grimaldi, La Historia della Chiesa di Santa Maria de Loreto, 191.
65 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite, IV: 160.
66 Santarelli notes that this title for the project appears in documentation from the period. See Santarelli,
L 'arte a Loreto, 49.
59
Figure 28. Papal Medal with Bramante's Design for the Basilica of Santa Maria di Loreto, 1509.
Figure 29. Central Nave of the Basilica of Santa Maria di Loreto.
60
project of the marble investiture, Rome lent the painterly talents of Luca Signorelli,
Melozzo da Forli and Lorenzo Lotto to the completion of the comprehensive pictorial
program of the sanctuary. The overall effect was one in which the singular achievements
of master artists were eclipsed by a greater sense of artistic importance, a fused
ornamental program that stood in aesthetic tribute to the prominent connection between
Loreto and the papal splendor and triumph of Rome. The centripetal force of Rome's
activity at Loreto, then, solidified the shrine as one of the most important pilgrimage
centers in the Western world at a time when European religious reform threatened to
undermine Catholic authority.
When Martin Luther's theses finally exploded the theological safety net of the
Catholic Church a mere decade after the Santa Casa had been newly elevated to the
status of Papal Chapel, Rome did not halt its current building program. Despite the
pressure of Reformist denunciation regarding the cult of the Virgin Mary, Pope Leo X
countered Reformist attacks in 1520 by escalating the spiritual significance of the shrine,
declaring pilgrimage vows fulfilled at Loreto as equal to those fulfilled at the holy sites of
Palestine, Rome and Compostela.67 From this papal decree emerged a new tripartite
European pilgrimage itinerary (Loreto-Rome-Compostela), which dominated the
devotional and penitential itinerary of the sixteenth-century pilgrim. Along with the
Apostles Peter and Paul celebrated in Rome, and Saint James venerated at Compostela,
the Virgin of Loreto assumed a new and heightened significance in the role of redemption
and salvation. The new marble investiture, then, as the decorative casing of the principle
67 Floriano Grimaldi and Katy Sordi, L 'Ornamento Marmoreo della Santa Cappella di Loreto (Loreto:
Tecnostampa di Loreto, 1999), 14.
61
monument at Loreto, needed to visually and theologically reiterate Mary's essential place
in salvation history, to celebrate and heighten her mediatory function in the ritual of
pilgrimage and in the redemption of mankind. It needed to theatrically present both the
relic and its history of translation, thus inspiring devotion to the Mother of God. As the
principal focus of pilgrimage, the Santa Casa warranted a magnificent presentation,
which according to Vasari's description, the rivestimento successfully achieved:
Quel santissimo luogo, che fu proprio casa ed abitazione della Madre del
Figliuolo di Dio, non poteva, quanto al mondo, ricevere maggiore ne pili
ricco ornamento di quello che egli ebbe dall' architettura del Bramante e
dalle sculture di Andrea Sansovino, come che, se tutto fosse delle pili
preziose gemme orientali, non sarebbe se non poco pili che nulla a tanti
meriti.,,68
The view of the sacello upon entering the Church of Loreto is undoubtedly an impressive
one. Carefully angled so that the western wall aligns to face the central nave, the marble
decor hails those who enter the sacred space, appropriately mimicking Gabriel's
salutation in the scene of the Annunciation depicted there (see figure 29). Legend
maintained that it was through the window of the west wall that Gabriel entered Mary's
chamber and through which God realized the mystery of the Incarnation.69 Hence the
architectural tangibility of the house dictates the design of the decorative cycle and
underscores the miraculous event that took place there. The positioning of the
Annunciation scene directly above the window conflates the real and the mimetic,
materializing pictorial illusion; it was here, after all, that "Verbum caro factum est" (see
68 Vasari, IV: 519.
69 Grimaldi, La Historia della Chiesa di Santa Maria de Loreto, 147.
62
figure 30). Moreover, it is the moment of the Incarnation that represents the possibility
of human redemption through Christ; featuring the scene of the Annunciation above the
high altar is thus highly significant not only to the liturgical rite of the Eucharist, but also
as a herald to pilgrims. The image of the Annunciation at the Holy House of Loreto was
a reminder to the faithful that salvation was not only possible through Christ thanks to the
miracle of the Incarnation that occurred there, but that they were closer to atonement as a
result ofthe devotional rite of pilgrimage. Their journey had, in a sense, been Christ's
own in reverse, a symbolic washing away of one's sins fully realized at the site of His
inception. Moreover, Sansovino focuses the scene of the Annunciation on the narrative
moment just before the light of the Holy Spirit enters the Virgin's chamber, that is,
immediately prior to the Incarnation of Christ. As Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt has
noted, this artistic decision harnesses the dramatic tension of the scene, maintaining a
perennial dynamism, whereby each viewer-in entering the house of the Virgin-newly
experiences the moment ofhuman salvation.70 This sense of prolonging the moment of
the Incarnation is a central tenet of the Eucharist itself and, beginning in the early
seventeenth century, the Host administered as part of the liturgical rite at Loreto was
actually imprinted with the traditional iconography of the Virgin and her house (see
figure 31). 71
At the opposite end of the sacello from the Annunciation, the Dormition, or the
Assumption of the Virgin, concludes the cycle ofMary's life (figure 32). Thus, the two
70 Kathleen Weii-Garris Brandt, "I marmi del sacello: oltre settant'anni per iI rivestimento," 1/ Santuario di
Loreto: sette secoli di storia arte devozione, ed. Grimaldi (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 1994),47.
71 Grimaldi, 1/ sacello della Santa Casa, 282.
Figure 30. Andrea Sansovino, Annunciation, Holy House of Loreto, 1518-1522.
63
Figure 31. Printed Design for the Impression of the Sacramental Host, Seventeenth Century.
64
scenes act as theological bookends (the Annunciation as a beginning and the Dormition
as an end) in the story of human hope for redemption. Through her faith in God, Mary,
from the moment of the Incarnation, is awarded a place alongside her son in Heaven. Not
only does the birth of Christ make redemption possible, it is specifically Mary's example
of purity and faithfulness that allow her to triumph over sin and death. It is significant
that the Dormition of the Virgin concludes the pictorial cycle of her life on the marble
investiture, not only as the last moment of Mary's mortal life, but also as a symbolic
reminder of the spiritual objective of following her human example. Mary's ultimate
reward of immortality is exactly that which devotees seek through pilgrimage. At a
cataclysmic moment for Catholicism, Mary's example of unwavering faithfulness to God
through the mystery of the Incarnation was an ideal message for mass communication. In
addition, the medieval doctrine of the Assumption posited that Mary's corporeal form left
no earthly vestige. Medieval pilgrims, longing for sacred Marian objects, venerated
secondary relics in aim of establishing a tangible connection to the Virgin herself.72 The
scene ofthe Dormition, depicted on one of the few sacred monuments identified as
connected to Mary's terrestrial life, would have reinforced the devotional significance
and singularity of the Santa Casa. Moreover, in order to emphasize the relic status of the
Virgin's sacello, the form of the marble investiture succinctly recalls certain architectural
forms of the medieval reliquary (see figure 33).
72 Marina Warner, Alone ofAll Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult ofthe Virgin Mary (New York: Vintage
Books, 1976), 82.
Figure 32. Domenico D'Aima, Darmitian, Holy House of Loreto, 1518-24.
Figure 33. Illustration from The Lives a/St. Edmund and Fremund, John Lydgate, 1433-34.
65
Figure 34. Domenico D'Aima, Dormition and Translation, Holy House of Loreto, 1518-24.
Figure 35. Girolamo Lombardo and Tommaso Della Porta, Prophets and Sibyls, 1560-78.
66
67
Positioned just beneath the scene of the Dormition on the sacello, the pictorial
legend of the translation of the Holy House performs a tandem visual and devotional
function (see figure 34). As the concluding image of the entire Marian cycle, the
Translation of the Loretan relic becomes an apocryphal addition to her story. Its
inclusion among the canonical scenes, including the birth and marriage ofthe Virgin, as
well as the Annunciation and Nativity, systematically integrates the specific legend of the
Santa Casa into a more universal narrative of Marian doctrine. In the context of
pilgrimage, the Translation cycle suggests the Virgin's capacity for miraculous
intercession: just as she gave birth to Christ the Redeemer, so too will she grant new life
to pilgrims who beseech her at Loreto. While the Dormition reminds viewers of the
triumph of faith over death, the Translation demonstrates the Virgin's will to assist that
triumph by performing miracles and promulgating faith via the holy relic transported to
Italy. Therefore, the undocumented (as Vergerio emphasized) legend of the Santa Casa
becomes an incontrovertible metaphysical truth, like the mysteries of the Annunciation
and the Assumption, integrated into the hagiography of the Virgin Mary. Additionally,
the monumental sculptural figures of the Sibyls and Old Testament Prophets that flank
the narrative panels ofthe marble sacello iconographically reinforce the Catholic doctrine
of predetermination, recalling pre-Christian prophecies of the coming of Christ by way of
a Virgin conception (see figure 35).73 The legend of the translation as pictured on the
73 There are a few texts citing which Christo logical prophecies, associated with the individual Prophets and
Sibyls, specifically interested the sculptors at Loreto when planning the decorative program of the marble
investiture. See for example, Silvio Serragli, La Santa Casa abbellita (1633), Valerio Martorelli, Teatro
istorico della Santa Casa (1732), and Alonso de Villegas, Nuovo leggendario della vita di Maria Vergine
(1614), partially reproduced in Floriano Grimaldi and Katy Sordi, L 'Ornamento marmoreo della Santa
Cappella di Loreto, 400.
68
investiture, therefore, not only confinns and celebrates Mary's miraculous powers of
intercession, but also suggests the predetermined role that the Santa Casa plays in
salvation theology. This idea is reinforced in at least one seventeenth-century apologist
treatise on the relic at Loreto, in which an image of the translation of the Holy House is
pictured proleptically above the Annunciation, suggesting that from the moment of
Christ's inception, the peregrinate fate of the Virgin's chamber was already determined
(see figure 36). The image moreover underscores the tangible nature of the Marian
shrine, verifying the relic at Loreto as the physical site of the mystery of the Incarnation.
Other episodes from the Virgin's life, including the apocryphal narratives of her
birth and marriage as well as the scriptural account of the Nativity of the infant Jesus,
adorn the length of the marble sacello on its north and south facing walls. The entire
sculptural cycle of the life of Mary is presented chronologically, but also astutely
organizes thematic and compositional connections between pictorial units. Just as the
scene of the Annunciation, presiding over the main liturgical altar, is balanced by the
Dormition and Translation scenes on the opposite wall, Mary's own birth is mirrored by
the nativity of her son, again suggesting divine cause (the barren Anne's miraculous
conception of Mary) and effect (the birth of the Savior). Moreover, the accounts of the
Visitation and Census, figured in smaller panels just below that of the Annunciation,
suggest how Mary's conception prompted her subsequent travel, first to Jerusalem to
greet Elizabeth and then to Bethlehem with Joseph to register with the census, as
mandated by the emperor. This relationship on the west wall mirrors a similar
connection to its eastern counterpart: the Virgin's miraculous Assumption, represented in
69
the top panel of the east wall, has encouraged pilgrimage to Loreto, as depicted in the
lower register. Finally, just as Joseph and Mary's voyage to Bethlehem precedes their
flight into Egypt to escape Herod's massacre in Jerusalem, so does the Turkish invasion
of the Holy Land similarly occasion the Virgin's flight into foreign lands to prevent
desecration of her sacred chapel.
The representation of the Nativity on the rivestimento of the Holy House occupies
two registers on the southern wall. The first relays the biblical episode of the Adoration
ofthe Shepherds while the second illustrates that of the Adoration ofthe Magi (see figure
37). Frequently in depictions of the Nativity, the two Adoration motifs are spatially and
thematically condensed into one scene, while at Loreto each is given commensurate
attention. The prominence of this motif within the decorative program of the sacello is
likely a result of the specific concerns of pilgrimage ritual that define the primary
function of the relic. The shepherds, representative of a humble class of pilgrim, journey
to Bethlehem to rejoice in the coming of the Savior after receiving the herald of His birth.
Their identification as pilgrims is further emphasized by the traveling cloaks in which
they are dressed, as well as by the reverent postures with which they salute the child (the
position of the foremost shepherd mimics Gabriel's pose in the Annunciation panel,
promoting compositional unity74). At the far right of the scene, Joseph's walking- stick
reinforces the thematic concept of travel that dominates the narrative. The
74 Santarelli also notes that the flowering grape vine at the far right of the marble panel of the Adoration of
the Shepherds is an iconographical counterpart to a similar vine pictured in the scene of the Annunciation;
see Santarelli, L 'Ornamento marmoreo della Santa Cappella di Loreto, 407. This could be a thematic, as
well as compositional, anchor, meant to reinforce the divine cause (the Incarnation) and effect (the birth of
Jesus).
70
Figure 36. Illustration, Prediche Miscellanee per /'avvento di Nostro Signore, Bartoli Baldassare, 1673.
Figure 37. Sansovino and Raffaele da Montelupo, Nativity, Holy House of Loreto, 1518-34.
71
complementary representation of the Adoration ofthe Magi continues the motif of
pilgrimage, though on a more elevated register. Here it is the Kings of Eastern lands
rather than humble shepherds who have come to behold the prophesied Savior, to regale
the holy child with lavish and exotic gifts in acknowledgement of their devotion. In
addition, the Virgin and Child assume a statuesque pose reminiscent of devotional
altarpieces, suggesting the ritual interconnectivity of the first Christian pilgrimage at
Bethlehem and its pious continuation at Loreto. Moreover, the thatched roof sheltering
mother and son recalls the baldachin iconography so typically employed in the Virgin
and Child motif at Loreto. Pilgrims of varying economic and social status would have
recognized amidst the marble figures a collective sense of piety toward the common
Savior ofhumankind. Those who visited the sanctuary at Loreto found both visual and
scriptural verification of the divine sanction and devotional efficacy of pilgrimage. In
this way, the promotion of Catholic atonement through pilgrimage-a primary
theological concern of the early sixteenth-century Church-is conspicuously reinforced
in the pictorial program of the marble investiture at Loreto.
72
CHAPTER V
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION AND THE HOLY HOUSE OF LORETO:
EXPORTATION OF SACRED SPACE AND IDENTITY IN THE
RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE REPLICA
In 1507, the same year that the Papacy officially assumed full administrative custody of
the shrine at Loreto, a baker's guild commissioned a church on the site of the Forum of
Trajan in Rome. A Roman guidebook, published three years later, describes the church
as "Ecclesia S. Maria de Loreto Urbis," differentiating it from the Pope's contemporary
project in the Marches.75 Designed by Bramante, constructed in part by Antonio da
Sangallo il Giovane, and decorated with interior sculpture by Andrea Sansovino, the little
church demonstrates how quickly the devotional climate of Rome responded to the
growing popularity of the Loretan cult. Indeed, the construction of a "city church"
dedicated to the Virgin of Loreto demonstrates an early inclination to replicate the
spiritual associations of the popular pilgrimage site within the fabric of everyday ritual.
Moreover, that the same artists were contemporaneously involved in both projects
suggests a desire to duplicate in Rome a model of the sacred and artistic prototype
developing in Loreto. In the last decades of the fifteenth century, the texts of Teramano
and Ricci had effected a vast circulation of the translation legend, while the continued
amplification a~d decoration of the basilica under Basso della Rovere further
strengthened the site's devotional importance. Loreto had already developed a reputation
75 Quoted in Sandro Benedetti, S. Maria di Loreto (Rome: Marietti, 1968),21. Benedetti's study also
provides a detailed architectural history of the site, including its various renovations throughout the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
73
for the miracles performed there, but now the numinous quality of the house, coupled
with the Papacy's artistic and theological strengthening of it's sacred role, further
amplified the relic's thaumaturgic appeal. In turn, the increasing multitude of pilgrims
who visited the site subsequently exported both the legend and the image of the Virgin's
house throughout the Western world. It is this ebb and flow of sacred identity that
largely defines the religious, social and artistic history of the site, as well as its role
within the greater context of European Christianity.
The centrifugal devotional force of the shrine is perhaps most evident in the
number of churches, chapels and architectural monuments dedicated to the Virgin of
Loreto throughout Europe. It is not uncommon that a favorite saint or appellation of the
Virgin Mary should inspire the building of a monument in his or her honor. Perhaps
more unique to the Loretan tradition, however, is the replication of the relic itself, not
merely in imagery or pilgrimage tokens conveyed from the site, but rather as an
architectural space in its own right, a duplicate or simulacrum of the Virgin's house.76
This type of spiritual transference is particularly applicable in the case of Loreto, as the
Holy House already represented a similar translation of sacred identity from Palestine to
Italy.
76 The tradition of replicating sacred architecture was, in the Middle Ages, primarily connected with the
Holy Land sites and most specifically with the Holy Sepulcher. Literary criticism on the Renaissance
replica and its changing artistic and symbolic function is somewhat sparse. For an introduction to the
problem as it develops in medieval architecture, see Richard Krautheimer, "Introduction to an 'Iconography
of Medieval Architecture,'" Journal ofthe Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 1-33. In the
Renaissance, holy sites were replicated as part of the sacri monti, or devotional complexes in which visitors
meditated on didactic scenes of the life of Christ. The first sacro monte, constructed in Varallo in the late
fifteenth century, recalls the Holy Land through a series of figural and architectural replications. See
Luciano Vaccaio and Francesca Riccardi, eds., Sacri monti: devozione, arte e cultura della Controriforma
(Milan: Jaca, 1992).
74
The divarication of relics and souvenirs reflects the devotional afterlife of
pilgrimage: that is, the return from foreign lands was just as important in confirming the
Christian faith as the journey to them. In other words, pilgrims reconstruct and extend
sacred experience for themselves and others through the tangible nature of objects, which
are "a physical manifestation of the charisma of a sacred centre.'m In conveying such
objects beyond the threshold of the sacred space, the memory of that sacred landscape is
diffused throughout the world and ultimately reconstructed within the everyday realm.
Relics and pilgrimage paraphernalia are, then, inherently characterized by an economy of
movement, or exportation, in that pilgrims transmit them-as a record of the nature of
sacred place-to a broad audience of spiritual "consumers." In the legend of the initial
arrival of the Holy House at Loreto, it was the Virgin herself who wished to diffuse the
memory of the loea saneta to the Italian populace. Because of the architectural character
of the relic, however, the translation represents a transfer not only of memory and
experience, but also of the holy place itself. Unlike most relics, which act as tangible
embodiments of Christ and the Holy Land but are not themselves defined as places, the
Santa Casa is a relocated piece of the loea saneta, originally embedded within the very
topographical fabric of Palestine. Sixteenth-century iconography of the Holy House
often foregrounds the authentic nature of the relic's origin by emphasizing the rustic
simplicity of its construction. Indeed, popular devotional prints continue to depict the
house as a humble brick dwelling, gabled with a sloping roof, even after the marble
rivestimento was complete (see figure 38).
77 Simon Coleman and John Elsner, Pilgrimage: Past and Present in the World Religions (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1995),7.
Figure 38. Illustration from La Oratione di Santa Maria Dell'oreto, Angelita Girolamo, 1598.
Figure 39. Wooden Model of the Santa Casa di Loreto, Museo Diocesano in Urbania, 1636 ca.
75
76
Because the Santa Casa is defined as a place relic, and because its legend
operates in terms of sacral transfer, it is not surprising that replicas began to appear in the
last decades of the sixteenth century, reflecting a desire to reproduce through architecture
the memory and experience of visiting the Virgin's house. While such replicas could not
replace the original theologically or devotionally, they served to invoke the memory of
Loreto (and by extension the Holy Land), as well as to inspire pilgrimage. Just as the
Santa Casa had been translated from faraway lands, so too could the devotional
experience be transported one step further to a pilgrim's territory of origin. In this way,
architectural replicas-though on a greater scale-functioned much like the imagery and
objects that served as pilgrimage "souvenirs," broadening accessibility to the divine
encounter. In some cases, miniature reproductions of the house were created specifically
for processional purposes, theatrically recreating the "flight" ofthe Virgin's sacello as
part ofMarian festivities (see figure 39). However, while devotional prints and ritual
objects foreground the sacred nature and origin of the relic by depicting the house as a
modest brick chamber, full-scale architectural replicas more often demonstrate a
preference for the form and function of the elaborate marble screen that, from the 1520s,
enveloped the exterior of the house.
While pilgrims favored the form ofthe humble dwelling for its connection to
popular Marian devotion, religious authorities privileged the rivestimento for its potential
political and cultural implications. Besides evident associations with the reliquary or
tabernacle, as discussed in the previous section, the rivestimento betrays a self-conscious
recollection of the architecture all 'antica of imperial Rome. Weil-Garris Brandt has
77
demonstrated, for example, the iconographic similarities between the architectonic
scheme of the rivestimento and the Roman triumphal arch, both of which "announce" the
victory and sovereignty of the leading spiritual or political power.78 The festooned
perimeter of the sacello also recalls the festive motif of such classical monuments as the
Ara Pacis, built to commemorate the peace and prosperity of the Roman Empire under
the military leadership of the emperor Augustus.79 At Loreto, there is a similar evocation
of a Renaissance "golden age," both in terms of artistic innovation and spiritual
prosperity. The former is represented by the myriad artistic talents employed in the
construction of the marble investiture and is made possible by papal patronage; the latter
is assured by the Virgin's demonstrated protection of devotees and by the possibility of
salvation through Christian devotion. In recalling at Loreto such architectural testaments
to the glory and power of ancient Rome, the Papacy sought to affirm and legitimate its
authority as spiritual and political heir to the Holy Roman Empire.
One of the earliest replicas of the rivestimento, dating to the second decade of the
sixteenth century, is that at Varallo, which formed part of the Nazareth complex of the
Sacro Monte in Piedmont. While the entire project is a mimetic representation of the
Palestinian landscape, the chapel of the Annunciation is directly inspired not by the form
of the grotto at Nazareth but rather by the sacello at Loreto. so That the design of the
78 Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt, "I marmi del sacello: Oltre settant'anni per il rivestimento," Il Santuario di
Loreto, ed. Grimaldi, 43.
79 Bramante would have known the Ara Pacis only through sculptural fragments and documentary
evidence, as the monument was not entirely excavated until the early twentieth century. Its principal
iconographic and stylistic motifs, however, are indicative of the overarching propagandistic aims regulating
much of the imperial architecture of early Rome.
78
Nazareth chapel at Varallo (envisioned as a "New Jerusalem") would be based on the
Loretan model attests to the rapid spread of the translation legend, as well as to the
popularity of the cult. In 1514, when the design for the chapel was executed, the marble
investiture at Loreto was still in an initial phase of construction. The Varallo design,
however, clearly reflects an interest in the classical architectural features that characterize
the underlying form of the rivestimento, particularly visible in the columned partitioning
of the walls and in the pronounced tympanum above the door (see figure 40). The
changing architectural setting of the house, then, seems to have influenced the perception
and memory of the relic itself. The Virgin's house had once again been "translated," but
now with an evolving identity prompted by the development of its new architectural and
ecclesiastical surroundings at Loreto. This is significant at Varallo where religious
authorities hoped to redirect Holy Land pilgrimage; the accurate reproduction of the
existing Palestinian topography, except in the case of the Virgin's house, reaffirms the
translation legend and emphasizes the relic's recent appropriation under Roman
jurisdiction.
Beginning at the end of the sixteenth century, copies of the Holy House began to
appear throughout Italy, varying in both size and faithfulness to the architectural details
of the rivestimento. A smaller-scale version exists, for example at the Church of San
Paolo in Naples, while at the Oratorio dei Rossi in Parma, there is a copy decorated with
trompe I 'oeil frescoes mimicking the sculptural scenes of the rivestimento at Loreto (see
80 See Santino Lange, "Iconografia della Santa Casa di Loreto nell' area alpina," in Crocevia religioso, 365.
,L A '14 J t jA C.l<. • .... i.,........,,,"'...
..M"'*.lA 1". tOJl.I."TO~
••
Figure 40. Design for the Holy House Replica at the Sacro Monte of Varallo, 1514.
Figure 41. Holy House Replica at the Oratorio dei Rossi in Parma, Seventeenth Century.
79
Figure 42. Holy House Replica at Hradcany in Prague, 1626 ca.
Figure 43. Tourist Print Depicting the North Wall of the Holy House of Loreto, 1567.
80
81
figure 41).81 Perhaps the most famous copy of the Holy House, however, is located
outside of Italy, at the sanctuary of Hradcany in Prague (see figure 42). Indeed, a number
of replica shrines cropped up throughout the northern and central regions of Europe in the
Post-Tridentine period, including Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria and Bohemia. It is
significant that the majority of replica shrines exist in areas that lacked confessional
unity, when the Holy Roman Empire was politically and religiously divided by wars
between Catholic and Protestant leaders. As Antje Stannek has demonstrated, from the
end of the sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth centuries, there were at least 117
replicas of the Santa Casa in these regions.82 The number of replicas attests not only to
the continued spread of Loretan devotion throughout Europe, but also to a particular
desire to reproduce the political and ecclesiastical associations that define the relic-and
the marble program specifically-at Loreto. The shrine atPrague serves as a particularly
illustrative example of how the propagandistic aims of the Papacy, inherent in the
affirmation of curial authority in the aesthetic program of the rivestimento, were
appropriated to serve the propagandistic aims of political and religious leaders in
Bohemia.
The political situation in Bohemia in the first decades of the seventeenth century
was fraught with religious tension. This atmosphere was particularly heightened after the
Protestant Frederick I gained control of the Bohemian kingship in 1619, ousting the
81 For an introductory description of the architectural programs of six Holy House replicas, located in
Naples, Parma, Catania, Venice and Padua, see Mara Ranucci and Massimo Tenenti, Sei riproduzioni della
Santa Casa di Loreto in Italia (Loreto: Congregazione Universale della Santa Casa, 2003).
82 Antje Stannek, "Diffusione e sviluppi della devozione lauretana in Europa," in Crocevia religioso, 291-
327.
82
Hapsburg dynasty from its long-privileged position of political rule. Supported by the
Catholic League, the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, immediately
sought to overthrow Frederick and reclaim the throne, which he succeeded in doing just a
year later at the Battle of White Mountain. The victory gave Ferdinand the necessary
impetus to begin purging the region of the Protestant nobility, and soon more than 30,000
families had been exiled.83 Aiming to restore the social and political order through
promotion of the Catholic faith, Ferdinand decreed that the homes and possessions of the
expelled Protestants be remitted to Catholic nobles living in other regions of the Empire.84
Many, in turn, constructed chapels or sanctuaries that reflected allegiance both to the re-
catholicization efforts of the Counter-Reformation and, by extension, to the court of
Ferdinand II. In this way, nobles and dignitaries publicly professed their Catholic
confession, simultaneously fostering pilgrimage through an expanded geographical
network of devotional shrines.
It is not surprising that the Santa Casa, which had so effectively represented the
Western resistance of Christianity over its Eastern enemy, should now be adopted as a
popular symbol of the overthrow of Protestant opposition to the Catholic faith.
Constructed in 1626 at the commission of Katharina von Lobkowicz, the Holy House
replica in Prague represents a studied and deliberate reliance on the decorative trappings
of the marble rivestimento at Loreto. Indeed, the authenticity of the copy seems
particularly crucial in Bohemia, as the wife of King Ferdinand, Eleonora Gonzaga, had
83 Ibid., 313.
84 Ibid., 313.
83
sent architects to Loreto in 1624 for the purpose of recording precise details and
measurements of the monument,85 Since 1567, popular prints depicting the various views
of the Holy House had also been in circulation, produced by Perino Zecchini de'
Guarlottis in Rome and sold by Giovanni Battista de' Cavalieri in Loreto, where there
was a steadily increasing demand (see figure 43).86 Details ofthe marble program were
therefore widely accessible and also increasingly identifiable by the early seventeenth
century, when the Prague replica was executed.
It wasn't, however, a mere regard for staying true to the original that inspired such
accurate imitation, nor was Katharina von Lobkowicz concerned with the potential for
misidentification of the shrine. Richard Krautheimer has demonstrated how the late
medieval phenomenon of replicating Holy Land architecture was centered primarily on
the devotional function of copies rather than on the visual or mathematical accuracy of
the form. 87 There are, moreover, replicas of the Holy House that sacrifice much of the
architectural and sculptural detail, privileging the symbolic and spiritual associations of
the relic as a means of invoking the presence of the Virgin for faithful veneration. In
Bohemia, it was rather the political climate that effected a concern for architectural
accuracy; the marble rivestimento was an ideal image of Roman and Catholic
ascendancy, indeed of the legitimacy of the Holy Roman Empire and of the Papacy as
political and spiritual leaders of the Western world.
85 Stannek, "AI Cospetto della Vergine: II culto della Madonna di Loreto," II Santuario di Loreto, ed.
Grimaldi,238.
86 Michael Bury, The Print in Italy 1550-1620 (London: The British Museum Press, 2001), 112.
87 See Krautheimer, as cited in note 75 above.
84
When viewed in light of the political aims of the Papacy in the Cinquecento, the
marble investiture at Loreto seems an apt choice for emulation in the kingdom of
Ferdinand II a century later. The relic itself represented both symbolically and
geographically the origins of Christianity, while the Virgin Mary was a pivotal figure in
the propagation of Counter-Reformation doctrine. The Jesuits in particular had employed
the image of the Virgin's sacello as evidence of scriptural truth in their widespread
evangelization efforts.88 However, more than an allegiance to the cult of the Virgin Mary
or an affirmation of the authenticity of the relic, the Prague replica of the marble
investiture represents a transfer of political ideology, a declaration, as at Loreto, of the
glory of the Holy Roman Empire and the triumph of the Catholic confession. Moreover,
the monument represented a promise of spiritual unification under the reign of Frederick
II, a commitment he had already begun to secure through his victory over the Protestants
at the Battle of White Mountain. The importation of the Holy House model to devotional
centers throughout northern and central Europe is therefore highly significant of the
actual religious and political situation, which renewed the need to affirm sovereign
authority. In the period spanning the Thirty Years' War and in the decades immediately
following the Peace of Westphalia, the number of Holy House copies constructed
throughout central and northern Europe reached its apex. Moreover, most of these
replicas sought to reproduce not the humble sacello of popular devotional prints, but the
highly emblematic rivestimento of the Renaissance papal agenda. At least in
88 Massimo Bulgarelli, "La Santa Casa di Loreto: L'edificio sacro e Ie sue copie," Lotus International 65
(1990): 87.
architectural terms, the identity of the relic was now synonymous with that of its
illustrious marble encasing.
85
86
CHAPTER VI
CONCLUSION
In 1969, with NASA's cooperation, an image of the Virgin of Loreto accompanied the
Apollo mission into space and, after four days of travel, landed safely on the moon.89 The
Virgin of Loreto had been designated the patron saint of aeronauts in the 1920s, an
identification inspired by the "flight" of the sacello associated with the Holy House
legend. Her suitability for the Apollo mission, an epic moment in human history, was
therefore determined by the enduring impact of the fifteenth-century translation legend.
For Teramano's readers in the early Renaissance, the feat oflanding on the moon would
certainly have constituted a miracle of divine proportions. For twentieth-century
astronauts, the Virgin of Loreto was a fitting agent of celestial protection. Her image
had, after all, protected pilgrims and inspired crusaders during centuries of pious
expedition; she had also accompanied the vehicle of the Santa Casa as it journeyed to
distant lands.
The arrival of the Virgin of Loreto on the moon is emblematic of the extent to
which her image was translated both geographically and theoretically in the early modern
period. The legend of the translation endowed the relic with an economy of movement,
setting a precedent for its continued physical and symbolic "translation" to new
devotional centers throughout Europe. Not only was the relic topographically transferred
from Nazareth to Italy, it was subsequently translated symbolically, from a local to a
89 BulgareIli, 88.
87
universal expression of sacred identity and divine favor. Ricci's ecclesiastical gloss of
the translation legend confirmed the centrality of the relic to Christian-and therefore
Roman-doctrine. Moreover, the theological and Christological associations of the Holy
Land sites were also effectively transferred to papal control by way of the Virgin's
sacello. Believed to be part of the original architectural landscape of Palestine, the Santa
Casa affirmed the legitimate role of the western Church in the propagation of Christianity
in its new spiritual capital. Not only the Papacy but also the devout inscribed their own
desires, perceptions and ambitions onto the relic, thereby modeling its religious and
political persona. Ex-votos attached to the walls of the house reflect the sheer variety of
spiritual or physical necessity, along with the range in social class, of those seeking the
Virgin's assistance. Her adaptability as intercessor, as well as theological emblem, partly
explains the changing nature of her image: throughout the centuries, that image is molded
to fit the particular needs of those who seek her divine intervention. Moreover, the
miraculous nature of the relic only strengthened and extended the Virgin's powers of
intercession. Indeed, the Santa Casa seemed to magnify both the thaumaturgic and
theological efficacy of Loretan imagery, providing a physical connection to her
humanity, as well as to her role in Christian doctrine. The sacello itself became
associated with restorative powers, as evidenced by the little containers of Holy House
"dust" sold to pilgrims for purposes of consumption beginning in the late sixteenth
century.90
90 Dust, or "polvere," which custodians swept from the walls of the relic, became available to pilgrims for
purchase beginning in the late sixteenth century. Often sold in small envelopes decorated with an image of
the Santa Casa, the contents were traditionally consumed or mixed with clay before being fired into bowls,
88
Significantly, there is a pronounced indentation in the marble base surrounding
the Santa Casa, a mark of five centuries of pious circumambulation. In compassing the
relic on bended knees, pilgrims have literally imprinted themselves into the physical, and
by extension spiritual, structure of the shrine. Similarly the Papacy, through its
importation of artistic and theological referents, as visible in the transept chapels and on
the marble rivestimento, projected the specific concerns of Papal Rome onto the image of
the Holy House at Loreto. In the same way that the Virgin's universality guaranteed her
protection of devotees against all forms of individual ailment, it also assured her
theological defense of Papal Rome in opposition to political hazards ranging from
Turkish invasion to Protestant polemics. Upon leaving the shrine, pilgrims subsequently
diffused the memory of their experience there through oral testimony as well as through
imagery adorning pilgrimage tokens and devotional prints. In this way, the sacred power
and identity of the shrine were continuously "reshaped" by the expectations and
perceptions of those visiting (and constructing) the site.
The dispersion of the cult at Loreto reflects a centrifugalization of sacred identity,
which is equally matched by the centripetal force of artistic and devotional activity at the
shrine. This continuous movement-and translation--of sacred identity is what shaped
the devotional experience at Loreto and assured its spiritual longevity throughout
religious history. Indeed, the Holy House of Loreto is steeped in over five centuries of
pious legend and sacred ritual. Its identification as the house of the Virgin, and site of the
vases or other utilitarian objects. Because of its direct contact with the relic, pilgrims believed the dust to
possess restorative or apotropaic powers against illness and misfortune. See for example, Grimaldi, II
sacello della Santa Casa, 296.
89
Incarnation, makes it unique to the Catholic tradition as a spatial relic where earthly and
celestial domains converge. Moreover, a direct connection to the humanity of Christ
makes the Holy House an appropriate backdrop for the liturgical rite that unfolds on the
main altar ofthe basilica. Thus, while legend describes the relic's translation in the
geographic sense, the house also underwent theoretical and devotional translations. In its
earliest stages, the Loretan iconography attested to the singularity of the Marian shrine at
Loreto, identifying the Christian origins of the relic while simultaneously advancing local
jurisdiction for its administration. Through an ambitious building and artistic campaign,
Rome subsequently amplified the universality and renown ofthe site, stamping it as
specifically Roman and mapping it in the geography of sacred ritual. Finally, pilgrimage
souvenirs and architectural replicas of the house spread the cult of Loreto throughout
Europe, and particularly to areas divided by religious tension, making it a truly
international symbol of Christianity.
90
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