Description of the attraction
Loretian Basilica, also known as Santa Casa - Holy House, is one of the main centers of pilgrimage in the Christian world, located in the vicinity of the city of Ancona.
There is a legend that in the 4th century Empress Helen, while walking through the Holy Places, discovered the very house in which the Virgin Mary grew up, and in which the miracle of the Annunciation happened. Helen ordered to build a church over the house, but in the 13th century, during the next Crusade, this temple was destroyed, and the house of the Virgin Mary was in danger. In a mysterious way - according to legend, with the help of angels - the “holy house” was transferred to Dalmatia in the vicinity of the city of Rijeka. It is said that the Mother of God herself explained to the local bishop the origin of this building. Historians believe that he was transported to Rijeka by order of the despot Nicephorus I.
No less mysterious is the further fate of the Holy House - in the 13th century it miraculously ended up in the town of Loreto near Ancona, where a basilica was erected around it. Almost immediately after this, a tiny building only 8, 5 meters long and 3, 8 meters wide became one of the main shrines of Christian Europe. It is known that René Descartes and Pope Benedict XIV visited it, and exact copies of the Holy House were built in Prague and Warsaw. The building has a doorway on the north side and a window on the west, and the niche inside houses an icon of the Virgin Mary and Child, made of Lebanese cedar and richly decorated with precious stones.
The current building of the Loret Basilica in the late Gothic style was built after the Pope confirmed the authenticity of the Holy House in 1507 with the help of special bulls. Giuliano da Maiano, Giuliano da Sangallo and Danto Bramante worked on the project of the temple, and the baroque bell tower is the creation of Vanvitelli. The interior of the basilica is decorated with priceless frescoes by Melozzo and Signorelli and mosaics by Domenichino and Guido Reni.
A huge statue of Pope Sixtus V stands in front of the entrance to the church, and a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary with the Child rises above the main doorway. The doors themselves were made at the end of the 16th century by Girolamo Lombardo, his sons and students, among whom was Tiburzio Vergelli, the author of the font of the basilica.
