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The Holy House of Loreto

The wooden Madonna of Loreto in the niche above the chapel altar, beneath the inscription ’Virgo Lavretana’
The wooden Madonna of Loreto in the niche above the chapel altar, beneath the inscription ’Virgo Lavretana’ Photo: Didier Descouens, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Legend tells that in 1291 the house in Nazareth where the Virgin received the angel’s announcement was carried through the air by angels as far as Loreto, to save it from the Turks advancing in the Holy Land. There a basilica was built over it and an immense devotion grew around it: the Santa Casa became the most famous relic-architecture of Catholicism.

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