LORETO, episcopal see and pilgrimage resort of the Marches, Italy, province of Ancona, 15 m. by rail S.S.E of Ancona. Pop. (1931) 1,070 (town), 7,056 (commune). It lies on the right bank of the Musone, on a hill-side commanding splendid views ft. above sea-level. The town is a long narrow street, lined with shops for the sale of locally made cult-objects. The chief fes tival is held on Sept. 8, the Nativity of the Virgin. The principal buildings in the piazza are the college of the Jesuits, the Palazzo Apostolico (which contains a picture gallery with works of Lor enzo Lotto, Caracci, Magnasco, etc., a collection of majolica and a replica of the famous set of tapestries designed by Raphael for the Sistine chapel) and the cathedral church of the Holy House (Chiesa della Casa Santa), a Late Gothic structure begun under Paul II., and continued by Giuliano da Maiano, Giuliano da Sangallo Bramante and other architects who altered the original plan, which was revived in 1886 by Giuseppe Sacconi. The hand some façade of the church was completed under Sixtus V., who founded the episcopal see; his colossal statue stands in the middle of the flight of steps in front. Over the principal doorway is a life-size bronze statue of the Virgin and Child by Girolamo Lom bardo; the three superb bronze doors executed at the latter end of the 16th century and under Paul V. (1605-1621) are also by Lombardo, his sons and his pupils, among them Tiburzio Vergelli, who also made the fine bronze font in the interior. The doors and hanging lamps of the Santa Casa are by the same artists. The richly decorated campanile, by Vanvitelli, is 25o ft. high. The principal bell, presented by Leo X, in 1516, weighs it tons. The interior of the church has mosaics by Domenichino and Guido Reni. In the sacristies on each side of the right transept are fres coes, on the right by Melozzo da Forli, on the left by Luca Signorelli. In both are fine intarsias.
But the chief object of interest is the Holy House itself. It is of plain stone, 28 ft. by 121 and 131 ft. in height, with north door and west window; and a niche contains a small black image of the Virgin and Child, in Lebanon cedar, and richly adorned with jewels. St. Luke is alleged to have been the sculptor; its workmanship suggests the latter half of the 15th century. Around
the Santa Casa is a lofty marble screen, designed by Bramante, and executed under Popes Leo X., Clement VII. and Paul III., by Andrea Sansovino, Girolamo Lombardo, Bandinelli, Guglielmo della Porta and others. The four sides represent the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Arrival of the Santa Casa at Loreto and the Nativity of the Virgin respectively.
The legend of the Holy House dates from the close of the cru sading period. The house of Nazareth in which Mary had been born and brought up, had received the annunciation, and had lived during the childhood of Jesus and after His ascension, was converted into a church by the apostles. In 336 the empress Helena caused a basilica to be erected over it, in which worship continued until the fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Threatened with destruction by the Turks, it was carried by angels through the air and deposited (1291) in the first instance on a hill at Tersatto in Dalmatia, where an appearance of the Virgin and miraculous cures attested its sanctity, confirmed by investigations made at Nazareth by messengers from the governor of Dalmatia. In 1294 the angels carried it across the Adriatic to a wood near Recanati; from this wood (lauretum), the chapel derived the name which it still retains. From this spot it was afterwards (1295) removed to the present hill. Bulls in favour of the shrine at Loreto were issued by Pope Sixtus IV. in 1491 and by Julius II. in 1507, the last alluding to the translation of the house with some caution ("ut pie creditur et fama est"). There is, as a fact, docu mentary evidence for the existence of a church dedicated to the Virgin on the spot (in fundo Laureti) just a century before the date of its supposed translation. In the end of the 17th century Innocent XII. appointed a "missa cum officio proprio" for the feast of the Translation of the Holy House, and the feast is still enjoined in the Spanish Breviary as a "greater double" (Dec. io). Benedict XV. declared the Madonna di Loreto to be the patron of aviators. (T. A.) See also U. Chevalier, de Lorette (Paris, 1906) ; A. Colasanti, Loreto (Bergamo, 1911, well illustrated).