Nazareth and Loreto
The Grotto and the House of the Madonna by Fr Guiseppe Santarelli

Nazareth and Loreto: Two Twin Shrines 

The Grotto of  Our Lady's dwelling, Nazareth. 

An ecclesiastical personage stated, some years ago, that the Shrine of the Holy Grotto of Nazareth and Shrine of the Holy House of Loreto are not so much two ‘twins’ as, rather, two ‘Siamese twins’ because, according to the ancient and authoritative tradition, the one was physically detached from the other.

To answer this question it is necessary to bear in mind that, on the bases of literary sources and of the results of archaeological excavations undertaken at the site of the Incarnation at Nazareth, nowadays scholars agree that there is good reason to deem that the Virgin’s earthly home was a House, built in stone and a Grotto dug from the rock, behind and slightly beneath the house; which is the mode of construction of other buildings in Nazareth.

Nazareth

The excavations undertaken at Nazareth between 1955 and 1960 by Father Bellarmo Bagatti and his fellow-brothers have clarified the structural question of the habitation of the Madonna.  In particular, they have ascertained that in the III century the Judeo-Christians – perhaps the relatives of Jesus themselves – built over Mary’s dwelling a synagogical style church, whence interesting finds have been recovered, above all related to worship, including some Judeo-Christian graffiti.

In the V century the Byzantines, who had replaced the Judeo-Christians also in Nazareth, knocked down the syngogical church and built in its place a basilica, which sheltered and exalted “the holy place of Mary”.  Finally at the end of the XI century the Crusaders demolished the sacred building of the Byzantines and built a new and more majestic basilica, of which some significant remains are still visible. 

The endeavour evinced in such constructions attests to the great attention and veneration afforded over the centuries to the dwelling of the Madonna.  And it also explains the possible reason for the preservation not only of the Grotto but also of the House after such a long time and such vicissitudes, also dramatic ones.  Because a building sheltered within another larger and more solid building is not subject to atmospheric erosion and can thus brave the centuries.  Evidence of this is the Holy House of Loreto which, too was protected first by the wall built by the Recanatesi, subsequently a church built in the XIV century and finally the present basilica started in 1469; seven centuries after its translation it is without a fissure.

Loreto
 

Tradition holds that in 1291, during the total and by now definitive defeat of the Crusaders in Palestine, with the Moslem army in relentless pursuit and destroying sacred Christian buildings and monuments, the walled House of the Madonna was transported from Nazareth first to an undefined place called “River Castle” in ancient Illyria, that at the time extended from Croatia to Albania, and subsequently, in the night between 9th and 10th December 1294, was translated to the ancient territory of Recanati, at first near its Port and then later to the hill where it now stands.
Who transported Mary’s House?  According to the devout, popular version put down in writing after the second half of the XV century by Ricci (c. 1469) and by Teramano (c. 1473), the agents of the transportation were the heavenly angels.  This is a charming and poetic interpretation of a marvelous event that signifies the extraordinary protection afforded by heaven to the House where the Incarnation of the Son of God took place in Mary’s womb. It is the House of the Annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary who was accompanied, according to a prevalent literary and iconographic genre, by other angels who as it were took ‘spiritual’ possession  of the House and saved it from destruction by the infidels.  Thus this tradition avers an important fact: the House of the incarnation was the recipient of special celestial protection.

Nevertheless, as God makes use of man to accomplish his wondrous design, one might very well think that the House of the Virgin, judiciously taken in section, was salvaged by some Christians at a time when it was seriously threatened by the Moslems who, for example, in 1263 had razed almost to the ground the monumental Crusaders’ basilica at Nazareth, without damaging the House of Mary because the latter was sheltered within a crypt.  This is affirmed by Ricoldo da Montecroce, who visited Nazareth in 1289, two years before the translation of the holy House.  He writes: “Then we came to Nazareth, and we found a great church, almost all knocked down, and nothing else was left of the former buildings except for the Chamber of the annunciation of the Madonna; the Lord has preserved it from destruction in memory of her humility and poverty.”

Also in that dramatic situation in 1291, when the Christians were forced to leave the Holy Land, they brought back to the West sacred and artistic objects and relics of all kinds, just as they had done under other circumstances.

There is varied historical evidence substantiating the hypothesis of the transportation by sea, by human endeavour, of the remnants of the House of Nazareth.  Guiseppe Lapponi, personal physician to Leo XIII and Saint Pius X, on 17th May 1900 communicated in great secrecy to Mons. Ladrieux, future Bishop of Dijon, according to some documents that he had discovered in the Vatican archives, during the Moslem invasion in the XIII century a noble Byzantine family, named Angeli (Angels), descended from the Emperors of Constantinople, saved the ‘materials’ of the House of the Madonna and had them transported to Loreto to build the present Marian shrine.  In 1905 he confided something similar to his disciple, the noted scholar of classical antiquity Henri Thédenat, specifying that he had found a folder containing information of that kind in the Vatican.

This information is confirmed by folio 181 of the Chartularium Culisanense, that also contains important information concerning the presence of the Holy Shroud in Constantinople and Athens in 1205 (folio 126). Folio 181 discusses the “holy stones taken from the house of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God”, which in 1294 were in the possession of Niceforo Angeli, a lord of Epirus (now Albania) and descended from the Emperors of Constantinople.  The “holy stones”, together with an icon of the Madonna and other precious objects, were given as dowry to Philip of Anjou, the son of Charles II, King of Naples, who married Ithamar, Niceforo Angeli’s daughter.  Their matrimony was held in September-October 1294.  The chronological coincidences are remarkable, because the Lauretan tradition recounts that the House of the Madonna was brought to the ancient territory of Recanati some short time later, on 9th-10th December 1294.

An implicit yet significant connection with the Angeli family is afforded by two coins discovered in the ground beneath the Holy House of Loreto, one in the underlay of the wall, which are the only ones among the hundreds found there that can be dated back to the period of the translation.  They were minted by Guy de La Roche, Duke of Athens from 1285 to 1308.  Guy was the son of Helen Angeli, niece of Niceforo and cousin to Ithamar.  Helen ruled the dukedom of Athens as regent of her son Guy during his minority from 1287 to 1294, whence in all probability the coins refer, at least indirectly, to her rather than to her son.  It is now known that in past centuries it was customary to deposit coins in the foundations of buildings to indicate their year of construction and at times to commemorate those directly or indirectly involved in their construction, which in this case would be the Byzantine family of the Angeli, descended from the Emperors of Constantinople.

In this historical context, it should be borne in mind that, at the time of the translation of the remnants of the Holy House the Pope was Celestine V, who in Naples on 13th December 1294 abdicated the papacy, without ever setting foot in Rome, where he was replaced, above all in the spiritual sphere, by the vicarious Urbis Salvo, Bishop of Recanati.  This suggests the thought that the vicar of the Pope had the precious cargo of relics brought ashore in the Port of Recanati, that is, within the territory of his diocese, which at that time formed part of the Church State.

The archaeological investigation of the basement of the Holy House of Loreto, carried out from 1962 to 1965 under the direction of Nereo Alfieri, have confirmed two important facts of the Lauretan tradition: the absence of a foundation beneath the Marian shrine, and its location on a public road, leading from Recanati to its Port.  Furthermore, it has established that certain sophisticated and expensive building work was undertaken to protect the Holy House, which can only be explained if at the time those walls were considered precious ‘relics’.

Subsequent studies on the structure of the Holy House, conducted by Nanni Monelli, have clarified that the Holy House is a building that does not conform to the local customs in terms of construction methods and of the materials of the original core.  The latter consist of stones that were not readily available in the area due to a total lack of quarries, and which conversely can be found, and of the same type, in Nazareth.  Moreover, the Loreto shrine is congruent with the construction methods used in buildings in Palestine. 

Furthermore, if we imagine the Holy House of Loreto “retranslated” in front of the Grotto of Nazareth, the two parts conjoin extraordinarily, both in terms of space and of position.  Accurate studies demonstrate that all three sacred edifices erected at Nazareth over Mary’s dwelling infer the existence over the centuries of the House, which constituted the architectural reference point of the three churches that supplanted one another. 
As well, the surface finish on the stones at Loreto reveals a technique typical of the ancient Nabataeans, a people adjacent to the Jews who were active in Palestine too.  This technique is also discernible on the ‘altar of the Apostles’ which tradition holds came from Nazareth together with the Chamber and which is now concealed beneath the altar in use in the Holy House.

Finally, about sixty graffiti, visible on numerous stones of the Holy House of Loreto, prove very similar to Judeo-Christian ones found in the Holy Land, above all at Nazareth.  We can reasonably deduce that the stones now venerated at Loreto were inscribed at Nazareth, and were transported thus marked to Loreto.  Thus the graffiti constitute a sort of ‘made in Nazareth’ trademark for the walls of the Holy House of Loreto.

The Holy House of Loreto (coloured yellow)
imaginarily "retranslated" in front of theGrotto of Nazareth, with which it confirms remarkably well, fitting in at the same time with all the adjacent  spaces and building erected in later eras (elaborated by Nanni Monelli).

The Twinning of Nazareth and Loreto

Fraternal bonds have always tied the shrines of Nazareth and Loreto.  There is a moving anecdote by the Franciscan friar Father Thomas of Novara, guardian of Mount Zion, in his Relazione (‘Account’) of 1619.  He writes that, having brought from Italy a plan of the Holy House, while digging in front of the Holy Grotto he “found that the foundations at Nazareth were completely commensurate and conformant with the walls of the said House, as were place with place, site with site and space with space.”  He added that this filled with deep joy his soul and those of his fellow-brothers.

In his book on excavations at Nazareth up to the XIII century, Father Bellarmino Bagatti, the friar archaeologist of the Nazarene shrine, informs us that during recent centuries the Franciscans in the Holy Land calibrated the dimension of the Holy House “with slabs of black marble, in front of the venerated Grotto.”  And he reproduces an interesting plan drawn in 1866 by a certain Giovanni Battista (Gli scavi di Nazareth dalle origini al XIII secolo, Jerusalem, II 1984, p137).

Graffito found in the Holy House of Loreto, with syncopated Greek inscription that when deciphered according to experts read: lesou Xriste Yie tou Theou (O Jesus Christ, Son of God).  There are also two Hebrew letters (lamed and waw), rich in Judeo-Christian symbolic meaning.