Beautiful Title Pages: the Flight of the House of the Virgin Mary, 1524

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1086

This is an interesting, almost (?)-revolutionary and curious woodcut depicting the flight of Santa Maria di Loreto, and was printed in 1524.  At the bass of it all the print depicts the first of a series of moves of the house of the Virgin Mary (mother of Jesus) to safe harbors, away from the Moslem/Turkish army that invaded Nazareth in 1291.  The myth states that the structure was picked up and moved by angels from Nazareth to the Dalmatian town of Tersatto (near Fiume, which is today's Rijeka, Croatia).  It then made its way to its final resting place at Loretto, Italy via the two other Italian towns (identified at the bottom corners of the print) of Recanati and Ancona.

One of the most interesting aspects of the print to my eye though is its attempt to display an oblique perspective of the town of Loretto, the house being lowered by angels on the other side of the town's fortifications.

 (In 1854 Pius IX consecrated the house as a miracle in his Bull "Inter Omnia" of 26 August 1852, declaring "Of all the shrines consecrated to the Mother of God, Immaculate Virgin, one is in first place and Shines incomparable radiance: the venerable and most August House of Loreto ... (...) In Loreto, in fact, it venerates the House of Nazareth, so dear to the Heart of God, and that manufactured in the Galilee, was later (moved) from foundations, and for the divine power, was transported far beyond the seas, first in Dalmatia and then to Italy. " And it was for this enormous feat of air travel that Pope Benedict XV declared St. Mary the patron saint of aviators, on 24 March 1920.)