The Miracle of the Holy House of Loreto  1743

Giambattista Tiepolo made this final preparatory study for a large illusionistic fresco that covered the ceiling of the Scalzi church in Venice. The fresco was destroyed by bombing in World War I. According to a fifteenth-century legend, when the Virgin Mary's house in Nazareth came under threat by invading Saracen armies, it was miraculously transported in 1291 from the H...