The Translation of the Holy House of Loreto

According to legend, in 1291 the Virgin Mary's house was miraculously transported by angels from the Holy Land after the Muslim defeat of the Crusaders. The house settled first in Dalmatia and then, in 1294, came to rest at Loreto, on the Adriatic coast of Italy, and became a place of pilgrimage. Here it is borne across the Adriatic, under the watch of its former occupants. The leading painter in the region of the Abruzzi, Saturnino painted this charming work in the mid-1490s.