Miraculous Flying House of Loreto: Spreading Catholicism in the Early Modern World

In 1295, a house fell from the sky onto an Italian coastal road by the Adriatic Sea, and locals encountered the Virgin Mary, who explained that angels had flown it to Loreto. Karin Vélez's book challenges this interpretation by examining historical accounts of the movement of the Holy House across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic in the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, suggesting that Christianity is the cumulative product of thousands of self-appointed editors.

Format: Hardback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 11 December 2018
Publisher: Princeton University Press

In 1295, a remarkable event occurred in the coastal town of Loreto, Italy, by the Adriatic Sea. A house suddenly fell from the evening sky and landed on a local road. To the astonishment of the locals, they found the Virgin Mary inside the house, who explained that it was her original residence from Nazareth. According to her, angels had flown the house to Loreto, stopping three times along the way, to protect it from the hands of Muslim invaders. This incredible story of the house of Loreto has been interpreted as an allegory of how Catholicism spread peacefully across the world, miraculously descending from the heavens. However, in her book, Karin Vélez challenges this interpretation by examining historical accounts of the movement of the Holy House across the Mediterranean in the thirteenth century and the Atlantic in the seventeenth century. Vélez's research reveals a vast and voluntary involvement of individuals from different backgrounds in the project of formulating a branch of Catholic devotion. She explores the efforts of European Jesuits, Slavic migrants, and indigenous peoples in Baja California, Canada, and Peru. These individuals played various roles in the expansion of Catholicism, such as acting as unofficial authors, inadvertent pilgrims, unlicensed architects, unacknowledged artists, and unsolicited cataloguers of Loreto. Their participation in portaging Mary's house challenges the traditional notion that Christianity was a prepackaged European export. Instead, Vélez suggests that Christianity is the cumulative product of thousands of self-appointed editors who contributed to its spread through their independent initiatives.

Vélez also demonstrates how miracle narratives can be treated as serious historical sources that preserve traces of real events. By drawing on rich archival materials, The Miraculous Flying House of Loreto provides a captivating illustration of how global Catholicism proliferated through independent initiatives of untrained laymen. This book sheds light on the complex and multifaceted ways in which religious devotion and cultural exchange shaped the history of the world.

Weight: 662g
Dimension: 243 x 164 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780691174006