But the chief object of interest is the Holy House itself. It is a plain stone building, 28 ft. by 12½ and 13½ ft. in height; it has a door on the north side and a window on the west; and a niche contains a small black image of the Virgin and Child, in Lebanon cedar, and richly adorned with jewels. St Luke is alleged to have been the sculptor; its workmanship suggests the latter half of the 15th century. Around the Santa Casa is a lofty marble screen, designed by Bramante, and executed under Popes Leo X., Clement VII. and Paul III., by Andrea Sansovino, Girolamo Lombardo, Bandinelli, Guglielmo della Porta and others. The four sides represent the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Arrival of the Santa Casa at Loreto and the Nativity of the Virgin respectively. The treasury contains a large variety of rich and curious votive offerings. The architectural design is finer than the details of the sculpture. The choir apse is decorated with modern German frescoes, which are somewhat out of place. The legend of the Holy House seems to have sprung up (how is not exactly known) at the close of the crusading period. It is briefly referred to in the _Italia Illustrata_ of Flavius Blondus, secretary to Popes Eugenius IV., Nicholas V., Calixtus III. and Pius II. (_ob._ 1464); it is to be read in all its fullness in the "Redemptoris mundi Matris Ecclesiae Lauretana historia," by a certain Teremannus, contained in the _Opera Omnia_ (1576) of Baptista Mantuanus. According to this narrative the house at Nazareth in which Mary had been born and brought up, had received the annunciation, and had lived during the childhood of Jesus and after His ascension, was converted into a church by the apostles. In 336 the empress Helena made a pilgrimage to Nazareth and caused a basilica to be erected over it, in which worship continued until the fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Threatened with destruction by the Turks, it was carried by angels through the air and deposited (1291) in the first instance on a hill at Tersatto in Dalmatia, where an appearance of the Virgin and numerous miraculous cures attested its sanctity, which was confirmed by investigations made at Nazareth by messengers from the governor of Dalmatia. In 1294 the angels carried it across the Adriatic to a wood near Recanati; from this wood (lauretum), or from the name of its proprietrix (Laureta), the chapel derived the name which it still retains ("sacellum gloriosae Virginis in Laureto"). From this spot it was afterwards (1295) removed to the present hill, one other slight adjustment being required to fix it in its actual site. Bulls in favour of the shrine at Loreto were issued by Pope Sixtus IV. in 1491 and by Julius II. in 1507, the last alluding to the translation of the house with some caution ("ut pie creditur et fama est"). The recognition of the sanctuary by subsequent pontiffs has already been alluded to. In the end of the 17th century Innocent XII. appointed a