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Miraculous Flying House of Loreto

Spreading Catholicism in the Early Modern World

Miraculous Flying House of Loreto

Spreading Catholicism in the Early Modern World

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Hardback

£40.00

Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691174006
Number of Pages: 312
Published: 11/12/2018
Width: 15.5 cm
Height: 23.5 cm

In 1295, a house fell from the evening sky onto an Italian coastal road by the Adriatic Sea. Inside, awestruck locals encountered the Virgin Mary, who explained that this humble mud-brick structure was her original residence newly arrived from Nazareth. To keep it from the hands of Muslim invaders, angels had flown it to Loreto, stopping three times along the way. This story of the house of Loreto has been read as an allegory of how Catholicism spread peacefully around the world by dropping miraculously from the heavens.

In this book, Karin Vélez calls that interpretation into question 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. These records indicate vast and voluntary involvement in the project of formulating a branch of Catholic devotion. Vélez surveys the efforts of European Jesuits, Slavic migrants, and indigenous peoples in Baja California, Canada, and Peru. These individuals contributed to the expansion of Catholicism by acting as unofficial authors, inadvertent pilgrims, unlicensed architects, unacknowledged artists, and unsolicited cataloguers of Loreto. Their participation in portaging Mary’s house challenges traditional views of Christianity as a prepackaged European export, and instead suggests that Christianity is the cumulative product of thousands of self-appointed editors. Vélez also demonstrates how miracle narratives can be treated seriously as historical sources that preserve traces of real events.

Drawing on rich archival materials, The Miraculous Flying House of Loreto illustrates how global Catholicism proliferated through independent initiatives of untrained laymen.

Karin Vélez

Karin Vélez is associate professor of history at Macalester College.

"Winner of the John Gilmary Shea Prize, American Catholic Historical Association" "Winner of the Best First Book in the History of Religions, American Academy of Religion" "Karin Velez's study of the cult of the Virgin of Loreto brilliantly encapsulates the current historiography of the Counter-Reformation. . . . Velez's prose is lyrical and her true gift is that of a storyteller."---Jan Machielsen, Times Literary Supplement "Velez has written a well-researched, thoughtful book that will be a permanent contribution to the mythohistory of Loreto."---David D'Andrea, Journal of Early Modern History

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