LORENZO MARQUES (LOURENÇO MARQUES), ARCIDIOCESI DI

LORENZO MARQUES (LOURENÇO MARQUES), ARCHDIOCESE OF

Capital of the Portuguese colony of Mozambique (East Africa). It has an area of 164,011 sq. km. with 1,290,315 inhabitants, of whom 104,770 are Catholic; it has 31 parishes, 24 secular priests, 3 canons, and 41 regular clergy, one seminary, 20 male and 19 female religious communities (Ann. Pontif., 1951, p. 253).

It may be said that the evangelization of Mozambique began in 1506, when the Portuguese, having just disembarked, built the fortress of Sofala. Pius IV, with the bull *Suprema dispositio* of 12 Feb. 1563, granted the King of Portugal the faculty to appoint ecclesiastical administrators for the kingdoms of Ormuz, Mozambique, and Sofala, which belonged to the diocese of Goa. At the request of Philip II, Pope Paul V, with the brief *In supereminenti* of 21 Jan. 1612, detached Mozambique—from Cape Guardafui to the Cape of Good Hope—from the diocese of Goa and made it a vicariate or spiritual administration. Domenico Torrado, titular bishop of Sale, was the first administrator of Mozambique. The seat of the prelature was first at Sena and then on the island of Mozambique.

At the end of the 18th century, the Jesuits had several missions and schools in Mozambique, at Sena and Tete. But in 1757, with their expulsion from Portugal and its colonies, the missionary needs of Mozambique were soon forgotten. At the request of Maria I, Queen of Portugal, Pius VI granted that the prelates of Mozambique be consecrated as bishops.

With the missionary agreement signed by the Holy See with Portugal on 6 May 1940, the prelature was suppressed and three dioceses were created: L. M., Beira, and Nampula. Pius XII, with the apostolic constitution *Solemnibus conventionibus* of 4 Sept. 1940, sanctioned the establishment of the three dioceses and raised L. M. to the status of an archdiocese, with the dioceses of Beira and Nampula as its suffragans. In the Consistory of 18 Feb. 1946, Teodosio Clemente De Gouveia, the first archbishop of L. M., was created a cardinal.

---

LORETO, CARMELITE DIOCESE OF

Diocese in the province of Macerata (Marche). It has an area of 17 sq. km. with 8,000 inhabitants, all Catholic. It has 4 parishes, with 2 secular priests and 56 regular clergy, one seminary, 6 male and 14 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1951, pp. 390 and 641).

The *fundum Laureti* belonged to the diocese of Umana; when the episcopal see of Osimo was transferred to Recanati on 22 Dec. 1240, it became part of that diocese and followed its fortunes until 18 Nov. 1320, when John XXII elevated the diocese of Macerata, to which Loreto was also attached. It returned to the diocese of Recanati when that see was restored in 1357 and united with Macerata. Sixtus V, in the Consistory of 5 Nov. 1585, proposed the erection of the diocese of Loreto, which was then established on 17 March 1586 with the suppression of that of Recanati, taking territories from Ancona, Osimo, and Fermo and assigning as endowment the revenues of the diocese of Recanati and the goods of the Sanctuary; at the same time, Loreto was constituted a city. On 18 Dec. 1591, the diocese of Recanati was restored, though united *aeque principaliter* with Loreto.

The Sacred Congregation of the Consistory, by decree of 11 Oct. 1935 and with the approval of the Pope, established that the pontifical administrator of the Sanctuary should have jurisdiction over the territory of the city of Loreto and its territory according to the present civil boundaries, thus suspending the jurisdiction of the Ordinary of Recanati-Loreto. The administrator was to have as his vicar general a prelate invested with episcopal character and was to provide for the spiritual care of the territory (AAS, 28 [1936], pp. 71 seq.).

---

### THE SANCTUARY

The first documented mention of a “church of St. Mary which is situated in the *fundum Laureti*” appears in a donation by Giordano, bishop of Umana, dated 4 Jan. 1194 (document reproduced by G. Garratt, *Lorette le nouveau Nazareth*, Lille 1893, pp. 281 seq.);

and in another document of 11 March 1285, concerning the diocese of Recanati, the *fundum Laureti* and the “church of St. Mary of Loreto” reappear (J. A. Vogel, *V. BIBLICA.*, II, p. 51; M. Leopardi, *V. BIBLICA.*, p. 270). Everything suggests that this church is the subject of the judicial sentence of Oct. 1315, in which Giacomo di Norcia, judge of the March of Ancona, condemned certain nobles who, with a band of knights and foot soldiers, in Aug.–Sept. 1313 and Feb.–March 1314, had violently entered “the church of St. Mary of Loreto, the church of Recanati immediately subject to the lord bishop’s table,” against the will of the chaplain and provost appointed by the bishop to collect the offerings and money contained in the church’s chest, and had stolen all the oblations, torches, wax and silver images, stripped the image of the Virgin and Child, deprived the altar of its cloths, stolen silver garlands with and without pearls and every silk ornament “to no small damage of the bishop and the diocese” (M. Leopardi, p. 152; J. A. Vogel, I, p. 306; II, pp. 68 seq.). A bull of John XXII of 24 Dec. 1320 speaks of the “rural church of St. Mary of Loreto,” from which a canon of Rimini had been despoiled “by certain tyrants of those parts, rebels against the Roman Church” (M. U. Chevalier, *V. BIBLICA.*, p. 485).

The church had already become a sanctuary, a center of pilgrimages by the local inhabitants, and gifts were offered in honor of the Virgin venerated there. Indeed, on 9 Nov. 1389 Boniface IX published a concession of Urban VI of 1387 in favor of the “church of St. Mary of Loreto, in the diocese of Recanati, which... is held in great veneration by the faithful of those parts”: all the faithful who visited the church for the Nativity of the Virgin could gain the indulgence granted by Gregory XI to the church of St. Cyriacus of Ancona. This is the first papal concession of this kind, though not unlike others granted in those years (J. A. Vogel, II, p. 119; M. U. Chevalier, pp. 170 seq.).

Popular devotion grew ever wider and deeper: Flavio Biondo, in his *Italia illustrata* around 1451, wrote, “Between Recanati and the Adriatic Sea... stands in an open and undefended village the little church of the Virgin Mary called of Loreto, most celebrated throughout Italy; and that in that place prayers to God, through the intercession of the gentle Virgin, are heard, is proven by the greatest and most certain evidence in the fact that the bishop, to the glory of God and the Virgin, preserves hung up the offerings of those who have been heard in their vows, in gold, silver, wax, cloths, linen and woolen garments of great price, so as to fill almost the entire basilica.” The attestation of the humanist historian, whose works were widely known, acquires special importance and is corroborated by other facts.

In 1429 Filippo Maria Visconti took an interest in the sanctuary of L.; Francesco Sforza sent a letter on 11 January 1434 “in ecclesia Sancte Marie de Laureto”; in 1437 Niccolò III d’Este sent an offering to the Sanctuary. Pope Nicholas V passed through it in 1449 and on 18 April 1450 issued provisions regarding the precious objects offered “ad ecclesiam Beate Marie de Laureto.” Toward the end of his life Pius II visited L. (1464) while traveling to Ancona to fulfill a vow, and on 19 November 1464 Paul II granted an indulgence to the Sanctuary “because, as the evidence of the facts demonstrates, at the ‘ecclesia Sancte Marie de Laureto’ in the diocese of Recanati, thanks to the great and stupendous and almost infinite miracles wrought there by the same Most Blessed Virgin—and which we ourselves have clearly experienced in our own person—there is a very great gathering of Christians from different parts of the world.” The Pope refers to the healing from the plague obtained by a cardinal a few months earlier. Paul II issued other indulgence bulls on 12 February 1470 and then on 25 January 1471, in which he speaks of the Church as “miraculose fundata” and says that in it “ipsius Virginis gloriosse ymago angelico comitante coetu mira Dei clementia collocata est,” and that numerous and stupendous miracles occurred. It is surprising that in these bulls mention is made of the image of the Virgin accompanied by angels and not

of the translation of the House. Indeed, it is known that in the Sanctuary a wooden statue about 93 cm high was venerated, painted in blue and red with gold lines on the folds and the faces of the Virgin and Child, darkened by time (G. Garratt, op. cit., p. 168 ff.).

The steady increase in pilgrims and devotion created around the Sanctuary a whole complex of activities. In 1412 Andrea d’Adria was “capellanus ecclesiae S. Mariae de Laureto”; in 1428, having contributed to the founding of a hospital, he took the title of “gubernator et administrator domorum et hospitalis almae et gloriosae Virginis Mariae de Laureto.” In 1441 a cemetery was attached to the church; indeed, bones of persons buried there were found within the Sanctuary itself (J. A. Vogel, I, p. 333). On 3 December 1459 Niccolò Asti, bishop of Recanati and Macerata, made a donation for the maintenance of the provost and the other priests and all the other residents “in domibus predicte ecclesiae,” for alms to the poor “qui veniunt ad dictam ecclesiam” (M. U. Chevalier, p. 196 ff.).

In this donation Pietro di Giorgio Tolomei, provost of S. Sinedeo in Teramo and called “il Teramano,” is also named as “gubernator almae domus dicte ecclesiae.” He had come to L. in 1430 and died there in 1473. Around 1472 he composed in Latin a brief account of the origins of the Sanctuary: “The Church of the Blessed Mary of L. was the chamber of the house of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” and the Apostles and disciples “by common consent all established in favor of the said chamber a church in honor and memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and so it was done... and the blessed Luke the Evangelist with his own hands made there an image in the likeness of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is there to this day.” After the Muslims occupied the country “the Angels of God took away the said church and carried it to the parts of Slavonia and placed it in a castle called Fiume (10 May 1291), where it was not honored as was fitting for the Blessed Virgin. Once again the angels took it and carried it over the sea to the territory of Recanati and placed it in a wood that belonged to a noblewoman of the city of Recanati named Loreta (10 December 1294), and from then on that church took its name from the lady who was mistress of that wood, S. Maria di L. During the time that the church was in that wood, because of the exceptional gathering of people, very great robberies and countless evils were committed there. Therefore, by the hands of the Angels it was again taken and carried to the mountain of two brothers, and on the mountain it was placed by the hands of the angels (10 August 1295). Those brothers, because of the great income and profit of money and other things, fell into great discord and quarrels among themselves; and for this reason once again it was taken from the place on that mountain and carried onto the public road and set there and established where it is now (2 December 1295).” “And then all the people of Recanati went to see that Church which was upon the earth without any foundation. Therefore the said people, considering such a great miracle and fearing that the said Church would collapse, had the Church surrounded by another thick wall and excellent foundation, as is still clearly seen today. But no one knew whence this church had originally come” (the dates are not from the Teramano but appear with 1525). Only in 1296 “the Blessed Virgin appeared in a dream to a holy man devoted to her and revealed it to him, and he made the fact known to some good men of the town who immediately wanted to get to the bottom of the matter and, in agreement among themselves, decided to establish the truth of the thing, namely that sixteen notable and good men would go together to the Holy Sepulcher... and to Nazareth to investigate and they took with them the measurements of the church and found there the foundations of the church and ascertained that they matched perfectly with it; and on a wall nearby it is written and carved that the said church was there and had been removed” (G. Garratt, p. 273).

The account of the Teramano enjoyed wide diffusion and formed the basis for subsequent narratives, such as that of Fra Battista Spagnoli, called “il Mantovano,” in 1489 (G. Garratt, p. 275 ff.; for the date cf. Alfonso M. di Gesù, Gli oppositori..., see bibliography, p. 24) and of Girolamo Angelita, perpetual secretary of Recanati, around 1525. What is particularly surprising is the translation of the Holy House within a few years to four different places, and of the wooden image from the East, where such statues are not used. Even the bells are said to have been transported together with the building.

Among other confirmations and concessions by Sixtus IV is the fact that on 2 May 1482 he granted parochial status to the Sanctuary, and in 1484 he decreed that the gubernator should no longer be appointed by the bishop but by the Pope himself. In 1488 Cardinal Girolamo Basso della Rovere, bishop of Recanati and Macerata, entrusted the Sanctuary to the Carmelite Friars of the Observance of Mantua, who remained there only until 1497.

Finally, in a lengthy bull of 21 October 1507, in which he recounted the most important previous documents, Julius II repeated with Paul II that there was preserved “in predicta ecclesia de L. imago ipsius beate Marie Virginis,” and not only that, but also—“ut pie creditur et fama est”—the very “camera seu thalamus” of the Madonna, endorsing what the Teramano had written on the subject; thus the account of the Translation entered a papal document, without, however, the Pope making any special investigation into what had been reported to him, as is evident from the phrase “pie creditur” (the very long bull in M. U. Chevalier, p. 257 ff.).

Leo X on 18 December 1514 raised the Sanctuary to the status of a collegiate church with twelve canons. On 1 November 1554 four Jesuits were introduced as penitentiaries, and two years later a college was founded for them. Gregory XIII also entrusted the College, which he had founded and which was later renewed by Urban VIII in 1627, to the Jesuits for the education of young men from the other side of the Adriatic.

To bring better order to the affairs of the Sanctuary and to remove recurring disputes and jurisdictional conflicts, Innocent XII on 5 August 1608 established in Rome the Congregazione Lauretana with four cardinals under the presidency of the Secretary of State and with a governor or prefect (v. CONGREGAZIONI ROMANE, SACRE). Finally, on 8 May 1728, Benedict XIII granted the Sanctuary the honours of a minor basilica.

The Sanctuary suffered its first shock to its traditional life at the beginning of 1708, when French troops under Berthier sacked whatever remained there after Pius VI had removed the treasure to place it in safety. The statue of the Virgin was then sent to Paris as a museum object; Napoleon had it returned in 1801 on the occasion of the Concordat (cf. A. Eschbach, Un décret..., V. BIBLICA., p. 71 ff.).

In 1860, when the Marches were occupied by the Piedmontese army and papal authority had fallen, the new laws were also applied to the Sanctuary; however, the Sanctuary itself did not have its very extensive properties confiscated, which passed under an autonomous lay administration by a decree of 8 November 1860, later reorganised by another decree of 22 December 1861. With the Lateran Pacts and the Concordat, the Sanctuary returned to the direct administration and governance of the Holy See, and Pius XI, with a brief of 6 August 1936, granted to pilgrims to Loreto the same indulgences accorded by Pius X on 17 January 1905 to pilgrims to Palestine and Lourdes.

THE BUILDING. — The Holy House is a small building measuring internally 9.52 m in length, 4.10 m in width, and 4.30 m in height without foundations. Originally it had a single door on the long northern side; in front of it, inside, the altar was erected. On the upper part of the western side there is a small window and above it an image of the Crucifixion said to have been painted by St Luke. The upper part of the wall was decorated with paintings, now much faded, depicting the Virgin, St Catherine, St George, St Anthony and, as was said, St Louis King; several layers of superimposed paintings can also be discerned. Under Clement VII the building underwent transformations: the ancient door was closed and, for the convenience of visitors, the three doors now existing were opened; under Paul III the altar was removed and placed near one of the shorter sides with the wooden statue of the Virgin. The fire of 1921 consumed the altar and the statue, which was replaced by an exact wooden reproduction.

Only in 1468 did work begin on the great three-aisled church which, under its large dome, houses the Holy House; its architect was Marino di Marco da Zara, and it was completed in its essential parts in 1471. On 10 November 1531 the first stone was laid for the marvellous marble casing which surrounds the Holy House like a box, though without actually touching it; in this form the monument has come down to the present day. The church is 95 m long with three apses and 13 chapels; the octagonal dome was erected on eight piers by Giuliano da Sangallo in 1498–1500; the façade was completed in 1570; numerous artists, among them Bramante, contributed to the complex of the building and to the modifications made to it over time. The German air bombardment of 5–6 July 1944, which mainly damaged the dome, necessitated extensive restoration work but did not affect the structural soundness of the building.

The square that extends in front of the Basilica is surrounded on two sides by the great Apostolic Palace designed by Bramante; while the bell tower was built by Vanvitelli (1750–54). Fear of a possible Turkish attack led to the monumental complex being given the appearance of a fortress, which it still retains. — Vedi tav. CVIII.