LORETO SHRINE

This basilica (15th and 16th centuries) houses under its octagonal dome, built by Guiliano da Sangallo, the reliquary of the Holy House where, according to tradition, the Archangel Gabriel announced the birth of Jesus to Mary. Legend has it that, having miraculously escaped the Muslim invasion of Palestine, the house was transported by angels first to Dalmatia and then, in 1294, to the laurel woods(loreto), where it became a place of pilgrimage. Three walls of a house were in fact brought back from Palestine, frescoed and covered with marble.