The Miraculous Flying House of Loreto : : Spreading Catholicism in the Early Modern World / / Karin Vélez.

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,...

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Superior document:Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2018 English
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Place / Publishing House:Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2018]
©2019
Year of Publication:2018
Language:English
Online Access:
Physical Description:1 online resource (312 p.) :; 7 b/w illus., 1 tables
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Other title:Frontmatter --
CONTENTS --
Illustrations --
Acknowledgments --
Abbreviations --
Part I. First Landings --
CHAPTER 1. Introduction --
CHAPTER 2. Deconstructing a Miracle --
Part II. Approaching Loreto --
CHAPTER 3. First Authors --
CHAPTER 4. Accidental Pilgrims --
Part III. Leaving Loreto --
CHAPTER 5. Holy House Builders --
CHAPTER 6. Anonymous Renovators of Icons --
CHAPTER 7. Counters, Namers, and Processers --
Part IV.New Departures --
CHAPTER 8. Reconstructing Catholic Expansion --
Bibliography --
Index
Summary: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.
Format:Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
ISBN:9780691184494
9783110604252
9783110603255
9783110604245
9783110603248
9783110663365
DOI:10.1515/9780691184494?locatt=mode:legacy
Access:restricted access
Hierarchical level:Monograph
Statement of Responsibility: Karin Vélez.