Two Legends of Loreta – Pecháčková Ivana (2013)

For more than three centuries, time has been measured in the former Hradčany suburb by bells hanging in the lantern of a slender light tower with a copper onion-shaped roof. Prague Loreto. However, its architectural - and actually also 'ideological' - core is not the picturesque bell tower, but the Holy House, located in the courtyard and set within a complex of galleries, cloisters, and chapels. Loreto, perhaps the most famous pilgrimage sites in the Christian world, were small houses built as exact replicas of the 'Holy House' (Santa casa) in the Italian town of Loreto. It was believed to be the Nazareth house where the Holy Family lived and where the Archangel Gabriel announced the birth of Christ to the Virgin Mary. The house was supposedly transported by angels from Palestinian Nazareth to a laurel grove near Ancona at the end of the 13th century to protect it from the Saracens... Year after year, sick pilgrims came to the 'Loreto House' to pray for their healing. Often, it was their only hope, especially during times of great epidemics when death was a more frequent visitor to the sick than the doctor, and when pharmacists, fearing infection, handed out medicines only through partially opened doors and with metal tongs... Illustrated by Renáta Fučíková.