Loreta

The square’s main attraction is the Loreta, a baroque place of pilgrimage founded by Benigna Kateřina Lobkowicz in 1626, and designed as a replica of the supposed Santa Casa (Sacred House; the home of the Virgin Mary). Above the entrance 27 bells, made in Amsterdam in the 17th century, play ‘We Greet Thee a Thousand Times’ on the hour. Legend says that the original Santa Casa was carried by angels to the Italian town of Loreto as the Turks were advancing on Nazareth. The duplicate Santa Casa, with fragments of its original frescoes, is in the centre of the courtyard. Behind the Santa Casa is the Church of the Nativity of Our Lord (kostel Narození Páně), built in 1737 to a design by Kristof Dientzenhofer. The claustrophobic interior includes two skeletons – of the Spanish saints Felicissima and Marcia – dressed in aristocratic clothing with wax masks concealing their skulls. At the corner of the courtyard is the unusual Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows (kaple Panny Marie Bolestné), featuring a crucified bearded lady. She was St Starosta, pious daughter of a Portuguese king who promised her to the king of Sicily against her wishes. After a night of tearful prayers she awoke with a beard, the wedding was called off, and her father had her crucified. She was later made patron saint of the needy and the godforsaken. The church’s treasury (1st floor) has been ransacked several times over the centuries, but it remains a bastion of over-the-top religious bling centred on the 90cm-tall Prague Sun (Pražské slunce), made of solid silver and gold and studded with 6222 diamonds. Photography is not allowed, and the rule is enforced with a 1000Kč fine.