Aeneas Sylvius must have looked upon such sails; so might the wings of the Venetian Antonio's ships have been wrought. All the gold of the East seemed to be pouring into the harbour as those boats came in. We watched them tacking into port, passing one another again and again, like the figures in a stately dance—far off at first, then nearer, then just outside the bar, then looming large below the windows as they trailed by to tie up at the quay—drooping their pennons and folding their wings like dream-ships, the fantastic heralds of the night.
LORETO
Loreto, the hill of laurels, which tradition has made the most sacred spot in Italy, has more than a legendary antiquity. For on its sunny slopes, overlooking the battle-field of Castelfidardo and the still Adriatic, the mysterious Picenians, contemporaries of the Umbrians and the Etruscans, left traces of a perished history in graves which have yielded the highest native art of prehistoric Italy.
They are charnelled in the museum of Ancona. But the vast cathedral built over the Holy House of Loreto is of a solidity which stands well for eternity. As we approached it on the sunny autumn morning of the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, we thought we saw not a church but a castle, built with the robust towers of the fifteenth century. It is in fact a castle built to protect from the Saracens the treasures laid by the potentates and peoples of the Middle Ages on the threshold of the Holy House, which the hands of angels transported in the thirteenth century first from Palestine to Dalmatia; and then, when Dalmatia was no longer secure, to the hill above Recanati in the March of Ancona.
One May morning in the year 1291 some peasants of Rauniza, a little town situated on the Dalmatian coast between Tersatto and Fiume, saw a spectacle which filled their souls with wonder as they went out to work in their fields before dawn. On a hill, which the night before had been bare and solitary, they beheld a strange building, which, even to their unaccustomed eyes, was of great antiquity. Drawing near they found that it had no foundations, although it stood miraculously upright; and while they were wondering at the phenomenon they saw a multitude approaching from Tersatto, from Rauniza, and from Fiume. Summoning up courage they entered, and discovered that it was formed of a single chamber whose ceiling was made of wood painted blue, and illumined with small gold stars. The rough walls were covered with plaster on which was frescoed the story of the life of Christ, and a large open door in one of the side walls gave access to the mysterious dwelling. To the right was a long narrow window with an altar surmounted by a painted crucifix, and near by a little cupboard contained some vases of rough pottery. On the left of this they discovered a chimney hearth, and a statue of the Holy Virgin holding the Infant Christ in her arms.
