“The angels seem to have carried it about more than once,” I interrupted.
“_Già_,” said the beadle. “At first they placed it on the hill of Picino, in a grove of laurels which bowed before it and remained in adoration. But so many thieves and assassins took cover under them to plunder the pious pilgrims of their offerings that the laurels raised their heads again, and after a stay of only eight months the Holy House moved.”
“Not yet. It moved first to a pleasant hill belonging to the brothers Artici, ancestors of Leopardi.”
“Ah, the hill of they tweye brothers,” I murmured.
“But the treasure heaped upon it dazzled them. They might have fought over it like Cain and Abel. So the house moved on.”
“And yet even Leopardi chanted the Madonna,” I said.
“_Lo credo_,” said the beadle, unastonished. “And there is still an inscription on the hill, but it does not console the neighbourhood any more than the chapel at Ravinizza.”
“Did I not say? That was where it stopped first—near Dalmatia.”
“Quite a wandering Jew-house,” I murmured.
“That was in 1291, when the Holy Land fell into the power of the Infidel”
“Naturally. And you may imagine the agony of the Dalmatians when they returned from the Crusades to find the Holy House no longer in Ravinizza. Even to-day the pilgrims sail out in little boats singing, ‘Return to us, Maria, with thy house!’ But how could it return to Dalmatia, seeing that seventy-five years before it left Palestine the blessed St. Francis had foretold its coming here by his word _Picenum_, which is a region on our side of the Adriatic, and being, moreover, interpreted by Latin scholars is a prophetic acrostic?”
“It seems a pity the house did not come straight to Loreto,” I ventured.
“We are fortunate it did not go straight back to Nazareth after the battle of Lepanto,” he said simply. “It was after our Lady’s victory over the Turks that this marble screen was placed around it. Here is the Treasury.” And thrusting roughly through the press of congregants, he opened a door and ushered me into a palatial room where under the ceiling-frescoes of Pomerancio of Pesaro I saw what seemed a vast bazaar of every precious article known to humanity.
“The New Treasury,” he said apologetically. “The old treasure was seized by Napoleon. It was worth 96,000,000 lire.” He looked sad.