Centofiorini, Ludovico and Sebastiano Fulcaro (artist).

[DEFENDING THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE 'CASA SANTA' AGAINST PROTESTANT CRITICISM] Clypeus Lauretanus Adversus Haereticorum Sagittas [The shield of Loreto against the wisdom of the heretics].

Rome: F. Caballi, 1643. Quarto (21.2 × 15 cm). Contemporary full vellum; leather spine label with gilt title; [16], 204, [16] pp. with engraved title page by Sebastiano Fulcaro and the engraved map showing the relocation of the Santa Casa, as well as numerous decorative woodcut initials and vignettes. A few pages with light foxing; else very good. Item #55119

First and only edition of this defense of the veneration of the House of the Annunciation in Loreto, by the lawyer and cleric Ludovico Centofiorini. First written down and subsequently printed several times, the legend of the Translatio Sanctae Casae dates back to the second half of the fifteenth century. However, frescoes in Gubbio and in Jesi near Ancona attest that the story of the Holy House, which was flown by angels from Nazareth via Dalmatia to Loreto, was already known a hundred years earlier. Moreover, various documents and archaeological finds show that Loreto was already a pilgrimage destination by the early fourteenth century. A basilica protecting both the “Santa Casa” and the pilgrims, however, was not built until considerably later. And it was not until the Renaissance pope Julius II that the Holy House was encased, according to designs by Donato Bramante, within a magnificently decorated chapel, which eventually became the model for numerous replicas throughout Europe. Devotion to the “Santa Casa” reached its peak during the Counter-Reformation, when the Litany of Loreto, disseminated throughout Europe by the pilgrims, was approved by Sixtus V. Following the Council of Trent, the “Litany of Loreto” effectively attained the status of a hallmark of Catholicism. Alongside the Litany of the Saints, it was the only one of the litanies to survive the restrictions on liturgical use imposed after the Council and was therefore prayed all the more frequently. (W. Pötzl, Loreto, in: Marienlexikon, vol. IV, p. 151ff.)

The legend of the Holy House, which was flown by angels across the Mediterranean to Italy, soon became an object of Protestant criticism. One of the first critics was the former papal nuncio Peter Paul Vergerius, who had been sent by Paul III to the courts of the German princes in 1535. As a bishop, he eventually turned to Protestantism, fled to Switzerland and finally to Württemberg, operated a printing press, preached, traveled through the German lands, and, among other works, wrote his polemic against the veneration of the “Santa Casa,” first printed in 1554. The work was translated and printed several times. A series of Catholic responses, especially from the circle of the Jesuits, followed. (Cf. Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, Leipzig 1902, vol. I, p. 647f.; ADB vol. 39, pp. 617–621.) One of the more widely received responses was the present publication by the canon lawyer Ludovico Centofiorini, who came from the vicinity of Loreto and also addressed Protestantism in another treatise written a few years later. Some of his texts remained unpublished and are now held in the Vatican Library. Centofiorini opens his defense of the veneration of Loreto by listing fifteen points raised by the Protestant side since Vergerius. In keeping with the Baroque idiom, in which image and text are repeatedly related to one another, he calls these the “Arrows of the Heretics” (Sagittae Haereticorum). In each of the fifteen chapters, he erects one “shield” (Clypeus) against one of these “arrows.” He elaborates an argumentative and rhetorical approach that is shaped by his legal practice. Thus, for example, in response to those who cite a lack of evidence for a supernatural translatio of the house, he argues that, by extension, human communication would have to be abolished altogether if oral traditions and written accounts could not claim validity. He then adduces a series of transmitted accounts describing sightings of the house at various places in Dalmatia and Italy. In a manner reminiscent of the legal practice of the time, the flight of the Holy House is also shown on a map.

A dashed line initially leads from Nazareth via Cyprus, the Levantine Sea, Anatolia, the Aegean Sea, and the Balkan Peninsula to northern Dalmatia. From there, the line turns approximately 60° southward and leads across the Adriatic to Loreto. In its geographical inaccuracy, the map resembles those “judicial inspection maps” that filled court records in the early modern period. For the most part, these maps documented the joint visit of a commission and witnesses to a site for the purpose of gathering further evidence. Painters were taken along on such inspections to make sketches. In the workshop, a draft was then prepared on the basis of these sketches, which had to be submitted to the court’s responsible commissioner for approval. Once this draft had been approved, the final version followed, often completed on site under further inspection. The painters commissioned to produce them were required to swear an oath concerning their work. Against this historical background, the printed map can be understood as a visual-rhetorical device: the visual form itself is associatively imbued with legal practice and thus with “legitimacy through procedures” (Luhmann), so that the form itself generates a sense of evidentiary validity in readers and viewers. (Cf. Anette Baumann. Augenscheinkarten des Reichskammergerichts im Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe (1495–1806), in: Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, vol. 167, pp. 141–153.)

Above this factual depiction, the Holy House, borne by angels, flies within an aureole surrounded by clouds, while Mary, with the Child in her arms, is enthroned on the roof. The two pictorial fields are spatially separated from one another. The viewer himself must therefore mentally project the house onto the flight path. Equally striking is the emblematic engraved title page, which refers to the invocation of the Virgin in the “Litany of Loreto” as the Tower of David (Turris Davidica). This invocation goes back to the Marian allegorical exegesis of the Song of Songs, where it says: “Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.” (Cf. G. Nitz, “Turm Davids,” in: Marienlexikon, vol. II, p. 153f.) The quotation is also inscribed in its Latin Vulgate version on a band running around the structure above the base storey. The fortified tower also bears the title of the work on a round shield. With its diamond-shaped “thousand bucklers,” the Baroque tower calls to mind the precious pineapple-shaped goblets of the seventeenth century. The engraver of the title page is the Roman printmaker Sebastiano Fulcaro, who is known above all for his engraved reproduction of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment (see AKL-Online).

Boffito, Frontespizi incisi nel libro italiano del Seicento, p. 98.

As of August 2026, KVK, OCLC only show two copies in North America: one in the US and one in Canada.

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