Loreta

Church · Hradčany — Loretánské náměstíPrague,Czechia

A Prague pilgrimage complex wrapped around a copy of the Virgin's house, its 1694 carillon playing itself on the hour and diamonds in its treasury.

Loreta is a pilgrimage complex wrapped around a small stone house, and on the hour its tower plays itself. A carillon of 1694 sits in the roof — thirty bells, twenty-seven of them sounding — and it runs by machine, so the tune starts on time whether anyone is listening or not. If you arrive at five past you have missed it. The house at the centre is a copy of the one in Loreto in Italy, and pilgrims came here to walk round it. Prague's copy was begun in 1626 and consecrated on 25 March 1631, paid for by Countess Benigna Kateřina of Lobkowicz. It went up in a country that had been Hussite and had just been forced back to Rome, so the shrine was an argument as much as a chapel. Kryštof Dientzenhofer and his son Kilián Ignác later wrapped it in the Baroque front and cloisters you walk through now. The clockmaker Petr Neumann built the carillon, and the treasury upstairs holds a diamond-covered monstrance called the Prague Sun.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Look at the Santa Casa's outside first — The plain brick core is the house itself, and the carved stone shell was added to protect it: a box inside a box.
Come early or late in the day — It sits a short walk from the castle, so the middle hours take the overflow from the castle crowds and the cloisters get noisy.
There is a separate charge for photography — Pay it at the desk if you want pictures, because the staff do check inside the treasury and the cloisters.

Things to do

1
Stand in the courtyard for the hour
Get into the courtyard a few minutes before the hour and stop walking. The bells start without warning and the sound comes down into the enclosed space rather than spreading out. Listen for the mechanism behind the tune: the notes are evenly spaced because a turning drum, not a hand, is releasing them.
2
Walk right round the holy house
Circle the Santa Casa inside its shell, keeping close to the wall. It takes a minute. The building is small, plain and deliberately unimpressive, and everything grand here was put up around it. Doing the circuit makes the hierarchy of the whole complex obvious.
3
Find the diamonds' angle
In the treasury, stand square to the monstrance first and note how dull it looks. Then move slowly to one side. At a certain point the stones catch the light all at once. The piece was made to be carried in procession under moving light, and standing still is the one way it was never meant to be seen.