Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/510

 SANTA AGATA

454

SANTA CASA

JO^IOI

mmtttttii '^m^'tm

tique stj'le, also at Florence. Among his works at Rome isthe celebrated "Madonna del Prato" in the Church of San Agostino. At Venice he adopted a style more akin to painting, which is pleasant in small works, especially if movement and animation are expressed. Among works of this class are the statuettes of Pallas. Apollo. Mercury, Pax. the relief of Phrixos and Helle which adorns the small loggia he built on the campanile, a terra-cot ta Madonna, formerly gilded, placed within the campanile, a statue of Hope, and a group containing the Madonna in the palace of the Doges. The colossal statues of Alars and Neptune in front of this palace are less suc- cessful. The bronze reliefs around the choir of San Marco, and the bronze doors of the sacristy of the same, however, show pic- torial beauty. San- sovino made for the Chapel of St. An- thony at Padua a marble relief in the grand style; it repre- sents the bringing back to life of one who had been drowned, and con- tains extraordinary contrasts of graceful and repellent figures As an architect, Jacopo adopted much from the style of Bramante, and in architecture as well as in sculpture brought much of the Roman Cinquecento to Venice. Mischief architectural work, the public library, has always been greatly admired on account of its classic form, rich decoration, and whollj'' pictorial arrangement. It displays a double order of columns, Tuscan and Ionic, over which is a rich frieze and a balustrade with statues. One of his most beautiful decorative works Ls the small loggia mentioned before. The best of the churches he built is San Cliorgio de' Greci; it has al- ways been greatly admired for its fine work in mar- ble. Another building of tixsteful construction that Ls ascribed to Sansovino is the Palazzo Corner della Ca Grande. Sansovino gathered about him a large number of a.ssLstants, who executed the decorations of the buildings he erected. These buildings were architecturally entirely in accordance with Venetian taste. Thus he was universally regarded in Venice a.s a master of the first rank, and felt himself com- pletely at home there, although at first he had thought of going to France.

CicoGNARA, Sloria rlella Scultura, II CPrato, 1823); Sch6n-

FELD, A. Sangovino urui xeine Schuk (StuttRart, 1881); Perkins,

I'rUmn Sculptors (London, 1808); Le fabbriche di Venezia, I

(Venice, 1815) ; Mou.nier, Venixe, ses arts dicomlifs (Paris, 1889).

G. GlETMANN.

Santa Agata dei Goti, Diocese of (S. AoATHiB GoTHORUM), in the Province of Benevento, Southern Italy; the city, situated on a hill at the ba.se of Monte Tabumo, contains an ancient castle. In the vicinity are many antifjuities and inscriptifjns belonging to the ancient Satirtula, a town taken from the Samnites by the lixjmans anrl ma^lc; a Latin colony in ;il.'i. The p^^s(nt name is derived possibly from a body of f Joths who took refuge there after the battlc! of Vesuvius (552) ; the church of the TJoths in Rome, too, wiw dedi- cated to St . ,\gatlia. In 800 Emperor ]/>uis 1 1 capturfni it from the Byzantines who harl taken it from the Duchy of Benevento ; in 1066 it fell into the hands of

S.INSOVINO'S LOGGETT \

the Normans. It was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1456. Besides the Saticulan in- scriptions there are two Christian inscriiitions of the sixth century. It had already been an ejMscopal see for a long time when the first bishop, Madelfridus, was appointed (970) ; a metrical epitaph of his successor, Adelardus, is preserved in the Church of the Miseri- cordia. Of the other bishops we may mention Felice Peretti (1566), later Sixtus V; Fehciano Ninguarda, O.P. (1583), visitor of the monasteries in Germany; Giulio Santucci, a Conventual (1595), and distin- guished theologian; FiUppo Albini (1699), who re- formed the disciphne and studies of his clergy; St. Alphonsus Liguori (1762-75). The diocese is suf- fragan of Beneven- to; it contains 26 parishes, 63 churches and chapels, 93 secu- lar and 14 regular priests, 30,500 in- habitants, 3 houses of religious men and (i of nuns, 1 institute for young boys, and 3 for j^oung girls.

Cappelletti, Le chi- ese d'llalia, XIX (Ven- ice, 1870) ; Anon., Memo- ric istnriche della cittd di S. A gala dei Goti (Na- ples, 1841).

U. Benigni.

Santa Casa di Loreto. — Since the fifteenth century, and possibly even earlier, the "Holy House" of Loreto has been numbered among the most fa- mous shrines of Italy. Loreto is a small town a few miles south of Ancona and near the sea. Its mo.st conspicu- ous building is the basilica. This dome-crowned edi- fice, which with its various annexes took more than a century to build and adorn under the direction of many famous artists, serves merely as the setting of a tiny cottage standing within the basihca itself. Though the rough walls of the little building have been raised in height and arc cased externally in richly sculptured marble, the interior measures only thirty-one feet by thirteen. An altar stands at one end beneath a statue, blackened with age, of the Virgin Mother and her Divine Infant. As the inscription. Hie Verbum caro factum est, reminds us, this building is honoured by Christians as the veritable cottage at Nazareth in which the Holy Family lived, and the Word became incarnate. Another inscription of the sixteenth century which decorates the; eastern facade of the basilica sets forth at greater length the tradi- tion whicn makes this shrine so famous. "Christian pilgrim ", it says, "you have before your eyes the Holy Hou.se of Loreto, venerable throughout the world on account of the Divine mysteries accomplished in it and the glorious miracles herein wrought. It is here that most holy Mary, Mother of CJod, was born; here that she w.as .saluted by the Angel, here that the eter- nal Word of God was made I'^lesh. Angels conveyed this House from Palestine to the town Tersato in Illyri.'i in the year of .sjilv.-il ion 1291 in the pontificate of Nichol.as IV. Three years later, in the beginning of the |)oritific!ite of Jioniface VIII, it was carried again by the ininistry of angels and jilaced in a wood near this hill, in the vicinity of Hecanati, in the March of Ancona; where having changed its station thrice in the course of a year, at length, by the will of God, it took up its permanent i)osif ion on this sj)ot three hundred years ago [now, of course, more than 600]