of our Lady of Loretto is merely a copy of
a very old Greek "Virgin and Child," which is enshrined in the Santa
Casa.

S.M. "del Pillar," Our Lady of the Pillar, is protectress of
Saragossa. According to the Legend, she descended from heaven standing
on an alabaster pillar, and thus appeared to St. James (Santiago)
when he was preaching the gospel in Spain. The miraculous pillar
is preserved in the cathedral of Saragossa, and the legend appears
frequently in Spanish art. Also in a very interior picture by Nicolo
Poussin, now in the Louvre.

* * * * *

Some celebrated pictures are individually distinguished by titles
derived from some particular object in the composition, as Raphael's
_Madonna de Impannata_, so called from the window in the back
ground being partly shaded with a piece of linen (in the Pitti
Pal., Florence); Correggio's _Vierge au Panier_, so called from the
work-basket which stands beside her (in our Nat Gal.); Murillo's
_Virgen de la Servilleta_, the Virgin of the Napkin, in allusion to
the dinner napkin on which it was painted.[1] Others are denominated
from certain localities, as the _Madonna di Foligno_ (now in the
Vatican); others from the names of families to whom they have
belonged, as _La Madonna della Famiglia Staffa_, at Perugia.

[Footnote 1: There is a beautiful engraving in Stirling's "Annals of
the Artists of Spain."]

* * * * *

Those visions and miracles with which the Virgin Mary favoured many
of the saints, as St. Luke (who was her secretary and painter), St.
Catherine, St. Francis, St. Herman, and others, have already been
related in the former volumes, and need not be repeated here.

With regard to the churches dedicated to the Virgin, I shall not
attempt to enumerate even the most remarkable, as almost every town
in Christian Europe contains one or more bearing her name. The most
ancient of which tradition speaks, was a chapel beyond the Tiber, at
Rome, which is said to have been founded in 217, on the site where S.
Maria _in Trastevere_ now stands. But there are one or two which carry
their pretensions much higher; for the cathedral at Toledo and the
cathedral at Chartres both claim the honour of having been dedicated
to the Virgin while she was yet alive.[1]

[Footnote 1: In England we have 2,120 churches dedicated in her
honour; and one of the largest and most important of the London
parishes bears her name-