Loreta

The Loreto (Loreta) is a Baroque pilgrimage complex on Loretánské Square in the Hradčany district, founded in 1626 by the noblewoman Benigna Kateřina of Lobkowicz as a replica of the Santa Casa — the legendary house of the Virgin Mary in Nazareth, believed to have been transported by angels to the Italian town of Loreto. At the complex's heart stands the ornately stuccoed Holy House, surrounded by two-storey cloisters with chapels and ceiling frescoes. The Baroque Church of the Nativity of Our Lord, designed by Kilian Ignác Dientzenhofer, contains an 18th-century nativity scene with 48 life-size figures still displayed every Christmas. The clock tower houses Europe's largest historical carillon — 30 bells installed in 1694, playing the Loretan hymn We Greet Thee a Thousand Times every hour. The treasury on the upper floor is one of the finest collections of Baroque goldsmithing in Central Europe, centred on the "Prague Sun" — a 90-cm-tall monstrance set with 6,222 diamonds, made in Vienna in 1699.