Early modern authors lavished praise upon the cult statue of the Madonna of Loreto (Fig. 2.1). The work, a wooden statuette of the Virgin and Child measuring just over three feet tall, stood above the main altar of the Holy House of Loreto in the Marche region along Italy's Adriatic coast. The sanctuary claims to possess the actual childhood home of the Virgin Mary, transported by angels from Palestine in 1294 (Fig. 2.2). Devotion to this remarkable room relic increased greatly in the late fifteenth century, but in subsequent centuries, the modest sculpture above the altar became increasingly central to the religious experience at Loreto. In addition to defending the shrine's miraculous foundation, early modern histories of the site extol the virtues of the cult statue, often attributed to St. Luke, pronouncing it ‘a most beautiful simulacrum’ and ‘as great as a mortal could possibly do.’ Our own assessments of the Madonna of Loreto might today be less effusive. Its unremarkable appearance is similar to many other wooden Gothic sculptures of the same subject, and its surface, moreover, is dark and damaged.

Amidst their praises, early modern descriptions of the Madonna of Loreto do register this darkened appearance, albeit briefly. Late sixteenth and seventeenthcentury texts began to account for the dark color of their most beautiful Madonna, variously describing the work as ‘shaded with brown’ or ‘blackened’ – the latter word connoting either hue or material corruption.