CASA, Santa, denotes the chapel of the holy virgin at Loreto. The Santa Casa is properly the house or rather chamber in which the blessed virgin is said to have been born, where she was betrothed to her spouse Joseph, where the angel saluted her, where the Holy Ghost overshadowed her, and where, by consequence, the Son of God was con-
ceived or incarnated. Of this building the Catholics relate many wonderful legends, better calculated to exercise faith than to produce conviction.