Loreto
Inside, under the dome, is the great marble facing that protects the Holy House, carried out in the 16thC to Bramante's designs by the great medal-designer Gian Cristoforo Romano, Andrea Sansovino and Antonio da Sangallo the Younger.

Around its base centuries of kneeling pilgrims have worn furrows in the marble. The curious statue within the walls of the Santa Casa of the Black Madonna of Loreto is a modern copy of the original destroyed in a fire in 1921.

At the bottom of the right nave are the church's greatest artistic treasurers - gem-stone coloured frescoes in the Sacristy of St Mark by Merlozzo da Forli', and Luca Signorelli's noble frescoes in the nearby Sacristy of St John. Piazza della Madonna outside the Duomo is flanked on two sides by the arcades of the 16thC Palazzo Apostolico.