The Sacred Chapel stands due east and west, at the farther end of a large church of the most durable stone of Istria, which has been built around it. This may be considered as the external covering, or as a kind of great coat to the Casa Santa, which has a smaller coat of more precious materials and workmanship nearer its body. This internal covering, or case, is of the choicest marble, after a plan of San Savino’s, and ornamented with basso relievos, the workmanship of the best sculptors which Italy could furnish in the reign of Leo the Tenth. The subject of those basso relievos are, the history of the Blessed Virgin, and other parts of the Bible. The whole case is about fifty feet long, thirty in breadth, and the same in height; but the real house itself is no more than[341] thirty-two feet in length, fourteen in breadth, and at the sides, about eighteen feet in height; the centre of the roof is four or five feet higher. The walls of this little Holy Chapel are composed of pieces of a reddish substance, of an oblong square shape, laid one upon another, in the manner of brick. At first sight, on a superficial view, these red-coloured oblong substances appear to be nothing else than common Italian bricks; and, which is still more extraordinary, on a second and third view, with all possible attention, they still have the same appearance. There is not, however, as we were as............