Mozart’s God

In a glass case at Mozart’s birthplace in Salzburg is a small wax doll. Its eyes look demurely downward, it wears a crown several times the size of its head, and it is clad in a richly embroidered garment that looks like nothing so much as a sumptuous eighteenth-century ball gown. This is the Loreto-Kindl, or Loreto Child: a replica of an ivory image of the infant Christ housed in Salzburg’s Loreto Church. Believed to have miraculous healing properties, the Loreto Child was (and is) an object of veneration to many Salzburg residents, including the Mozart family. When, in Paris in 1764, the eight-year-old Wolfgang fell sick, his father Leopold sent money back home for a Mass to be said at the shrine of the Child. Read Full Article »