Category: The Madonna

Ital. La Madre di Dolore. L’Addolorata. Fr. Notre Dame de Pitié. La Vierge de Douleur. Spa. Nuestra Senora de Dolores. Ger. Die schmerzhafte Mutter. One of the most important of the devotional subjects proper to the Madonna is the “Mourning Mother,” the Mater Dolorosa, in which her character is that the mother of the crucified […]

Ital. La Madonna Purissima. Lat. Regina sine labe originali concepta. Spa. Nuestra señora sin peccado concepida. La Concepcion. Fr. La Conception de la Vierge Marie. Ger. Das Geheimniss der unbefleckten Empfangniss Mari. (Dec. 8.) The last and the latest subject in which the Virgin appears alone without the Child is that entitled the “Immaculate Conception […]

THE enthusiastic and increasing veneration for the Madonna, the large place she filled in the religious teaching of the ecclesiastics and the religious sentiments of the people, are nowhere more apparent, nor more strikingly exhibited, than in the manner in which she was associated with the scenes which followed the Passion — the manner in […]

THE ASCENSION, though one of the “Glorious Mysteries,” was also accounted as the seventh and last of the sorrows of the Virgin, for she was then left alone on earth. All the old legends represent her as present on this occasion, and saying as she followed with uplifted eyes the soaring figure of Christ, “My […]

The Coronation of the Virgin. Lat. Coronatio Beatae Marin Virginis. Ital. Maria coronata dal divin suo Figlio. Fr. Le Couronnement de la Sainte Vierge. Ger. Die Kronung Mari. The usual type of the Church triumphant is the CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN properly so called, Christ in the act of crowning his Mother; one of the […]

THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST is a strictly scriptural subject. I have heard it said that the introduction of Mary was not authorized by the scripture narrative. I must observe, however, that, without any wringing of the text for an especial purpose, the passage might be so interpreted. In the first chapter of the […]

Lat. Dormitio, Pausatio, Transitus, Assumptio, B. Virginis. Ital. Il Transito di Maria. Il Sonno della Beata Wirgine. L’ Assunzione. Fr. La Mort de la Vierge. L’Assomption. Ger. Das Absterben der Maria. Maria Himmelfahrt. (August 13, 15.) We approach the closing scenes. Of all the representations consecrated to the glory of the Virgin, none have been […]

Mary dwelt in the house of John upon Mount Sion, looking for the fulfilment of the promise of deliverance ; and she spent her days in visiting those places which had been hallowed by the baptism, the sufferings, the burial, and resurrection of her divine Son, but more particularly the tomb wherein he was laid. […]

THE ANGEL ANNOUNCING TO MARY HER APPROACHING DEATH has been rarely treated. In general, Mary is seated or standing, and the angel kneels before her, bearing the starry palm brought from Paradise. In the frescoes at Orvieto, and in the bas-relief of Orcagna, on the beautiful shrine in Or San Michele, at Florence, the angel […]

THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN is styled in Byzantine and old Italian Art the Sleep of the Virgin, Il Sonno della Madonna; for it was an old superstition, subsequently rejected as heretical, that she did not really die after the manner of common mortals, only fell asleep till her resurrection. Therefore, perhaps, it is, that […]