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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

After the marriage at Cana in Galilee, which may be regarded as the commencement of the miraculous mission of our Lord, we do not hear anything of his Mother, the Virgin, till the time approached when he was to close his ministry by his death. She is not once referred to by name in the […]

The group of three figures most commonly met with is that of the Mother and Child with St. John. One of the earliest examples of the domestic treatment of this group is a quaint picture by Botticelli, in which Mary, bending down, holds forth the Child to be caressed by St. John—very dry in color, […]

LO SPASIMO. “O what avails me now that honor high, To have conceived of God, and. that salute, Hail, highly favored among women blest ! While I to sorrows am no less advanced, And fears as eminent, above the lot Of other women by the birth I bore.” “This is my favored lot, My exaltation […]

In a Holy Family of four figures, we have frequently the Virgin, the Child, and the Infant St. John, with St. Joseph standing by. Raphael’s Madonna del Passeggio is an example. In a picture by Palma Vecchio, St. John presents a lamb, while St. Joseph kneels before the Infant Christ, who, seated on his mother’s […]

“Verum stabas, optima Mater, juxta crucem Filii tui, non solum corpore, sed mentis constantia.” This great subject belongs more particularly to the Life of Christ. It is, I observe, always omitted in a series of the Life of the Virgin, unless it be the Rosary, in which the ” Vigil of the Virgin by the […]