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Mary of Mercy in Medieval and Renaissance Italian Art: Devotional image and civic emblem book cover

1st Edition

Mary of Mercy in Medieval and Renaissance Italian Art Devotional image and civic emblem

By Katherine T. Brown Copyright 2017
256 Pages 24 Color & 83 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

232 Pages 24 Color & 83 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Mater Misericordiae —Mother of Mercy—emerged as one of the most prolific subjects in central Italian art from the late thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries. With iconographic origins in Marian cult relics brought from Palestine to Constantinople in the fifth century, the amalgam of attributes coalesced in Armenian Cilicia then morphed as it spread to Cyprus. An early concept of Mary of... Read more

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface and Acknowledgements

A Case Study

Introduction

Chapter 1 Iconographic origins as a devotional image

  1. Pose and gesture

    1. Standing posture

    2. Extended arms

    3. Cruciform composition

    4. Flying or hovering pose

    5. Gaze, expression and demeanor

  1. Clothing

    1. Mantle and veil

    • Classical literature, law and numismatics

    • Medieval liturgy, law and seals

    • Roman and Byzantine dress

    • Roman sculpture

    • Old Testament

    • Apocryphal early life of Mary

    • Relics of Mary’s garments in Constantinople

    • Legends of visions

    • Armenian Cilicia

    • Cyprus

    • The Crusades

    • Bari

    • Venice

    • Veiling and unveiling the flesh of Christ

    • Prayers, sermons and hymns

    • Cloaks and charity in medieval hagiography

    1. Brooch

    2. Belt

    3. Hairstyles, crowns and halos

  1. Figures and objects

    1. Angels and saints

    2. Christ child

    3. Stars and ships

    4. Arrows

    5. Vessels

    6. Flowers and fruit

    7. Furniture and architecture

    8. Backgrounds and borders

  1. Formal elements

    1. Hieratic scale

    2. Architectonic space

    3. Implied light

    4. Shapes of supports

  1. Adoption by religious orders

    1. The Cistercians

    2. The Dominicans

    3. The Franciscans

  1. Related versions of Mary

    1. Madonna del Soccorso

    2. Madonna del Rosario

    3. Madonna del Popolo

Chapter 2 Virgin of Mercy as civic emblem for lay confraternities

  1. Supplicants under the cloak

  2. Lay confraternities and their emblems

  3. Architectural relief sculpture

  4. Gonfaloni

    5.

  5. Invocation against the plague

Chapter 3 Diffusion, regional styles, and adaptations

  1. Italian Peninsula

    1. The South

    2. Central Italy

    3. The North

  1. Western Europe

    1. France and England

    2. Slovenia, Austria and Germany

    3. Spain and Portugal

  1. Ukraine and Russia

Epilogue

Selected Bibliography

Biography

Katherine T. Brown is Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies at Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio.

"The [author] discusses the topic extensively and in great detail, making all kinds of connections. ... [The] book [is] rich in interesting observations and beautiful illustrations about an appealing and popular iconographic theme, spread throughout Europe and still present in our time and age."

- Analecta Bollandiana

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