The Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Devotion and Iconography

• Other Authors: Salvador-González, José María (Editor)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2023
• Subjects: Literature & literary studies; Mariology; Marian iconography; Mary's divine motherhood; Annunciation; theological sources; doctrinal symbol; John Duns Scotus; medieval theology; God's eternal plan; the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; Virgin Mary; free will; Thomism; Camino de Santiago; medieval pilgrimage; cult of saints; Mozarabic rite; chant; responsory; sequence; Sainte-Foy at Conques; relief sculpture; divine motherhood; perpetual virginity; liturgical hymns; Renaissance art; virtues; virginity; medieval women; liturgy; medieval music; medieval art; Hildegard of Bingen; Scivias; Christianity; Christology; Martin Luther; justification; theology of the Cross; suffering; iconography; Lucas Cranach the Elder; St. Bernard of Clairvaux; mariology; beauty; medieval aesthetics; medieval philosophy; Dormition of the Theotokos; Dormition iconography; mandorla; Glory of God; Byzantine art; post-Byzantine art; the Virgin of the Girdle; troper-proser; liturgical song; medieval devotion; miracles; Tortosa; annunciation; erotic symbolism; mystical wedding; political theology; sacred play; Nursing Madonna; Madonna of Humility; Eve; Mary; breastfeeding; redemption; Marian miracles; Gautier de Coinci; Illuminated Manuscripts; miraculous images; medieval visual culture
• Online Access: DOAB: download the publication; DOAB: description of the publication

This reprint aims to investigate some of the numerous ways in which Christianity venerated and represented the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Fifteen researchers in various areas of the Arts and Humanities have brought together here their efforts to address in part this inexhaustible objective. The reprint is divided into two main parts. In one of them, composed of six chapters, we study some of the several ways in which the Christian faithful rendered worship and devotion to the Virgin Mary during the more than one thousand years under consideration. The other part, made up of seven chapters, analyzes various iconographic manifestations through which medieval and Renaissance Christians made their devotion to the mother of Christ visible in pictorial or sculptural forms. Therefore, this reprint will be very useful not only for specialists in Christian studies, especially in Marian themes but also for those interested in the development of the societies and cultures of medieval and Renaissance Europe.