Mary of Mercy in Medieval and Renaissance Italian Art

Table of Contents Preface and Acknowledgements List of Illustrations A Case Study Introduction Chapter 1 Iconographic origins as a devotional image * Pose and gesture * Standing posture * Extended arms * Cruciform composition * Flying or hovering pose * Gaze, expression and demeanor * Clothing * 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 * Brooch * Belt * Hairstyles, crowns and halos * Figures and objects * Angels and saints * Christ child * Stars and ships * Arrows * Vessels * Flowers and fruit * Furniture and architecture * Backgrounds and borders * Formal elements * Hieratic scale * Architectonic space * Implied light * Shapes of supports * Adoption by religious orders * The Cistercians * The Dominicans * The Franciscans * Related versions of Mary * Madonna del Soccorso * Madonna del Rosario * Madonna del Popolo Chapter 2 Virgin of Mercy as civic emblem for lay confraternities * Supplicants under the cloak * Lay confraternities and their emblems * Confraternities as patrons of art * Architectural relief sculpture * Gonfaloni * Invocation against the plague Chapter 3 Diffusion, regional styles and adaptations * Italian peninsula * The South * Central Italy * The North * Western Europe * France and England * Slovenia, Austria and Germany * Spain and Portugal * Ukraine and Russia Epilogue Selected Bibliography