Espousals of the Blessed Virgin Mary | |
---|---|
Observed by | Catholic Church |
Type | Christian |
Date | 23 January |
Next time | 23 January 2025 |
Frequency | Annual |
The Espousals of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Marriage of the Virgin Mary is a Christian feast that is celebrated by certain communities within the Catholic Church, such as the Oblates of Saint Joseph. It was formerly generally observed on January 23, but was removed from many local calendars by the Sacred Congregation of Rites.
In Matthew 1:16, Joseph is described as the husband of Mary. It is probable that Joseph and Mary were betrothed in Nazareth. [1] The term "betrothal" indicates more than an engagement. It was customary in that time and place to celebrate marriage in two stages, the first being the contractual arrangements culminating in consent or "betrothal". After a period of around one year in which the couple were preparing for conjugal living, the second stage of actually conveying the wife to their new home would be accompanied by a great feast such as the Marriage Feast at Cana recounted in the John 2:1-11. [2]
In 1416 Jean Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris urged the Council of Constance to establish a feast day honouring the Betrothal of Mary and Joseph, for which he wrote an office. [3]
The first definite knowledge of a feast in honour of the espousals of Mary dates from August 29, 1517, when with nine other Masses in honour of Mary, it was granted by Leo X to the Nuns of the Annunciation, founded by Saint Jeanne de Valois. [4] In certain particular churches the espousals of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph are honoured with an office on January 23. [5] The Oblates of St. Joseph celebrate January 23 as the feast of “The Holy Spouses Mary and Joseph”. [6]
Gaspar Bertoni, founder of the Stigmatines, chose Mary and Joseph, in the context of their espousals, as patrons of the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata. [7]
In art the subject can be covered in several different scenes, and the betrothal of Mary, with Joseph's blossoming rod, is often shown. Wedding processions are also shown, especially in the Early Medieval period. The scene, or scenes, is a common component in larger cycles of the Life of the Virgin and thus very frequently found, especially in the Middle Ages; it is not found in the typical cycle in a Book of hours.
The marriage scene has been painted by, among others, Giotto, Perugino, Raphael, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Bernardo Daddi (now in the Royal Collection), Veronese (in San Polo church, Venice), and Pieter van Lint (1640, Antwerp Cathedral). The subject is depicted in a fresco in the German Chapel at the Shrine of the Holy House in Loretto, Italy; [8] in a sculpture in the left portico of Sagrada Família Basilica in Barcelona, Spain; [9] and in a stained glass window at St. Rita Basilica, Cascia, Italy. [10]
Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi, professionally known as Domenico Ghirlandaio, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Florence. Ghirlandaio was part of the so-called "third generation" of the Florentine Renaissance, along with Verrocchio, the Pollaiolo brothers and Sandro Botticelli.
Pinturicchio, or Pintoricchio, also known as Benetto di Biagio or Sordicchio, was an Italian Renaissance painter. He acquired his nickname because of his small stature and he used it to sign some of his artworks that were created during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Pietro Perugino, an Italian Renaissance painter of the Umbrian school, developed some of the qualities that found classic expression in the High Renaissance. Raphael became his most famous pupil.
The Holy Family consists of the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. The subject became popular in art from the 1490s on, but veneration of the Holy Family was formally begun in the 17th century by Saint François de Laval, the first bishop of New France, who founded a confraternity.
The Stigmatines, officially named the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata, is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men. The Stigmatine Congregation was founded on November 4, 1816 by Gaspar Bertoni, in Verona, Italy. Its members use the post-nominals C.S.S..
Domenico Puligo (1492–1527) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance, active in Florence. His real name was Domenico di Bartolomeo Ubaldini.
Florentine painting or the Florentine school refers to artists in, from, or influenced by the naturalistic style developed in Florence in the 14th century, largely through the efforts of Giotto di Bondone, and in the 15th century the leading school of Western painting. Some of the best known painters of the earlier Florentine School are Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, the Ghirlandaio family, Masolino, and Masaccio.
The Sassetti Chapel is a chapel in the basilica of Santa Trinita in Florence, Italy. It is especially notable for its frescoes of the Stories of St. Francis, considered Domenico Ghirlandaio's masterwork.
Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political states, some independent but others controlled by external powers. The painters of Renaissance Italy, although often attached to particular courts and with loyalties to particular towns, nonetheless wandered the length and breadth of Italy, often occupying a diplomatic status and disseminating artistic and philosophical ideas.
The decade of the 1490s in art involved some significant events.
This article about the development of themes in Italian Renaissance painting is an extension to the article Italian Renaissance painting, for which it provides additional pictures with commentary. The works encompassed are from Giotto in the early 14th century to Michelangelo's Last Judgement of the 1530s.
The Coronation of the Virgin or Coronation of Mary is a subject in Christian art, especially popular in Italy in the 13th to 15th centuries, but continuing in popularity until the 18th century and beyond. Christ, sometimes accompanied by God the Father and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, places a crown on the head of Mary as Queen of Heaven. In early versions the setting is a Heaven imagined as an earthly court, staffed by saints and angels; in later versions Heaven is more often seen as in the sky, with the figures seated on clouds. The subject is also notable as one where the whole Christian Trinity is often shown together, sometimes in unusual ways. Crowned Virgins are also seen in Eastern Orthodox Christian icons, specifically in the Russian Orthodox church after the 18th century. Mary is sometimes shown, in both Eastern and Western Christian art, being crowned by one or two angels, but this is considered a different subject.
The Life of the Virgin, showing narrative scenes from the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a common subject for pictorial cycles in Christian art, often complementing, or forming part of, a cycle on the Life of Christ. In both cases the number of scenes shown varies greatly with the space available. Works may be in any medium: frescoed church walls and series of old master prints have many of the fullest cycles, but panel painting, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, stone sculptures and ivory carvings have many examples.
The Marriage of the Virgin is the subject in Christian art depicting the marriage of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. The wedding ceremony is not mentioned in the canonical Gospels but is covered in several apocryphal sources and in later redactions, notably the 14th-century compilation the Golden Legend. Unlike many other scenes in Life of the Virgin cycles, it is not a feast in the church calendar, though it sometimes has been in the past.
Mary has been one of the major subjects of Western art for centuries. There is an enormous quantity of Marian art in the Catholic Church, covering both devotional subjects such as the Virgin and Child and a range of narrative subjects from the Life of the Virgin, often arranged in cycles. Most medieval painters, and from the Reformation to about 1800 most from Catholic countries, have produced works, including old masters such as Michelangelo and Botticelli.
Joseph was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who, according to the canonical Gospels, was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus.
The Annunciation has been one of the most frequent subjects of Christian art. Depictions of the Annunciation go back to early Christianity, with the Priscilla catacomb in Rome including the oldest known fresco of the Annunciation, dating to the 4th century.
Visitation is a tempera on panel painting usually attributed to Perugino, executed c. 1472–1473, now in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. An early work by the artist from around the same time as Nativity of the Virgin, while he was still heavily influenced by Andrea del Verrocchio, it probably originated as part of the predella for a lost altarpiece. It shows the Visitation, with the Virgin Mary's mother Saint Anne to the left. In the left background is Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata and in the right background is Florence's patron saint, John the Baptist - this may indicate that the lost altarpiece was intended for a Franciscan monastery in Florence such as Santa Croce.
The Marriage of the Virgin is a subject in Christian art depicting the marriage of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph.