Madonna con Bambino

The richest and most complex iconographic theme of Christian art is that of the Madonna. Interwoven with theological discourse, it highlights a constant and immediate link to popular devotion, the base of a large and diversified number of images which make classification extremely complicated.

Iconography spread after the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD to deny the Nestorian heresy, reaffirming that the Holy Virgin was not only the mother of Jesus but also the veritable Mother of God.

From the first Byzantine icons, the image of the Madonna and Child was easily understood and spread throughout the West with the development of Christianity until it became an iconographic pillar of religious art over the centuries.

In the vast application of Marian iconography, there are different motifs with which precise rules, resulting in images that appear very similar to each other.

Marian titles can be used to support the classification of subjects in an image, based on attributes that are used in the Christian Cult of Mary, mother of Jesus Christ.

Initially depicted with artificial rigidity and extreme formal rigor, in the first centuries after Christ the artists evolved towards softer and more delicate interpretations of the two figures and this innovation brought numerous variations on the theme: La Maestà (with the two seated on a throne), la Madonna dell’umiltà (which depicts them seated on the ground), accompanied by Saint Joseph to form the Holy Family, surrounded by Saints in a sacred conversation.