2. The Sacrilege of Soot : Liturgical Decorum and the Black Madonna of Loreto

2021 ◽  
pp. 99-128
Author(s):  
Grace Harpster
Keyword(s):  
Black Madonna

The Sacrilege of Soot : Liturgical Decorum and the Black Madonna of Loreto

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Harpster
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Catholicism ◽  
Black Madonna ◽  
Childhood Home ◽  
Catholic Reform

The sanctuary of Loreto, one of Italy’s most renowned pilgrimage destinations, was built to house the relic of the Virgin Mary’s childhood home, but many pilgrims directed their prayers instead to the shrine’s cult image, a Marian statue with a dark appearance. In the late sixteenth century, a time of Catholic reform, many devotees attributed the sculpture’s color to the residue from candle smoke, despite the fact that this departed from reformers’ strict rules of liturgical decorum. The perception of the Virgin of Loreto’s blackened surface as simultaneously sacred and sacrilegious returned agency to the artwork itself. The statue’s sooty accretions suggested negligence and cried out for restoration, but they also defended the cult of images in early modern Catholicism.

4. Mary the goddess?

2021 ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
Mary Joan Winn Leith
Keyword(s):  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Black Madonna ◽  
History Of

‘Mary the goddess?’ considers the question of whether the Virgin Mary is a goddess. According to official Christian theology throughout the centuries, Mary is not and cannot be a goddess. Nevertheless, Christian piety has at times followed a separate track from official theology by treating Mary as a goddess. It is worth considering here the oft-noted parallels between the Virgin Mary and Graeco-Roman goddesses, the history of the Black Madonna, and contemporary forms of goddess-centred spirituality.

Our Inner Black Madonna

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lillian Comas-Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Black Madonna
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