Loading...
The Virgin Mary as an open door for the Wise and Foolish Virgins and viewers on the façade of Santa Maria in Trastevere
Gaebe, Gavin Austin
Gaebe, Gavin Austin
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract
This thesis examines the thirteenth-century façade mosaic of Santa Maria in Trastevere through the lens of a thirteenth-century viewer standing in the piazza gazing upwards at the church’s exterior. The iconography on the church’s façade has long troubled scholars with the way it breaks many of the “rules” of its two iconographic groupings: the Virgo lactans and the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. The Virgo lactans in Santa Maria in Trastevere presents problems due to the image type’s relative rarity in Western Europe before the hypothesized date of this mosaic’s execution in the second or third decade of the thirteenth century. This thesis places the Virgo lactans within its Roman context, compares it to other popular images of the Virgin Mary in Rome to understand how the iconography may have been received by a thirteenth-century viewer. The second iconographic group presents different challenges. The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, unlike the Virgo lactans, is scriptural. And yet, on the façade of Santa Maria in Trastevere it diverges from the iconographic formulas and messaging that preceded this façade, even to the point where some art historians have argued that the parable is in fact not the subject. This thesis explores the prescriptive motivations behind Santa Maria in Trastevere’s unique adaptation of the parable in a post-Fourth Lateran Council context, and questions whether its novelty could have been read as such by a thirteenth-century viewer by incorporating a wide range of comparanda. By placing this façade mosaic in both its architectural context, and its Roman context, this thesis proposes a reading of the façade mosaic based on the idea of contrasts between biblical women with the Wise and Foolish Virgins as the obvious contrast and the Virgin Mary and Eve as the less-obvious contrast. These contrasts result in a mosaic that encourages movement into the church structure by using the metaphor of an open door through the Virgo lactans iconography, further deepened by the resonances and associations a thirteenth-century viewer may have made while viewing the figures on the façade of Santa Maria in Trastevere.
Description
Master of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Spring 2024.
Date
2024
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Collections
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Santa Maria in Trastevere (Church : Rome, Italy), Italian mosaics, Medieval mosaics
Citation
Gaebe, Gavin Austin. "The Virgin Mary as an open door for the Wise and Foolish Virgins and viewers on the façade of Santa Maria in Trastevere". Master's Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2024.