Situating a Roman Icon in Time and Space: the Madonna Advocata of San Lorenzo in Damaso
Majski, Katarina
Majski, Katarina
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Abstract
The object of this study is a medieval icon of the Virgin Mary now in the Chapel of the Santissima Concezione in the left aisle of the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Damaso in Rome. The image adheres to the type in Roman iconography known as the Madonna Advocata which, around 1100, became one of the most replicated iconographies of the Virgin Mary. However, unlike the better-known Advocatae, such as those now in the Convent of Santa Maria del Rosario on Monte Mario or the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, the Madonna in the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Damaso has received little scholarly attention. Given the sparse scholarly treatment of the San Lorenzo icon thus far, origin and original context remain unknown and largely unexplored. This study aims to pave the way for such analysis by re-evaluating the icon’s date. By shifting the focus from analysis of pictorial style, which in past scholarship has yielded widely divergent results, this study focuses on the painted inscription framing the central figure of the Virgin Mary and informing the viewer that the icon contains relics of the Forty Holy Martyrs, Pope Felix, and Saints Marcus and Marcellianus – saints also named on small strips of parchment discovered in 1968 in a reliquary compartment beneath the Virgin’s brooch along with multiple fragments of bone. Albeit different in epigraphic form from the text on the icon, dated stone inscriptions commemorating the consecrations of altars in Roman churches in the eleventh and twelfth centuries narrow the chronological frame for the range of painted epigraphic comparanda, which, in turn, strongly suggest that the icon and its inscription were executed between approximately 1070 and 1130. This date range situates the icon in an eventful period of Roman history, corresponding to the papal-imperial conflicts and schism of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries and concomitant civil unrest in Rome. The study concludes that the Madonna Advocata of San Lorenzo in Damaso may originally have 2 functioned as a public devotional image set within an arch, possibly a surviving fornix of the ancient Theater of Pompey
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Master of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Spring 2026.
Date
2026
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Chiesa di S. Lorenzo in Damaso (Rome, Italy)
Citation
Majski, Katarina. "Situating a Roman Icon in Time and Space: the Madonna Advocata of San Lorenzo in Damaso". Master's Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2026.