History of Roman Catholic Mariology - Renaissance To Baroque

Renaissance To Baroque

See also: Italian Renaissance painting and Marian art in the Catholic Church

Beginning in the 13th century, a great deal of Marian art began to appear in Europe. The Renaissance period witnessed a dramatic growth in Marian art. In this period, significant works of Marian art by masters such as Boticelli, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael were produced. Some Marian art was specifically produced to decorate the Marian churches built in this period.

Major Italian artist with Marian motifs include: Fra Angelico, Donatello, Sandro Botticelli, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, Piero di Cosimo Paolo Uccello Antonello da Messina Andrea Mantegna, Piero della Francesca and Carlo Crivelli. Dutch and German artists with Marian paintings include: Jean Bellegambe, Hieronymus Bosch, Petrus Christus, Gerard David (c.1455–1523), Hubert van Eyck, Jan van Eyck, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Quentin Matsys, Roger van der Weyden, Albrecht Altdorfer, Hans Baldung and Albrecht Dürer. French and Spanish artistswith Marian paintings include: Jean Fouquet, Jean Clouet, François Clouet, Barthélemy d'Eyck, Jean Hey (formerly known as the Master of Moulins), Bartolomé Bermejo, Ayne Bru, Juan de Flandes, Jaume Huguet, Paolo da San Leocadio.

During the Protestant Reformation, Roman Catholic Mariology was under unprecedented attack as being sacrilegious and superstitious. Protestant leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin, while personally adhering to Marian beliefs like virgin birth and sinlessness, considered Catholic veneration of Mary as competition to the divine role of Jesus Christ.

As a reflection of this theological opposition, Protestant reformers destroyed much religious art and Marian statues and paintings in churches in northern Europe and England. Some of the Protestant reformers, in particular Andreas Karlstadt, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin, encouraged the removal of religious images by invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry and the manufacture of graven images of God. Major iconoclastic riots took place in Zürich (in 1523), Copenhagen (1530), Münster (1534), Geneva (1535), Augsburg (1537), and Scotland (1559). Protestant inconoclasm swept through the Seventeen Provinces (now the Netherlands and Belgium and parts of Northern France) in the summer of 1566. In the middle of the 16th century, the Council of Trent confirmed the Catholic tradition of paintings and artworks in churches. This resulted in a great development of Marian art and Mariology during the Baroque Period.

At the same time, the Catholic world was engaged in ongoing Ottoman Wars in Europe against Turkey which were fought and won under the auspices of the Virgin Mary. The victory at Battle of Lepanto (1571) was accredited to her "and signified the beginning of a strong resurgence of Marian devotions, focusing especially on Mary, the Queen of Heaven and Earth and her powerful role as mediator of many graces". The Colloquium marianum, an elite group, and the Sodality of Our Lady based their activities on a virtuous life, free of cardinal sins.

The baroque literature on Mary experienced unforeseen growth with over 500 pages of Mariological writings during the 17th century alone. The Jesuit Francisco Suárez was the first theologian, who used the thomist method on Mariology. Other well known contributors to baroque Mariology are Lawrence of Brindisi, Robert Bellarmine, Francis of Sales. After 1650, the Immaculate Conception is the subject of over 300 publications from Jesuit authors alone. This popularity was at times accompanied with Marian excesses and alleged revelations of the Virgin Mary to individuals like María de Ágreda Many of the baroque authors defended Marian spirituality and Mariology. In France, the often anti-Marian Jansenists were combated by John Eudes and Louis de Montfort, canonized by Pope Pius XII

Baroque Mariology was supported by several popes during the period: Pope Paul V and Gregory XV ruled in 1617 and 1622 to be inadmissible to state, that the virgin was conceived non-immaculate. Alexander VII declared in 1661, that the soul of Mary was free from original sin. Pope Clement XI ordered the feast of the Immaculata for the whole Church in 1708. The feast of the Rosary was introduced in 1716, the feast of the Seven Sorrows in 1727. The Angelus prayer was strongly supported by Pope Benedict XIII in 1724 and by Pope Benedict XIV in 1742.

Popular Marian piety was more colorful and varied than ever before: Numerous Marian pilgrimages, Marian Salve devotions, new Marian litanies, Marian theatre plays, Marian hymns, Marian processions. Marian fraternities, today mostly defunct, had millions of members. Lasting impressions from the baroque mariology are in the field of classical music, painting and art architecture, and in the numerous Marian shrines from the baroque period in Spain, France, Italy, Austria and Bavaria but also in some South American cities.