Ad Imaginem Dei: The Assumption of the Virgin Mary -- The Story of the Virgin's Belt

Friday, August 14, 2020

The Assumption of the Virgin Mary -- The Story of the Virgin's Belt

+Bernardo Daddi and Workshop, The Virgin Dropping Her Belt to Saint Thomas
Italian, c. 1337-1339
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection

Some Medieval and Renaissance images of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary include the legendary detail of the Virgin’s belt or girdle.

In this legend, Saint Thomas was late in joining the other Apostles at Mary's deathbed. You will remember that Thomas was the one who missed the appearance of the Risen Christ to the Apostles and refused to believe in the reality of the Resurrection until he had seen and touched the Risen Christ, Possibly, like many of us, he had time management issues!

Donato and Gregoria d'Arezzo, The Incident of the Girdle
Italian, c. 1315-1325
Viterbo, Santa Maria Maggiore

Saint Thomas Receives the Virgin's Belt
From the De Lisle Hours
English (possibly York), c. 1316-1331
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS G 50, 162v

+Saint Thomas Receives the Virgin's Belt
English, c. 1325-1350
Beckley, Oxfordshire, Church of the Assumption of Saint Mary the Virgin

Whatever his reason, Thomas missed the death and funeral of Mary. Apparently, it was his request to see her again that caused her tomb to be opened. Its flower-filled, but bodyless interior revealed the Assumption. Again he refused to believe without proof. So, Mary appeared to him, removed the belt (sometimes called a girdle) she wore around her waist and dropped it to him from heaven. This putative relic is kept in the Cathedral of Prato, where it is solemnly displayed five times a year.

+Maso di Banco, Saint Thomas Receives the Virgin's Girdle
Italian, c. 1337-1339
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berliln

+Bartolomeo Bulgarini, Saint Thomas Receives the Virgin's Belt
Italian, c. 1360s
Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale

Saint Thomas Receives the Virgin's Belt
Cutting from a Choir Book
Italian (Lombardy), c. 1400-1425
London, British Museum
MS Additional 38897B

+Benozzo Gozzoli, The Madonna of the Girdle
Italian, c. 1450-1452
Vatican City, Pinacoteca Vaticana

Saint Thomas Receives the Virgin's Belt
Italian (Venetian), c. 1450-1475
Chicago, Art Institute

*Lorenzo di Pietro Vecchietta, The Virgin Dropping Her Belt to Saint Thomas
Italian, c. 1457
Montemerano di Manciano, Church of San Giorgio

*Pietro d'Antonio Dei, The Virgin Dropping Her Girdle to Saint Thomas
Italian, c. 1470-1475
Cortona, Museo Diocesano

This charming story provided some artists with an alternative iconographic image to use as a reference to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. It appears most frequently in paintings of Italian origin, though not exclusively. The greater frequency in Italian painting is probably due to the Prato tradition of displaying the belt at the cathedral.

+The Incident of the Girdle
From a Book of Hours
Italian (Naples), c. 1460
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum
MA Ludwig IX 12, fol. 268v

+Matteo di Giovanni, Saint Thomas Receives the Virgin's Girdle
Italian, c. 1474
London, National Gallery

Andrea della Robbia, Saint Thomas Receives the Virgin's Girdle
Italian, c. 1485-1500
London, Victoria and Albert Museum

+Master of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, Saint Thomas Receives the Virgin's Belt
Spanish, c. 1490
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

*Girolamo di Benvenuto di Giovanni del Guasta, Saint Thomas Receiving the Virgin's Girdle
Italian, c. 1500
Torita di Siena, Oratory of the Madonna della Nevi

+Jacopo Palma the Elder, The Virgin Mary Drops Her Belt to Saint Thomas
Italian, c. 1513
Venice, Gallerie dell'Accademia

+Cola dell'Amatrice, The Miracle of the Girdle
Italian, 1515
Vatican City State, Pinacoteca Vatica

+Cristoforo Allori, Incident with the Girdle
Italian, c. 1600
Cortona, Cattedrale di Santa Maria

*Johann Baptist Zimmermann
German, c. 1741-1454
Andechs, Benedictine Monastery Church

Although the tradition of displaying the girdle continues in Prato today,1 the image of this story appears to have died out in the iconographic tradition during the sixteenth century.

1. See the website for the diocese of Prato at http://www.diocesiprato.it/pagina_template.asp?id=33&page_id=512&id_pagina=512

M. Duffy, 2020. Select images updated and new images added 2024.

+Indicates an updated image

*Indicates a new image.

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Uniquely among the monotheistic religions Christianity permits the use of images of God. Why? The answer lies in the Christian belief in the reality of the Incarnation. Since God has assumed human nature and form the Biblical prohibition against making images of God ceases to apply. As the second Council of Nicea declared in 787 "Following the divinely inspired teaching of our holy Fathers and the tradition of the Catholic Church (for we know that this tradition comes from the Holy Spirit who dwells in her) we rightly define with full certainty and correctness that, like the figure of the precious and life-giving cross, venerable and holy images of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, our inviolate Lady, the holy Mother of God, and the venerated angels, all the saints and the just, whether painted or made of mosaic or another suitable material, are to be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on sacred vessels and vestments, walls and panels, in houses and on streets."
(Council of Nicaea II: DS 600)

This decree of Nicea II was promulgated for the entire church, both Greek and Latin speaking, and was a response to the strongly held beliefs of the iconoclasts, who wished to suppress the use of images, which had convulsed the Byzantine Empire and the eastern churches for almost 100 years. In addition, St. John Damascene, last of the Greek Fathers and a staunch defender of images, had written in De imagine ("In Defense of Images") "Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, (Bar. 3.38) I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter." (St. John Damascene, De Imagine, Part I, 15-16, from Internet Medieival Sourcebook.)

The ways in which this imaging of the divine has been accomplished in the course of time is the subject of Christian iconography. To quote from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, iconography is "1: pictorial material relating to or illustrating a subject; 2: the traditional or conventional images or symbols associated with a subject and especially a religious or legendary subject; 3: the imagery or symbolism of a work of art, an artist, or a body of art".

The iconography of any subject develops and changes over time. Christian iconography develops and changes too, as reflection on the Gospels and Tradition develops over time and as the act of making art develops and changes as well. This is the background for this blog.

Ad Imaginem Dei

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Friday, August 14, 2020

The Assumption of the Virgin Mary -- The Story of the Virgin's Belt

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