Early Medieval Art

I neglected to mention that when I discussed the Corpus Christi Gospels, the Ashburnham Pentateuch, and San Lorenzo fuori le mura, I ended with the icon of the Virgin and Child from the Pantheon and the Life of Boniface IVdescribing his re-dedication of the Pantheon to Mary and all the martyrs.

From what I understand, and I welcome correction,  the main altar displays an encased copy of the original, while the original remains hidden from view in the Chapel of Canons.  But color reproductions appear in several works, including De Mahomet à Charlemagne : la Méditerrannée et l’art.

This class began with the Life of John VII in the Liber Pontificalis (Book of the Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis) (Liverpool University Press – Translated Texts for Historians)).  John quickly emerges as an intriguing figure:

“He also provided images in various churches; whoever wants to know what he looked like will see his face depicted on them.”

We may rather securely attribute the icon known as the Madonna della Clemenza in a side chapel at Santa Maria in Trastevere to the patronage of John VII, and it exemplifies his seemingly shameless self-promotion.

The icon offers a great “Where’s Pope John VII?” exercise, and the direction of the inscription and its description of the image itself continue the image-text thread.  At this point, a flashback could also be useful, especially the Mount Sinai icon of the Virgin and Child with Angels and Saints Theodore and George.

Carlo Bertelli published a monograph in 1961 – La Madonna di Santa Maria in Trastevere - but you may download a recent MA thesis devoted to the icon.  At the least, it provides a useful review of the literature, as do most theses.  The figures also include some harder-to-find, albeit not of the highest quality, color images.

Thesis on the Madonna della Clemenza

Flickr has two decent photos of the icon (Search “Maria in Trastevere Icon”).