User:Bdhamilton/Sandbox/Maria Advocata

Main article: Maria Advocata (Madonna del Rosario)

To do

 * Rewrite history section
 * Rewrite iconography section

Early history
According to ancient tradition, the Madonna of San Sisto (Maria Advocata) was brought to Rome by a pilgrim from Jerusalem or Constantinople before the first iconoclastic period. It was taken by a certain Tempulo, one of three brothers who came from Constantinople and lived in exile in Rome, and placed in the neighbouring small oratory of Sant'Agata in Turri on the old Via Appia. This small church was built by the Greek community living there at the end of the 6th century and dedicated to Saint Agatha of Catania c. 800. After Tempulo's death, a monastic community must have formed there; because in 806 it is reported that the Saracens had destroyed the Monasterium Tempuli. After reconstruction with the support of Pope Sergius III (904–911) the monastery and church were consecrated to the Virgin Mary; the detailed designation was Monasterium Sanctae Mariae qui vocatur Tempuli. Since 1155 the church in which the Maria Advocata was still kept was called Santa Maria in Tempulo (Today, this old building at Via di Valle delle Camene is used by the Roman city administration to carry out civil weddings).

San Sisto Vecchio (1221–1575)
On 28 February 1221, the icon of Mary was personally transferred by Domingo de Guzmán, called Saint Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order, to the convent of San Sisto Vecchio, newly founded in the neighbourhood, on the ancient Via Appia (opposite the Baths of Caracalla). The icon was probably set up in the apse. Around 1570, Cardinal Filippo Buoncompagni, the titular cardinal of San Sisto, planned to have the icon's history depicted in twelve frescoes in the nave. Although the project was not carried out, the design drawings have been preserved. In one of these drawings, the icon is shown in a canopied wall aedicule over an altar.

San Domenico e Sisto (1575–1931)
On 8 February 1575, the Dominican Sisters moved from San Sisto to their new convent, Santi Domenico e Sisto, in the Piazza Magnanapoli (now the Angelicum). The precious icon was carried along and displayed on the new altar for veneration. This altar was located in the dividing wall between the outer, publicly accessible part of the church and the choir room of the sisters; it was therefore visible from both sides, but protected by a latticework towards the outer part of the church. The image of the Virgin Mary could be rotated so that it could be shown in every part of the church. In 1640 an inscription with the history of the icon of Mary was placed in the church (today to the right of the entrance).

Santa Maria del Rosario (1931–present)
In 1931 the Dominicans moved again, to the Monastero di Santa Maria del Rosario, with the icon of Mary, which is now kept and venerated in the part of the monastery church belonging to the cloistered church. From the part of the church open to the general public, through an iron grating, one can initially only see a copy of the icon of Mary decorated with votive offerings (on the back of the original). After registration, there is the possibility to see the original before or after the weekday Mass at 7.30 a.m. or on Sundays at 11 a.m.; the front of the icon is then turned towards the viewer.

Pope Benedict XVI visited the monastery on 24 June 2010 and prayed before the Advocata, as did his predecessor John Paul II on 16 November 1986.

From 13 November to 15 December 2012, the Advocata was shown for the first time outside the monastery, in the exhibition "Tavole miracolose – Le Icone medioevali di Roma e del Lazio del Fondo Edifici di Culto" in the Palazzo Venezia.

By source
'Gerhard Wolf, "Icons and Sites: Cult Images of the Virgin in Mediaeval Rome", in Images of the Mother of God'', ed. Maria Vassilaki (New York: Routledge, 2016; first published by Ashgate, 2005), pp. 23–50.'''


 * "As is well known, the icons of Rome and those of Sinai are the oldest 'collections' of Christian panel paintings" (25).
 * The oldest Marian icons in Rome were all housed in important sanctuaries and became identified with those sanctuaries.
 * The historical challenge is that there is a "near-title lack of written sources referring to those images [that we suspect to date back between the sixth and ninth centuries] and to a cult surrounding them in the city before the eleventh or twelfth century" (26).
 * In Rome, there are "virtually no written sources attesting to a cult of images before the eighth century" (26).
 * 75.5 x 42.5 cm (39
 * "Perhaps the most beautiful icon of the Virgin in Rome" (39)
 * Uncovered in the 1960s (39–40)
 * Some have suggested that it "may in fact be an imported icon," and perhaps even the "pre-iconoclast 'Hagiosoritissa' icon itself, which would thus have been preserved in Rome" (40).
 * By the eleventh century, the legend had developed that it was "a painting begun by St Luke and colored (who could not believe it!) by angels: a semi-'acoeiropoetic' act, so speak" (40).
 * "In the twelfth century the Madonna di S. Sisto became the most copied icon of the Virgin in the city" (40).
 * The most important copy was the Madonna of Aracoeli, a 12th-c. icon, which until the 1960s restoration was believed to be the prototype of the Roman Madonna Advocata type. Now this is understood to be the original.

'''Belting, Hans. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.'''

Relevant pages: 6, 72, 124, 314--317, 320--325, 329, 335, 442, 568n.18.


 * Miracles. The icon is supposed to have forced the Pope to do penance for trying to move it to his residence in the Lateran; it moved itself back during the night (6).
 * Copies. Making copies of the image was meant to extend the image's miraculous power (6).

Alexander P. Kazhdan, The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (New York: OUP, 1991).


 * Entry on VIRGIN HAGIOSORITISSA. Means "Virgin of the Holy Soros." A "Soros" is a reliquary chest. "An iconographic type in which the Virgin is depicted nearly in profile with both her hands extended out from her chest in prayer or entreaty." The original was "probably the Soros chapel in the Constantinopolitan monastery of Blachernai."
 * Entry on TYPES OF THE VIRGIN MARY. The various 'types' of Marian icons are mostly divided according to Mary's relation to Christ. Icons are usually connected both to the Virgin themselves and to the original icon of its type, which is why the types are often named with reference to the home of the original icon. Other times the name refers to a particular quality of Mary's that the icon is meant to emphasize.