Protective mantle Madonna

Protective mantle Madonna at the Überlinger Münster

Image of grace of the Madonna in the protective cloak in the pilgrimage church of Maria Gail in Carinthia

Protective mantle Madonna at the Sogn Gieri church near Rhäzüns in the canton of Graubünden

A protective mantle Madonna is a representation of Mary ( Madonna ), which the believers conceal under her extended mantle . This attitude symbolizes the protection of Mary.

Historical background

Protective coat madons have existed in the visual arts since the 13th century. The motive is initially based generally on the legal usage of coat protection , according to which a person could be granted legal protection by covering them with his coat.

In the Russian Orthodox Church, where the devotion to the Madonna of the Protective Cloak ( Russian Pokrov ) has been documented since the 12th century by the fact that churches and monasteries were made subject to their patronage and the Madonna of the Protective Cloak has its own festival on October 2nd, the iconographic Tradition still particularly of the Byzantine Marian apparition of the blessed Andreas Salós , the "fool" of Christ, who in the 10th century saw the Mother of God in Constantinople in the Blachernen Church take her veil from her head and spread it over the believers (see Maphorion ). In the Russian tradition, two types of images are mainly represented: Mary spreads her cloak, or it is held over her by hovering angels.

In the Roman Catholic Church , it was the Cistercians and Dominicans in particular who , through sermons about new visions of protective cloaks - in which the Blessed Mother takes the members of the respective order under the special protection of their cloak - promoted the veneration of Mary as the patroness of the faithful.

In the iconography of the Western Church, the protective mantle Madonna is depicted standing, unless she is holding the Child Jesus in her arms, with outstretched arms above a crowd of believers, members of the order, members of the clergy or figures of donors.

Well-known protective coat madonnas

Germany

The Ravensburger Schutzmantelmadonna was probably created in 1480 by the artist of the Ulm school Michel Erhart . The late Gothic sculpture made of linden wood, which used to stand in the Liebfrauenkirche in Ravensburg, is now in the Bode Museum in Berlin.
By Gregor Erhart (ca. 1465-1540), a native Schutzmantelmadonna on the high altar of the Cistercian church of the monastery Kaisheim near Donauwörth (1502-04, destroyed in 1945). The 1.5 m high Madonna wore a blue cloak and a gold robe and was holding the baby Jesus in her arms. Under the mantle she accommodated five believers of different ages and professions on each side. The figure was made of colored linden wood .
The fresco in the children's teaching church in Memmingen is a protective mantle Madonna, which was created by Bernhard Strigel around 1521 .
The exceptionally well-preserved hardwood sculpture (H 80 cm) of a protective cloak Madonna with an old frame in Kolumba , the art museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne (donation Härle) in Cologne, comes from the Younger Villach workshop (around 1517) . The Madonna and the two groups of people seeking protection also include a pair of angels who hold up the protective cloak, so that one speaks of a protective cloak group.
The Darmstadt Madonna by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), created in Basel in 1526, groups the mayor of Basel and members of his family kneeling on both sides next to Mary with the Christ child. The figures are partially covered by an indicated protective jacket. The painting thus also quotes the image type of the protective mantle Madonna.

Austria

Frauensteiner Schutzmantelmadonna

A well-known protective mantle Madonna is in the Benedictine monastery Admont in Styria . The wooden figure, carved by an unknown master around 1420, wears a blue-gold cloak and a red dress and holds the baby Jesus in her arms.

The Frauenstein Madonna with a protective coat . In the pilgrimage church Frauenstein in southern Upper Austria there is a protective cloak Madonna attributed to Gregor Erhart on the high altar after 1510 . Kneel under the coat of the seated figure and a. Emperor Maximilian I and his second wife Bianca Maria Sforza . The founder is probably Maximilian I.

Pilgrimage church Maria Gail in southern Carinthia . The church contains a lavishly furnished baroque high altar , in the center of which is a carved wooden Madonna in protective cloak from around 1600. This high relief is considered a miraculous image and established the reputation of the church as a pilgrimage church .

Switzerland

Two examples of protective mantle madonnas can be found in the churches of Sogn Gieri near Rhäzüns in the Swiss canton of Graubünden and in the church of St. Dionys-Wurmsbach near Rapperswil-Jona in the canton of St. Gallen. The protective mantle Madonna can also be found very often in late medieval frescoes in the canton of Ticino, for example in S. Maria in Selva (Locarno), in S. Biagio (Ravecchia) and S. Ambrogio (Chironico).

France

Protective mantle Madonna by Enguerrand Quarton and Pierre Vilatte

Madonna of the Cadard family's protective cloak , around 1452 by Enguerrand Quarton and Pierre Vilatte , now in the Musée Condé in Chantilly

Italy

Protective mantle Madonna in the Santuario di Trezzo in Dumenza

Protective mantle Madonna in the Santuario di Trezzo

Spain

Protective mantle Madonna in the carved altar of the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Piedad in Ainzón
Protective Madonna in a keystone in the vault of Barcelona Cathedral , from 1379

Plague pictures

Sometimes the protective coat motif is found in plague pictures from the 14th to the 18th century, in which the Madonna protects her admirers from the plague.

Web links

Wiktionary: Schutzmantelmadonna - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Commons : Schutzmantelmadonna - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Article Schutzmantelmadonna und Pokrov in the large art dictionary by PW Hartmann
Franz Slump, Gottes Zorn - Marias Schutz: Plague images and related representations as an iconographic expression of late medieval piety and as a theological problem: revised electronic version of a licentiate thesis from 2000 at the Philosophical-Theological University in Münster.

Individual evidence

↑ Horst Schneider, Nikolaus Nösges (ed.), Caesarius von Heisterbach : Dialogus miraculorum. Dialogue over the miracles , Turnhout 2009, distinctio 7, capitulum 59, volume 3, p. 1503.
↑ Angela Mohr: The protective coat Madonna von Frauenstein. 2nd Edition. Ennsthaler, Steyr 1986, ISBN 3-85068-132-7 , p. 25 ff.
^ Peter Dinzelbacher : Pestbild. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1128.

[1] Horst Schneider, Nikolaus Nösges (ed.), Caesarius von Heisterbach : Dialogus miraculorum. Dialogue over the miracles , Turnhout 2009, distinctio 7, capitulum 59, volume 3, p. 1503.

[2] Angela Mohr: The protective coat Madonna von Frauenstein. 2nd Edition. Ennsthaler, Steyr 1986, ISBN 3-85068-132-7 , p. 25 ff.

[3] Peter Dinzelbacher : Pestbild. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1128.