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Details: The devotion to the Sacred Heart (also known as the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Sacratissimum Cor Iesu in Latin) is one of the most widely practiced and well-known Catholic devotions, wherein the heart of Jesus is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate...
Details: The Master of Noah’s Ark was named after an illuminated initial containing that subject now in the Vatican Library. Though he may have worked in Florence, he was unlikely to have been Florentine himself. This rare miniature depicts the story from the apocrypha of Tobias, son of Tobit,...
Details: In 1486, Isabel of Castile, patroness of the explorer Christopher Columbus, commissioned an elaborate alabaster tomb for her parents, Juan II of Castile and Isabel of Portugal. This star-shaped tomb, still standing in the center of the church of the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores, outside Burgos, was made between...
Details: To foster deep devotion to Saint Joseph among Catholics, and in response to the “May Day” celebrations for workers sponsored by Communists, Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker in 1955. This feast extends the long relationship between Joseph and the cause of workers in...
Details: Ugolino da Siena was the most original and accomplished follower of Duccio di Buoninsegna, the greatest Sienese painter of the fourteenth century. Among Ugolino's most important commissions was the multi-panel altarpiece for the high altar of Santa Croce, the Franciscan church in Florence. This painting of the...
Details: Juan Martínez Montañés was one of the greatest spanish sculptors of the first half of the seventeenth century. Based in Seville, he carved numerous wooden statues and reliefs that were painted and integrated into large altar screens called retablos (English: retables) for churches in his native region or to...
Details: The procession is the first part of the mass. During a solemn Mass, the priest processes in from the narthex with deacon, and subdeacon, master of ceremonies and servers. During Low Mass, the priest processes in with alone or with one or two servers and places the veiled chalice...
Details: Simone Martini was one of the leading painters of his time, whose highly refined technique and descriptive powers were unequalled in Europe and earned the praise and friendship of the Italian poet Petrarch (1304–1374). This panel, together with a related work depicting Saint Ansanus and a third panel...
Details: The Church of the Irish Martyrs was opened on 18 April 1909. Among the early Catholic settlers in the area were Irish gold-miners and it was their influence that led to the new church being dedicated to the Irish Martyrs. The church is located in the Sligo Street directly...
Details: An altar server is a lay assistant to a member of the clergy during a Catholic liturgy. An altar server attends to supporting tasks at the altar such as carrying candles, ringing the altar bell, bringing up the gifts, carrying the Gospel book, and many other things. If young,...
Details: This work belongs to the genre of "statue painting," that is, painted simulacra of sacred images. As a "true likeness" of a cult image, it was believed to possess the miraculous powers of the original, a sculpture of Christ the Nazarene venerated in the Cuzco...
Details: Christ appears in the center of the principal face of the reliquary beneath the roof plaque, which depicts the hand of God flanked by two angels swinging censers. Distinguished by his cruciform nimbus, he holds a book in his left hand and raises his right hand in blessing; the...
Details: From the 14th to the 17th century, Mary Magdalene occupied a privileged position in religious art. Only second to Virgin Mary, Magdalene was interpreted by multiple artists across Europe. Her popularity can be attributed to her relativity, after all, she was just a woman who fell into sin but...
Details: One of the most celebrated paintings in the Robert Lehman Collection, this depiction of the Annunciation unfolds in a classicizing architectural interior rendered with one-point perspective to create the illusion of depth, a technique achieved in early fifteenth-century Florence. The incised lines visible on the panel's surface...
Details: This rare devotional shrine manifests Christian belief in the miracle of the Incarnation, by which God took on human body and nature, uniting both human and divine in the person of Jesus. Closed, it is a statuette of the enthroned Virgin Mary nursing the infant Jesus. When opened, the...
Details: In the New Testament, the Transfiguration of Jesus is an event where Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant in glory upon a mountain. The Synoptic Gospels describe it, and the Second Epistle of Peter also refers to it. It has also been hypothesized that the first chapter of the...
Details: In a domestic interior, the Virgin Mary kneels before a prie-dieu on which her prayer book rests. The archangel Gabriel, at the left, greets her with the Gospel announcement of the forthcoming birth of Jesus: "Ave Maria gratia plena dominus tecum" ("Hail Mary, full of grace,...
Details: Nestled in a dramatic landscape of gorges and waterfalls, the monastery of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, from which this cloister comes, was founded in 804 by Saint William (Guilhem), legendary duke of Aquitaine and a member of the court of Charlemagne. Saint-Guilhem thrived as a pilgrim's destination on the road...
Details: A guardian angel is a type of angel that is assigned to protect and guide a particular person, group or nation. Belief in tutelary beings can be traced throughout all antiquity. The idea of angels that guard over people, families, and even nations, has played a major role in...
Details: Painted roughly a century after the other works in this gallery, Ter Brugghen’s scene of Christ’s crucifixion draws on the dramatic, emotional appeal of earlier religious art to inspire the private prayers of a Catholic viewer. The Virgin Mary and John the Evangelist, who flank the cross,...
Details: The chapter house was the daily meeting place in most European monasteries and convents. The monks or nuns sat on the stone bench around the walls, as business was discussed each day and a chapter of the Rule of Saint Benedict, the official code of monastic behavior, was read....
Details: Emperor Constantine the Great receives clergy at the First Council of Nicaea in 325. He bestows the honorific patriarch on these four bishops. From heaven he is illuminated by a divine light. 🙏🏽This image is in the public domain. Free Download Constantine and Bishops at Nicea.jpeg 3 MB...
Details: This painting depicts the miraculous discovery of the image of Our Lady of Valvanera by the repentant thief-turned-hermit Nuño Oñez, who kneels beside it in adoration. Hidden in the hollow of an oak tree since the time of the Muslim invasion of Spain, the location of the sacred image...
Details: This precious silver box was created to contain a relic of the martyred English saint Thomas Becket. Saint Thomas was the archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 to 1170, and he is perhaps best known for his struggles with King Henry II of England over the separation between the rights...
