Online Edition:
August 2013
Vol. XIX, No. 5
Table of Contents
Assumption of the Virgin Mary (ca 1365) Don Silvestro Gherarducci.
Tempera on wood. Vatican Pinacoteca
News and Views: Pope Francis: Letter on Evangelization Forthcoming | Church Architecture "Gone Wrong"? | Religious Art Exhit for World Youth Day | FCS Convention Freedom and Moral Law | Explore Church Music Old and New | Magnificat Day in Philadelphia | Updates for ICEL at CMAA Colloquium | Sacra Liturgia 2013
Pope Francis’s First Encyclical — Lumen Fidei – The Light of Faith — by Helen Hull Hitchcock
The Encyclical on Faith: A Quiet New Force in the World for Those Who Seek God, Truth, Goodness, and Salvation by James V. Schall, SJ
Two Popes to be Canonized: Consistory of Cardinals to Determine Date of Canonzation Ceremony – by Helen Hull Hitchcock
Pope Francis blesses statue of Saint Michael Archangel, Consecrates Vatican City to Saints Michael and Joseph — by Helen Hull Hitchcock
Welcome, Adoremus Editorial Consultants – by Helen Hull Hitchcock
Reader’s Forum — Altar Arrangement | Blessings at Mass | Liturgical Dance Question Again… | Who May Sing the Sequence? | Recorded Music for a Funeral Mass?
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Assumption of the Virgin Mary by Gherarducci
Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci was born in northern Italy in 1339. In 1348 (age 9) he entered the Camaldolese monastic order at Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. He took vows as a friar at age 14, and became prior in 1398. He died October 5, 1399.
In the 1370s he became known as an illuminator of manuscripts, and as a panel painter for the decoration of churches. The importance of the monastery’s scriptorium (for the production of manuscripts) was noted by the 16th-century artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari, in his biography of Don Lorenzo Monaco in Lives of the Artists.
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a tempera painting on wood panel, now in the Vatican art gallery, is an example of late medieval painting that shows the transition from gothic to early renaissance style, as well as the international influence of northern European painting on the artistic works of northern Italy. The medieval elements are evident in the relatively flat space, the use of the mandorla surrounding the Virgin, and the arrangement of the small angels; but the increasing realism of the figure painting is suggestive of the innovative “proto-renaissance” works of the Florentine painter Giotto di Bondone (ca 1266-1337), with whose work Gherarducci would certainly have been familiar. — hhh
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The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – August 15
Collect for the Vigil Mass
O God, who, looking on the lowliness of the Blessed Virgin Mary, raised her to this grace, that your Only Begotten Son was born of her according to the flesh, and that she was crowned this day with surpassing glory, Grant through her prayers, that, saved by the mystery of your redemption, we may merit to be exalted by you on high. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and ever.
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