The Benois Madonna

The Child Jesus represents Jesus from his Nativity to age 12. At 13 he was considered to be adult, in accordance with the Jewish custom of his time, and that of most Christian... cultures until recent centuries. The Child Jesus is frequently depicted in art, from around the third or fourth century onwards, in icons and paintings, sculpture, and all the media available. Common depictions are of Nativity scenes showing the birth of Jesus, with his mother, Mary, and his legal father Joseph. Depictions as a baby with his mother, known as Madonna and Child, are iconographical types in Eastern and Western traditions. Other scenes from his time as a baby, of his circumcision, Presentation at the temple, the Adoration of the Three Magi, and the Flight to Egypt, are common. Scenes showing his developing years are rarer . A number of apocryphal texts, the Infancy Gospels grew up with legendary accounts of the intervening period, and these are sometimes shown. The Scriptures and many apocryphal works were passed down either by word of mouth or through song, and later in works of art.
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Images of the Madonna and the Madonna and Child or Virgin and Child are pictorial or sculptured representations of Mary, Mother of Jesus, either alone, or more frequently, with... the infant Jesus. These images are central icons of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity where Mary remains a central artistic topic. No image permeates Christian art as the image of Madonna and Child. While Mary, the Mother of Jesus, may be referred to as "the Madonna" in other contexts, in art the term is applied specifically to an artwork in which Mary, with or without the infant Jesus, is the focus, and central figure of the picture. Mary and the infant Jesus may be surrounded by adoring angels or worshiping saints. Images that have a narrative content, including those of the many scenes which make up the Life of the Virgin, are not correctly referred to as "Madonnas" but are given a title that reflects the scene such as the Annunciation to Mary. The earliest such images date from the Early Christian Church and are found in the Catacombs of Rome. Representation of Mary became more common after the Council of Ephesus in 431.
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Jesus , also referred to as Jesus Christ or simply Christ, is the central figure of Christianity, and is also regarded as an important prophet of God in Islam. Most Christian... denominations venerate him as God the Son incarnated and believe that he rose from the dead after being crucified. The principal sources of information regarding Jesus are the Bible's four canonical gospels, which most biblical scholars find useful for reconstructing Jesus' life and teachings. Scholars have correlated the New Testament accounts with non-Christian historical records to arrive at an estimated chronology of Jesus' life. Most modern historians agree that Jesus existed and was a Jewish teacher from Galilee in Roman Judaea, who was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate.
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Roman Catholic veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is based on dogma as well as Holy Scripture: In the fullness of time, God sent his son, born of a woman. The mystery of the... incarnation of the Son of God through Mary thus signifies her honour as Mother of God. From the Council of Ephesus in 431, which dogmatized this belief, to Vatican II and Pope John Paul II's Redemptoris Mater encyclical the Virgin Mary has come to be seen, not only as the Mother of God but also as the Mother of the Church. As the mother of Jesus Christ, Mary has a central role in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. The church's veneration of her as the Blessed Virgin Mary has grown over time both in importance and manifestation, not only in prayer but in art, poetry and music. Popes have encouraged this veneration but from time to time have also taken steps to reform it. Overall, there are significantly more titles, feasts and venerative Marian practices among Roman Catholics than any other Christian traditions. Pope Benedict XVI maintains that the Virgin Mary possesses divine motherhood which she continues to bestow as intercessory "graces associated with God's blessing.
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The Italian Renaissance was the earliest manifestation of the general European Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement that... began in Italy around the end of the 13th century and lasted until the 16th century, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe. The term Renaissance is in essence a modern one that came into currency in the 19th century, in the work of historians such as Jacob Burckhardt. Although the origins of a movement that was confined largely to the literate culture of intellectual endeavor and patronage can be traced to the earlier part of the 14th century, many aspects of Italian culture and society remained largely Medieval; the Renaissance did not come into full swing until the end of the century. The word renaissance means “rebirth”, and the era is best known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical antiquity after the period that Renaissance humanists labelled the Dark Ages. These changes, while significant, were concentrated in the elite, and for the vast majority of the population life was little changed from the Middle Ages.
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The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the period roughly from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle... Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. Though the invention of printing sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century, the changes of the Renaissance were not uniformly experienced across Europe. As a cultural movement, it encompassed innovative flowering of Latin and vernacular literatures, beginning with the 14th-century resurgence of learning based on classical sources, which contemporaries credited to Petrarch, the development of linear perspective and other techniques of rendering a more natural reality in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform. In politics the Renaissance contributed the development of the conventions of diplomacy, and in science an increased reliance on observation that would flower later in the Scientific Revolution beginning in the 17th century.
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