Coronation

CORONATION. - Ceremony by which a sovereign is put in possession of his dignity, through the imposition of the crown, the symbol of power. The term c. generally also includes the ceremonies of anointing and consecration and enthronement; and it is also used for statues and images of Mary Most Holy, in recognition of her dignity.

I. CORONATION OF EMPERORS AND KINGS.

The moral guidance of the Church, which points out to every believer and to all humanity the salvation of the soul and the realization of the Kingdom of God, extends to earthly governments which in the exercise of their mandate can harm no less than benefit the spiritual good of their subjects. Therefore the Church has wished to consecrate to God every public power and, beginning with the Carolingian renewal of the Empire, with an ancient and solemn rite has invested with their dignity the emperor, head of all Christian peoples, and the kings, heads of the new national States.

I. HISTORY AND LAW

It was precisely around this ceremony, by which Christianity exalts the universal character of the Empire and confirms the authority of sovereigns, that a dramatic dispute arose between the popes and the emperors: the former claiming for the Church the right to confer power, the latter more often accepting from the Church only the religious element of consecration, without obligations limiting that sovereignty which they claimed to receive directly from God, creator of all things and therefore the sole source of all power.

The coronation thus influences the relations between State and Church, which in turn determine it, creating a complex problem in which purely spiritual motives and exclusively temporal motives are involved.

The problem in reality arose with the Church herself, born within the State that pre-existed her, but with universal characteristics that make her coincide with it and that come to her directly from God. Hence an apparent contradiction in Christian literature, which, after having emphasized the supreme authority of the emperor elected by God, then demands the obedience of the emperor himself to the norms that the Church, sole depositary of the divine precept, establishes.

The problem of these relations, whose vicissitudes are now examined, had in the Middle Ages two essential motives: the existence and justification of the pope's right to confer the imperial dignity, and his position with regard to the emperors. The latter, incorporated by the pontiff, as kings were by bishops, have considered the temporal powers as instituted by ecclesiastical consecration; and when, in the midst of the conflict between the Empire and the Church, the jurists of the imperial party claimed from Roman law the absolute power, and therefore the supremacy, of the emperor, the curialist opponents likewise relied on Roman law to claim such power for the benefit of the pope, himself an emperor and the sole sovereign residing in the Rome of the Caesars. The pope thus appears to have the right to provide for the choice of whoever seems to him most worthy among the candidates to the imperial throne and, on the basis of the power to bind and loose transmitted by Christ, to depose the emperor who shows himself unworthy. And the Dictatus Papae (VIII, XI, XII) has him dispose of dignities and temporal goods as of the very attributes of the imperial dignity: a power that Gregory VII exercises in the deposition of Henry IV.

According to the decretal Per venerabilem of 1202 (c. 34, X, de elect., I, 6), by virtue of which Innocent III assigns the Empire first to Otto IV and then to Frederick II, the Empire must be considered principaliter et finaliter dependent on the Holy See: 1) because it transferred the Roman Imperium from the East to the Germanic kings the better to defend it; 2) because it is by the pope that the king designated to the imperial dignity is blessed, incorporated and invested with it, that is, "consecrated" emperor. With the right of examination and approval, the pope's right to the regency of the Empire during periods of vacancy of the throne is upheld. When the transmission of the Empire was contested, both because of the insufficiency of the Constantinian donation and the lack of trust it inspired, and because of the existence of the Latin principalities of the East, Pope Innocent IV reaffirmed at Lyon the pontifical prerogatives on the basis of the transmission of the priestly and royal monarchy from Christ, priest and king, to Peter: the whole imperium is therefore legitimately transmitted by the pope to the emperor and by the latter must return to the pope. The thesis, which has among its interpreters Henry of Susa and William Durand, prevailed, causing the opposite principle to decline, already upheld by Henry IV and Frederick I, according to which the imperial dignity is the source of all ecclesiastical and pontifical power. Thus in 1273 the election of Rudolf of Habsburg by the prince-electors was submitted to the approval of the pope, who granted it and immediately afterward warned the elect to hold himself ready for consecration; then in 1303 Albert of Habsburg admitted that the emperor must be the legitimate protector of the Church because she had transmitted the imperium from the Byzantines to the Germans, and that temporal power derives to past and future emperors from those princes to whom the same Church confers the right to elect the king of the Romans.

But against Boniface VIII, who with his letters of the preceding years and the bull Unam Sanctam had proclaimed the absolute supremacy of the pope over all earthly powers, Philip the Fair reacted with the violence of Anagni. The political crisis that continued beyond the pope's death pushed jurists to limit the scope of the coronation: emperors and kings must receive it as a special form of blessing, not as a conferral of authority. In this period, therefore, it began to be held (the writing of Marsilius of Padua, of 1324, would enjoy fortune only later) that papal confirmation of the election made by the prince-electors was superfluous. The adventure of Louis the Bavarian, incorporated as emperor in 1329 at Rome by the urban prefect and anointed by two bishops against all tradition, plunged into the schism of the antipope Nicholas V set against John XXIII and into the position taken by the prince-electors, who established that from that moment the elect should be defined king and emperor outside of any papal confirmation. A decision ratified at the Imperial Diet of Frankfurt.

The centuries-old dispute had by now weakened the Holy Roman-Germanic Empire at its foundations: diminished in its mystical value, in its religious character, it could gain nothing in the political field, where the national kingdoms, the Germanic principalities, the states and cities of Italy lived practically outside of it or against it.

The Holy Roman Empire, in which the highest ideal of the Middle Ages could be affirmed - the recomposition into unity of the ancient Roman orb for a humanity that would realize on earth the Kingdom of Christ - still shone with an uncertain light, until its end was officially recognized. Charles V is the last Roman emperor incorporated by the Pope (Bologna, 24 February 1530).

Even the brief Napoleonic parabola led to a renovatio imperii: La Providence a voulu que je rétablisse le trône de Charlemagne... Pour le Pape je suis Charlemagne, are Napoleon's frequent words and, as if Einhard's negative judgment suggested it to him, after receiving the unction from the Pontiff he takes the crown from his hands and places it on his own head with the threatening saying: Dio me l'ha data, guai a chi me la tocca. The contrast between pontifical unction and lay coronation has completed the millennium (Rome, Christmas of 800 - Paris, 2 December 1804).

Fulvio Crosara

II. LITURGY

1. The coronation of kings

The anointing of kings is inspired by the Bible (I Sam. 16:13; II Par. 23:11; Ez. 16:8-14); nevertheless the first example of a royal anointing is found among the Visigoths in Spain. Their king Wamba, in 672, after having professed his fidelity ("ex more fidem populis reddidit") receives the sacred anointing on his head; there is as yet no mention of the tradition of the insignia. More than half a century later, in 751, in France Pepin, son of Charles Martel, is consecrated in the cathedral of Soissons by Boniface, legate of the Pope and archbishop of Mainz. This ceremony was repeated by Stephen II (754), in the monastery of St. Denis, where he consecrated Pepin together with Carloman and Charlemagne, his sons. Afterwards the coronation of the king was also added, as was done for the emperor. In 844 Louis II was in Rome anointed king, invested and crowned; in 848 Charles the Bald was crowned at Orléans by the archbishop of Sens, and a second time at Metz, in 869 (the third time, in 875, he was crowned emperor in Rome). From that time, the anointing and coronation of kings is a fixed custom in the kingdom of the western Franks, followed later also in other territories, for example, in Castile Alfonso III, in 866; Ordoño II in 914. For the eastern Frankish kingdom, Germany, Conrad I, in 911 was the first king anointed: but he did not receive the crown from the Church. His successor Henry I refused the sacred anointing and the coronation. But with the reign of Otto I and with his coronation in 936, the rite of the ordination of the king was fixed. The rite of the so-called Roman-Germanic Pontifical, Ordo Romanus vulgatus, drawn up at Mainz, records the ceremonies of the coronation of Otto II in 961.

According to this order the kings of Germany were crowned at Aachen until 1531, with some modifications of 1307. This order was followed also in England and in France, but certainly with modifications and variations. The rite of the coronation of the king according to the Roman use was composed by order of Clement V for the coronation of Robert, king of Sicily (Ordo Rom., XIV), on the model of the imperial coronation. The present rite of the Roman Pontifical derives from the Pontifical of G. Durand (d. 1296).

The coronation of the king takes place on Sunday, by the competent metropolitan, with the assistance of the other bishops of the kingdom. It consists of two parts, of which one is performed before the Mass, the other during the Mass after the Epistle. Before the Mass there takes place:

1) the presentation with a brief examination, an admonition to the future king and his profession or oath; 2) a prayer of blessing by the archbishop together with the other bishops; 3) the litanies with two verses for the king; 4) the anointing of the king with the oil of catechumens, made in the form of a cross on the right arm from the wrist to the elbow, and on the back, between the shoulders. In earlier rites the head and hands were sometimes also anointed with chrism. This anointing, considered in the Middle Ages as one of the 12 Sacraments, is only a sacramental according to the decision of Innocent III. Once this first part is finished, the king puts on a garment similar to an alb and the royal mantle.

The second part comprises: 1) the handing over of the royal sword, accompanied by an allocution: the king receives the sword, which he hands to the squire, who places it in its scabbard. The archbishop then girds the king with the belt. Then the king draws the sword, brandishes it a few times («viriliter vibrat») and puts it back in its scabbard; 2) the i.: together with the other bishops the archbishop imposes the crown with the words «accipe coronam»; there follow the handings over of the other insignia, of the scepter, of the armills, of the golden orb; 3) the enthronement with acclamations of the people.

In the i. of a queen regnant the girding of the sword is omitted, and in that of a queen who is not regnant also the brief examination, the admonition and the oath.

The crowned king and the queen received Communion first under both species, later only under one species with the purification in the metropolitan's chalice.

(phot. Anderson)

On its meaning: E. Eichmann, Die rechtliche u. kirchenpolitische Bedeutung der Kaisersalbung im Mittelalter, in Festschrift f. Georg von Herstling, 1913, p. 263 ff.; id., König und Bischofsweihe (Sitzungsberichte der Bayer. Abhd. d. Wissenschaft. phil. u. hist. Klasse), Munich 1928; H. Walter Klewitz, Die Krönung des Papates, in Zeitschr. f. Rechtsgesch. Kan. Abt., 30 (1941), pp. 96-130; P. Oppenheim, Die sakralen Momente in der deutschen Herrscherweihe bis zum Investiturstreit, in Ephemerides liturgicae, 58 (1944), pp. 42-49.

The text: J. Catalani, Pontificale Romanum... commentariis illustratum, I, tit. XX, De bened. et coronat. regis, Paris 1850, p. 575; M. Andrieu, Le Pontifical romain au moyen âge (Studi e testi), 86, 87, 88, 99, 4 vols., Vatican City 1938-41, passim.

2. I. of the emperors

The i. of the emperors in the West begins with that of Charlemagne (Christmas 800). The history of the rites begins with the i. of his successor Louis the Pious (816). Four or five periods are distinguished: 1) the Carolingian-Frankish time, from Louis (816) up to Berengar (915); 2) the time of the Ottonian dynasty: Otto I (962), Otto II (967), Otto III (996); 3) the time of the Salian dynasty: Henry II (1014), Conrad II (1027), Henry III (1046), Henry IV (1084); there follows a time of reform or intermediate period: Henry V (1111), Lothair II (1133), Frederick I (Barbarossa, 1155), Henry VI (1191); 4) from Innocent III up to the Caeremoniale Romanum: Otto IV (1209), Frederick II (1220), Henry VII (1312), Louis of Bavaria (1328), Charles IV (1355), Sigismund (1433), Frederick III (1452); 5) Caeremoniale Romanum: Charles V (1530).

A) The rite of the i. in the Carolingian-Frankish time is found in cod. Vat. lat. 7114. The shorter recension contains only the text of 4 prayers: at the ordination and at the consecration of the head with chrism, at the i. and at the blessing; the longer recension adds the handing over of the scepter, of the ring and of the sword, at first without formulas, from 875 with the formulas «accipe virgam», «accipe regiae dignitatis anulum», «accipe gladium» and the text of the Laudes «Exaudi Christe». The ceremony is preceded by the solemn reception at the steps of St. Peter's (from 844), by the promise of peace of the one to be ordained and by his adoption as «Filius Ecclesiae» (from 878); after the i., the solemn procession to the Lateran and the common banquet of the pope and the emperor.

The emperor, like the bishops, receives the anointing on the head with chrism and puts on the clerical habit.

B) In the time of the Ottonians, under the influence of Cluny, a new ceremonial of the i. was used (contained in the Ordo Romanus vulgatus, Cencius I), which was used for the first time at the i. of Otto I (Feb. 2, 962). The similarity with the papal i. is shown in the recitation of three prayers made by the bishops of Albano, Porto and Ostia. Between the second and third prayer the litanies are recited; there follows the anointing not of the head, but of the right arm and between the shoulders, not with chrism, but with the oil of catechumens; the formula of the anointing is not found. After the prayer of the bishop of Ostia, there follows the i. performed by the pope. For the handing over of the insignia the formulas of the Ordo are used. The anointing and the i. were performed before the altar of St. Peter. The queen too was anointed and crowned.

C) The most illustrious time of the Roman Empire, that of the Salian dynasty, developed a ceremonial of the i. that was likewise very sumptuous, contained in the Ordo Cencius II. The prefect goes solemnly to meet the emperor, and he is received by the pope at the door of St. Peter's. The elected emperor swears fidelity, is adopted as «filius Ecclesiae» and enters the Basilica with the pope; at the silver door there follows the first prayer of the bishop of Albano; then the scrutiny and the profession of faith. There follows the second prayer, recited by the bishop of Porto. The elected emperor puts on the tunic, the dalmatic, the pluvial, the mitre; meanwhile the queen is introduced into the Basilica. The Mass is celebrated at the altar of St. Peter. Before the Gloria the emperor and also the queen are anointed by the bishop of Ostia. At the wish of the emperor, the i. is performed by the pope at the altar of St. Maurice. The emperor receives the ring, the sword, the crown and finally the scepter. After the Epistle the lauds are sung. At the Offertory, the emperor offers, at the altar of St. Peter, bread, candles, gold and wine, and the queen the water for the sacrifice. After the Mass there takes place the procession to the Lateran, and the emperor (without the crown) holds the stirrup for the pope.

D) The new order, composed by order of Innocent III, contains some changes: the promise of peace, the scrutiny, and the adoption as "Filius" are no longer there; the emperor-elect is instead numbered among the Canons of St. Peter; the anointing takes place at the altar of St. Maurice. At the Mass, after the Gradual, the pope crowns the emperor, then gives him the scepter, the golden imperial orb or pommel, and finally the sword. The order of these insignia is sometimes changed, e.g., in 1452: the scepter, the sword, the orb, and finally the crown; or, as in 1530: the sword, the orb in the right hand, the scepter in the left, and finally the crown.

E) All these ceremonies, like that of the coronation of the pope, were codified by order of Innocent VIII in 1488 and published in the Caeremoniale Cappellae Pontificiae of 1516. The coronation is no longer performed at the altar, but at the pope's throne; the formulas of delivery are recited by the pope alone.

In the Byzantine Empire, the emperor was crowned by the Church as early as the 4th century (Theodore I, 379-95); but here the specific part of the Western ordination, namely the anointing, is missing. - See plate CVII.

# II. CORONATION OF THE POPE.

It is the solemn inauguration of the papal reign. It does not confer on the elect the supreme power, which comes to him "iure divino" immediately upon acceptance of the election, but constitutes an integral part of the enthronement (constitution of Nicholas II of 1059 § 6; Clement VI of 1351; CIC, can. 219).

Until the 10th century, bishops were not elected to the papal dignity because they were considered irremovable from their sees. With episcopal consecration, the elect received together the power of order and of jurisdiction. Beginning in the 10th century, bishops too were elected popes, and for them the rite of enthronement was established (constitution of Nicholas II of 1059). This rite began like the consecration, with the procession to the altar; the pope himself said the Mass; after the Confiteor, before the Gloria, the three bishops of Albano, of Porto and of Ostia pronounced three prayers, the pallium was imposed on the pope, at the cathedra the pope received the homage of the clergy, and the Mass continued. Both on the occasion of the consecration and on that of the enthronement, at the end of the Mass at St. Peter's, before riding to take possession of the Lateran, the "regnum" was imposed on the head of the Pontiff, of a form similar to the "camelaucum" or "trigium" (Ordo Rom., IX [M. Andrieu, Les « Ordines romani » du haut moyen âge, I, Louvain 1931, pp. 21-22, XL], 9th century); it is not yet the crown, but under the influence of the ideas of the Empire, both for the emperor and for the pope, the first crown was added to the "regnum", perhaps in the time of Hildebrand (Gregory VII). In the first half of the 12th century the coronation of the pope became the act of papal institution, united with the consecration or with the blessing alone. This evolution reached its apex under Boniface VIII, at which time a second and third crown were added, and the "regnum" became the "triregnum" (tiara). The decree of Clement VI of 1351 marks the end of this institution as a juridical act, which remains solely as a liturgical act. The rites and texts of the papal coronation are found, besides in the Ordo Rom. IX (Andrieu, op. cit., XXXVI and XL, pp. 19, 21-22), in the Ordo Rom. XIII vel Caeremoniale Romanum of Pope Gregory X (d. 1276), in the Ordo Rom. XIV vel Ordinarium S. R. E. of Gaetano Stefaneschi of 1311; then in the appendix of the Pontifical of G. Durand (d. 1296).

Pietro Siffrin

THE PRESENT-DAY RITE OF THE CORONATION

After 1870 the i. took place inside St. Peter's (Pius X and Pius XI) rather than outside or in the Sistine Chapel (Leo XIII and Benedict XV); Pius XII, on the other hand, was crowned on the loggia of St. Peter's. The date of the i. is fixed by the newly elected pope and ordinarily it is celebrated on a Sunday or on another feast day.

The pope, having put on the sacred vestments and the white cope with the golden-blade mitre, descends by the royal staircase with the usual procession of the solemn papal pontificals, crosses the portico of St. Peter's and enters the Basilica through the bronze door. Seated on the gestatorial chair, with the flabella at its sides, he is carried into the portico of St. Peter's, which on this occasion is adorned with red damasks with golden trimmings, while the singers of the Basilica chant: Tu es Petrus. He descends from the chair and goes to sit on the throne, which is set up there, and receives the homage of the Vatican Chapter.

The cardinal archpriest kisses his hand and his foot, and receives from the Pope the double embrace. This done, he expresses his joy and that of the Vatican Chapter for his assumption to the pontificate; then the canons, the beneficed clergy and all the clergy of the Basilica are admitted to the kiss of the foot.

Once this demonstration of homage is finished, the pon-

the pontiff remounts the gestatorial chair, and through the main door proceeds to the chapel of the Most Holy Trinity, where he prostrates himself briefly in adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament exposed there; he is then carried to the chapel of St. Gregory for the singing of terce or none according to the rubrics.

There the throne is erected but without a canopy, to which he ascends after brief prayers at the faldstool and admits to obedience the cardinals who, in red cape (even if it be Lent or Advent), kiss his right hand beneath the gold-fringed edge of the mantle or cope. When the obedience is finished the pope rises and imparts the blessing to the people.

Then begins the singing of the canonical hour, at the end of which the pope, having put on the sacred vestments for the solemn pontifical, at the signal of the first cardinal deacon who, with the ferula in hand, says Procedamus in pace, and with the choir responding In nomine Christi. Amen, preceded by the Cross and the procession, sets out for the papal altar, in the gestatorial chair, under a white canopy, with the flabella at either side.

On leaving the chapel of St. Gregory, he finds a master of ceremonies who, kneeling with a silvered rod topped with tow, and a chaplain of the chapel with a lighted candle who sets fire to the tow, raises the rod and sings these words: Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi. This ceremony is repeated three times along the route from the chapel to the altar. Having arrived there the pontiff recites the common prayers of the Mass, which is celebrated in the solemn rite of the papal pontificals. When the confession is finished, the first deacon places the mitre on his head, then he returns to the gestatorial chair, and the first three suburbicarian cardinal bishops recite over him the special prayers of the i.

At the end of these the Pope ascends the steps of the altar, where the cardinal deacon removes the mitre and imposes the pallium upon him over the fanon, pronouncing the formula: « Accipe pallium sanctum, plenitudinem pontificalis officii, ad honorem omnipotentis Dei et gloriosissimae Virginis Mariae eius Matris, et beatorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli et Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae ». After the incensation of the altar the pope is incensed by the cardinal deacon and kissed on one cheek and on the breast: the two assistant cardinal deacons do the same.

The pontiff goes to the throne where he receives the last adoration. The cardinals kiss the foot and the hand of the pope, who embraces them twice; the patriarchs, archbishops and bishops kiss his foot and his right knee; the mitred abbots and the penitentiaries kiss his foot.

After the oration of the Mass: In die coronationis, the pontiff sits down, and the first cardinal deacon, with the ferula in hand, to implore divine protection and that of the saints upon the new Head of the Church, accompanied by a master of ceremonies and followed by the auditors of the Rota, the consistorial advocates and other officials of the Pontifical Court, with four mace-bearers going before, descends in procession to the tomb of St. Peter, and kneeling intones the litanies of the i.

When the recitation of these prayers and litanies is finished, the celebration of the Pontifical continues.

When the Mass is ended and the pope has mounted the gestatorial chair, the cardinal archpriest of the Vatican Basilica, in the company of two canons, approaches the pope and offers him a white silk purse embroidered in gold, containing 25 giuli, « pro Missa bene cantata ». His Holiness extends his hand for the archpriest to kiss and hands the purse to the officiating cardinal deacon, who passes it to his train-bearer. Then the procession re-forms. According to the ancient ceremonial, which was restored for the i. of Pius XII, the procession passes in procession through the Basilica, then under the portico, whence by the Scala Regia to the Sala Regia, and from there enters the hall called that of the Blessings, above the portico of St. Peter's.

On the balcony in the middle of the façade a throne is erected, and the people from the square of St. Peter's assist at the ceremony of the i.

The pope, having ascended the throne, is surrounded by the cardinals. At his sides take their places the assistant deacons, the prelates who carry the papal cross, the tiaras, the mitres and the candlesticks.

The choir intones the ancient hymn: « Corona aurea super caput eius » etc., after which the dean of the Sacred College recites the Pater.

The second deacon approaches the pope, who has remained seated on the throne, and removes his mitre. The dean of the Order of Deacons then takes the triregnum and places it on the Pontiff's head, saying: "Accipe tiaram tribus coronis ornatam et scias te esse patrem principum et regum, rectorem orbis, in terra vicarium Salvatoris nostri Iesu Christi, cui est honor et gloria in saecula saeculorum. Amen."

Once the coronation is done, the pope, seated, reads aloud the usual prayers, and then, standing, imparts the threefold blessing.

The assisting cardinal deacon announces in Latin and in Italian the plenary indulgence granted by the Supreme Pontiff. - See plate CVIII.

Enrico Dante

III. THE CORONATION OF THE IMAGES OF MARY MOST HOLY.

The ancient custom of representing crosses surmounted by a crown, and especially sacred images with a crown on their head, as well as the pious practice of paying homage to the likenesses of the saints with precious objects or crowns, with which they were adorned as a sign of particular veneration, led to the solemn coronations of Marian images. Clement VIII donated a crown of gems to the venerated image of the basilica of St. Mary Major. The various titles of the queenship of Mary Most Holy (as Mother of Jesus Christ and as sharer in his work and authority as Redeemer, as Queen par excellence of the various categories of saints) and the final phase of her bodily assumption into heaven, represented by her coronation at the hands of Jesus Christ or of the Trinity, confer a doctrinal foundation on the aforementioned cultural manifestation.

The rite of the solemn and public coronations of Marian images became established from the end of the 16th century. The Capuchin preacher Gerolamo Paolucci di Calboli da Forlì (d. 1620) urged his listeners to collect gold, silver and precious gems for the making of crowns, which were placed with great displays of piety on the images of the Madonna, and together with those of the Child Jesus, that were venerated in the places where he preached. Contemporary descriptions survive of the coronations he promoted, for example, at Cremona (1596), at Parma (1600), at Comacchio (1619), with the participation of the ecclesiastical authorities, who celebrated the rite, and of the civil authorities. His zeal was emulated by his confrere Fedele da S. Germano Vercellese (d. 1623), who, among many Marian images, had that of the sanctuary of Oropa crowned (1620). This form of worship was favored by Alessandro Sforza Pallavicino, count of Borgonovo (Piacenza), who donated the gold for the crown with which the Vatican Chapter adorned, with a solemn rite on Aug. 27, 1631, the image of St. Mary of the Fever in the Sacristy of the beneficed clergy of the basilica of St. Peter. After promoting the coronation of other Marian images of the City, he gave stability to this devotion by leaving in his will of July 3, 1636 a legacy to the aforementioned Chapter for the sending of crowns to the images of Mary Most Holy in Rome first, and then to those that enjoyed particular veneration in other sanctuaries. The granting of such coronations became a privilege of the Chapter of St. Peter, which established their conditions and ceremonial. The Supreme Pontiffs, however, reserved to themselves the right to perform personal coronations: Pius VI on May 3, 1782 crowned the image of St. Mary of the People in the cathedral of Cesena; among those crowned by Pius VII is the Madonna of Loreto (Feb. 1801); Gregory XVI, on Aug. 15, 1838, encircled with a gem-studded golden crown the Madonna "Salus populi romani" of the Pauline or Borghesian Chapel in St. Mary Major. Other images are crowned by pontifical brief. The coronation of a statue or image of the Madonna can be performed by the local bishop by his ordinary authority. The permission (given by apostolic brief) of the Holy Father or of the Vatican Chapter is required whenever the coronation is to be performed in their name and authority for a greater solemnity. The coronation of statues or images of saints is not permitted.

ICONOGRAPHY

The iconographic representation of the Coronation of Mary was not formed before the thirteenth century; Byzantine art did not know it at all. In the art of the European West the type developed in the synoptic scenes of the Passing of Mary which, in a continuous series, often vertical, of several representations, illustrate the successive phases of the Virgin's passing from earth to Heaven, where the Coronation of Mary symbolized the triumphant entry of the Mother of Christ into eternal glory. Among the oldest examples of depictions of the Coronation of Mary, framed within the synoptic genre, one may cite: a miniature of the Psalter of the Queen of France Blanche of Castile, now preserved in the Library of the Arsenal in Paris, and a sculpture in a tympanum of the church of Notre Dame in Paris, both from the first twenty years of the thirteenth century. Coronations of Mary are frequent in various tympana of other Gothic churches of France. A good example of an analogous representation in Italian art, although a century later, is offered by the window of the oculus in the apse of the cathedral of Siena, lately held to have been executed around 1320 from a design by Duccio.

In Italian art the iconographic development of the Coronation of Mary is preceded by and derives from a type of representation of the Virgin in glory, where Mary sits at the right hand of Christ on a throne with saints or angels at the sides. The great mosaic of S. Maria in Trastevere in Rome of ca. 1160 is a splendid example of such a representation; an example of the same type, although more than a century later, is the fresco in the apse of the upper church of the basilica of S. Francesco in Assisi, held to be a work of Cimabue. In these "glories" only the action of Christ in placing the crown on the head of His Mother is missing for them to be called properly "Coronations."

Such a gesture nevertheless appears with full evidence in the splendid mosaic in the apse of the basilica of S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, a masterpiece of Jacopo Torriti of 1296.

The very rich iconographic development of the theme in the Italian fourteenth and fifteenth centuries coincides with the formal establishment of the Rosary, in which the Coronation of Mary constitutes the subject for meditation of the last Mystery of the life of Mary. It is noted that the origins of the Rosary, linked to St. Dominic, precede by a little the very earliest representations of the Coronation of Mary in the art of the European West.

In the fourteenth century, in scenes of the Coronation the Madonna sits on a massive Gothic throne, at the right hand of Christ; angels and saints surround the throne. As models of the typical fourteenth-century representation may serve: the polyptych of the Baroncelli chapel in the church of S. Croce in Florence, also attributed to Giotto; the fresco above the pulpit of the lower church of the basilica of S. Francesco in Assisi (ca. 1325) held, without sufficient basis, to be a work of Maso; and also the large panel of the National Gallery in London attributed to Orcagna, or to his school. The Coronation of Lorenzo Monaco dated 1413, in the Uffizi, follows the forms of the Gothic tradition of the fourteenth century, as does the almost contemporary grandiose representation of Jacobello del Fiore at the Accademia in Venice.

Around 1400 the throne of Christ and of Mary loses more and more of its heavy architectural appearance, transforming itself into a drapery of rich decorative fabrics, sometimes supported by angels. Thus Lorenzo di Niccolò Gerini depicts the Coronation in his panel in the Uffizi; thus again, in the second half of the fifteenth century, Sano di Pietro paints his Coronations, two of which are preserved in the Pinacoteca of Siena. A late example of this type is offered on the eve of the sixteenth century by the altarpiece of Bernardino Fungai in the church of the Servi in Siena.

In the course of the fifteenth century the throne is very soon replaced by clouds. To this iconographic reform of the Coronation of

Fra Angelico made a large contribution to this. Nevertheless his grandiose I. in the Louvre still largely follows the traditional arrangement, although a new element appears in it in the attitude of the Virgin kneeling to receive the crown. On the other hand, his three i. in S. Marco in Florence, namely the fresco in a cell of the convent, the majestic panel and the tondo in the Museum, all three unfold among clouds. Also in the depictions left by Fra Filippo Lippi, the kneeling Virgin receives the crown from the hands of her Divine Son, whether on a throne (the triptychs of the Vatican Pinacoteca and of the Uffizi) or on the clouds, in the fresco of the cathedral of Spoleto.

Very numerous altarpieces of the second half of the fifteenth century represent in their upper part the i. of Mary, which unfolds in Heaven among choirs of cherubim, and in the lower part some saints. Examples of this type are: the altarpiece by Alunno in the church of S. Niccolò in Foligno, the altarpiece by Piero Pollaiolo in the church of S. Agostino in S. Gimignano, and above all the great I. with four saints by Botticelli, of 1490, in the Uffizi. To this iconographic group also belongs the great altarpiece by Francesco di Giorgio, painted in 1471, now in the Pinacoteca of Siena, although in it the horizontal division into two distinct parts is less pronounced. The terracotta altar by Andrea della Robbia at the Osservanza in Siena also comes close to this model.

The Virgin is always, as a rule, depicted to the right of Christ. A rare exception to this rule is the altarpiece by Pinturicchio of 1503-1505 in the Vatican Pinacoteca, where in the sky against the background of a mandorla adorned with little putti the Virgin is seen kneeling to the left of her Divine Son.

The I. painted by Raphael, before 1505, for the church of S. Francesco in Perugia and now preserved in the Vatican Pinacoteca, presents itself divided into two horizontal parts: in the upper part of the panel Christ is depicted in the act of crowning Mary, seated at his right on the clouds, and in the lower part one sees the flowered empty tomb of the Madonna, surrounded by the Apostles.

At a distance of 25 years, G. Romano and F. Penni follow the same iconographic arrangement in their altarpiece now preserved in the Vatican Pinacoteca.

Depictions in which Mary is crowned not by Christ alone, but by the Most Holy Trinity, are rare. Thus, for example, in a panel of the early fifteenth century by Gentile da Fabriano, owned by the Pinacoteca of Brera in Milan, in a panel by Giovanni d'Alemagna and Antonio Vivarini, preserved in the Accademia of Venice, and also in the sixteenth-century fresco painted by Sodoma on the walls of the Oratory of S. Bernardino in Siena, God the Father and the Holy Spirit take part in the i. of the Virgin Mary, although only Christ places the crown on Mary's head. On the other hand, in an engraving by Albrecht Dürer and in the cusp of the grandiose wooden altar of the church of Maria in Kraków, a masterpiece by Veit Stoss of the late fifteenth century, in the i. painted by El Greco, preserved in the Bosch collection in Madrid, God the Father and Christ together place the crown upon Mary's head, while the dove of the Holy Spirit illuminates above the representation of the divine mystery. - See plates CIX-CX.

Witold Wehr