KÖIMESIS. — This is a simultaneous representation of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary and her passage into Heaven, established in Byzantine art. It depicts the Madonna lying down and asleep on a low bed, with her hands crossed over her breast; behind the bed stands Christ, holding Mary’s soul in his arms, represented as a small child who will be entrusted to the angels, who are in Heaven to receive her; the Apostles, divided into two groups, stand at the two ends of the Virgin’s bed.
A good Byzantine example of the K. (perhaps from the twelfth century) has come down to us on the cover of a book, carved in ivory and preserved in the Museum of Ravenna. A mosaic, dating from about 1143, in the church of the Martorana in Palermo may also serve as a typical Byzantine representation of the K.; against the gold background, an inscription explains the scene by its name. The art of Western Europe was already using representations of the K. in the twelfth century, as demonstrated by a German miniature in a codex belonging to the Royal Library in Munich (reproduced by A. Venturi, V. BIBLICA., p. 387). In Rome there are two mosaic representations of the K., dating from the late thirteenth century: one, by Pietro Cavallini, from 1290, in S. Maria in Trastevere, closely follows the Byzantine model; the second, by Jacopo Torritti, from 1296, in S. Maria Maggiore, already foreshadows the individual interpretation of the subject that would subsequently develop in Italian art, gradually transforming the K. into the simple representation of Mary’s Dormition or death. To illustrate the successive stages in the iconographic development of the Virgin’s Dormition in Italian art, the following may serve for the fourteenth century: a panel from about 1370 attributed to Andrea da Bologna and preserved in the Pinacoteca of Ancona, and another by Spinello Aretino in the Pinacoteca of Siena. The representations of Mary’s Dormition from the first half of the fifteenth century, although highly individualized, nevertheless remain linked to the concept of the K., as demonstrated by the frescoes of Taddeo di Bartolo in the Palazzo comunale in Siena and of Ottaviano Delli in the Trinci chapel in Foligno. The same may be said of the painting by Beato Angelico representing the Dormition in a predella now in the Museum of S. Marco in Florence, where Christ holding Mary’s soul in his arms is depicted for the last time. Representations from the second half of the fifteenth century usually show, above the scene of Mary’s death surrounded by the Apostles, her ascension into Heaven; a fine example, in its simple sincerity, of this model is offered by a panel in the Palazzo municipale at Fabriano by the local painter Antonio; a grandiose representation of this kind was frescoed by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the major chapel of S. Maria Novella in Florence. The frescoes by fra' Filippo Lippi, from 1457–65, in the cathedral of Spoleto have the K. simplified into a representation of Mary’s death; Christ carrying the soul of the Mother to Heaven is no longer present. For the art of the early Baroque, one may note the Death of Mary in the Louvre Museum, painted by Michelangelo da Caravaggio in 1606. — Vedi tav. XLVI.