### Presentation of Mary, Blessed Virgin, Feast of the
The Feast of the Presentation of Mary is one of the minor Marian feasts of the universal Church and is celebrated with a major double rite on November 21. The only liturgical text proper to the Office and Mass is the Oremus.
The direct object of the feast is an event in the life of the Blessed Virgin, when, at the age of only three years, she is said to have been led by her parents to Jerusalem to be offered to the Lord in the Temple, where she would remain until the age of twelve, devoted solely to piety and service in the sanctuary. This event, however, is not contained in the Gospels but is one of the many pious inventions of the apocryphal writings. It first appears, still with scant details, in the so-called Protoevangelium of James (2nd–3rd century), later developed and dramatized in various other apocryphal infancy Gospels of the Lord (v. BONACCORSI, PIERINO, Vangeli apocrifi, I, Florence 1948, pp. 72–73 and passim). This narrative found a warm reception among the people, and the imagination of artists was stirred, so that from antiquity they found in the depiction of this scene a vast field for representation (v. below).
The liturgical celebration, however, appears relatively late. Its origins seem to be traced back to Jerusalem. The church of Santa Maria Nuova, built in the center of the city by Justinian I in 543, seems to have been intended to localize the event; from the anniversary of the dedication of this church, November 21, the true feast of the Presentation would later arise. In the time of the Crusaders, the memory of this event passed to the Templum Domini, that is, the Mosque of Omar on the Temple Mount, which served as a Catholic church from 1099 to 1187. In any case, the feast of the Presentation is found in all Eastern calendars, always on the date indicated (v. NIELLO, Kalendarium manuale utriusque Ecclesiae, I, II, Innsbruck 1898, V. indices). In 1143, Manuel Comnenus made the Presentation a holy day of obligation.
The West became acquainted with the feast through various Eastern influences and by many routes. It appears sporadically as early as the 10th and 12th centuries in two Greek evangeliaries, manuscripts from Cesena (Plut. XXVII, cod. IV, 10th century; Plut. XXIX, cod. II, 12th century; H. Leclercq, Césène, in DACL, II, 3313), in an English calendar of the 12th century from Winchester where it is called *oblatio s. Mariae in templo cum esset trium annorum* (R. T. Hampson, Calendaria medii aevi, London 1841, 432, 445), and in the calendar of a Hungarian sacramentary of 1200, preserved in Budapest (National Museum, Vyelvemleke; 1) where it appears as *representatio s. Mariae*, and in another Hungarian calendar (Budapest, National Museum F. 94) as *consecratio Mariae Virginis*. It began to become universal in 1372. In that year, Philip de Mézières, ambassador to Cyprus, induced Charles V of France to celebrate the feast, with the assent of Gregory XI, in the church of the Friars Minor in Avignon, where the papal curia then resided. The king invited the country to follow the example, the pope included it in the calendar of the curia, and shortly afterward it spread throughout the Western Church. In 1391, the Carmelites adopted it; in 1474, the Carthusians; Pius II and Sixtus IV greatly promoted its diffusion: in 1472 it was granted to Duke William of Saxony, from where it passed to Mainz and Trier. Pius IV introduced it into the Roman Breviary; but St. Pius V suppressed it as apocryphal. Philip II of Spain, however, obtained from Gregory XIII permission to continue celebrating it in his kingdoms, and shortly afterward Sixtus V, urged also by Fr. Francesco Turriani, S.J., prescribed it anew for the universal Church (brief: *Interrantea Matris Dei Mariae*, Sept. 1, 1585) with a double rite and the formulary of the feast of the Nativity of Mary, substituting the word *nativitas* with *praesentatio*. Thus disappeared the various medieval formularies, with texts sometimes bold, but often poetic. Finally, Clement VIII, in the course of the revision of the Missal (1602), elevating the rite to a major double, reduced the formulary to its present state. When, under Benedict XIV, a reform of the Breviary and Missal was discussed, the feast of the Presentation ran the risk of being eliminated once more; but the pope died before he could carry out his plans. Even in recent times, voices have occasionally been raised demanding its suppression as apocryphal; others, however, would preserve it, not as a celebration of the "presentation of the three-year-old Mary," but in deference to the more general and theologically secure concept of the "oblation" or "consecration" of the Blessed Virgin Mary to God, by which she, more than any other human creature, was totally dedicated to the Lord.
### Giuseppe Löw, Iconography
The oldest known depictions in art of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple date back to the 11th century. The very first example is found among the miniatures of Eastern style in the Homiliary of the monk James, a manuscript preserved in the National Library of Paris (miniature reproduced by A. Venturi in *La Madone* [V. BIBLICA.], p. 108).
15th-century Florentine painting contributed greatly to establishing the illustrative concept of the Presentation of the Virgin in compositions where, among many figures, the Virgin Mary as a girl, accompanied by St. Joachim and St. Anne, is seen ascending a staircase leading to a temple, where she is welcomed by a priest. Only Mary stands on the staircase; her parents remain lower down, at a respectful distance. To illustrate the gradual development of the growing splendor of this representation, one may note three notable frescoes belonging to three successive generations of 14th-century Florentine painters: namely, that by Giotto, painted in 1305 in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua; that by Taddeo Gaddi, painted in 1335 in the Baroncelli Chapel in Santa Croce in Florence; and that by Giovanni da Milano, executed around 1345 in the Rinuccini Chapel, which is part of the sacristy of the same church in Florence. According to the same illustrative concept, though much abbreviated and reduced in size, the Presentation was painted by Bernardo Daddi among the Stories of the Virgin that adorn the step of the polyptych in the Uffizi. Orcagna also depicted the Presentation of the Virgin in a very concise manner, as shown by a carved marble panel in the tabernacle of Orsanmichele, executed between 1349 and 1359, where one sees the figures of the young Mary and the priests on a staircase in the center, and on the sides, symmetrically arranged, the parents and two angels.
### PRESENTATION OF MARY, BLESSED VIRGIN — Nativity Scene
The figurative concept of the Presentation of the Virgin, thus established in the late Middle Ages, varies little in the 15th century, as seen in the fresco painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Greater Chapel of Santa Maria Novella in Florence.
Notable depictions of the Presentation of the Virgin were left by 16th-century Venetian painting; among them, in chronological order, are those by Carpaccio (Milan, Brera) and Cima da Conegliano (Dresden, Gallery), the other famous one by Titian, painted between 1534 and 1538 (Venice, Accademia), and the slightly later one by Tintoretto (Venice, church of Santa Maria dell’Orto).
A grand representation of the Virgin Mother of God, executed in the Baroque style, was painted in 1642 by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli for St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. The original of this altarpiece, later reproduced in mosaic, was transferred in the mid-18th century to the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome, where it is still preserved. — See pl. CXXXIII.