Explore the The Pubescence of Mary of this artwork, Pietà (Michelangelo).
Mary is represented as being very young for the mother of an approximately 33-year-old son, which is not uncommon in depictions of the Passion of Christ at the time. Various explanations have been suggested for this. One is that her youth symbolizes her incorruptible purity, as Michelangelo himself said to his biographer, the fellow compatriot and Roman sculptor Ascanio Condivi:"Do you not know that chaste women stay fresh much more than those who are not chaste? How much more in the case of the Virgin, who had never experienced the least lascivious desire that might change her body?"
Another theory suggests that Michelangelo's treatment of the subject was influenced by his passion for Dante's Divine Comedy: so well-acquainted was he with the work that when he went to Bologna, he paid for hospitality by reciting verses from it. In "il Paradiso" (Cantica # 33 of the poem), Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in a prayer for the Virgin Mary, says: "Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio" ("Virgin mother, daughter of your son"). This is in accordance with the mystical doctrine of the Holy Trinity representing the following archetypes:Mary is the Daughter of Triune God the Father
Mary is also his Mother as she bore the incarnated Christ in flesh
Mary is also the designated wife and Spouse of the Holy Spirit.
Mary Bologna Cantica Ascanio Condivi Divine Comedy Bernard of Clairvaux Passion of Christ Holy Spirit the Passion Holy Trinity Michelangelo Dante Trinity