The Coronation of the Virgin or
Coronation of Mary is a subject in Christian art, especially popular in Italy
in the 13th to 15th centuries, but continuing in popularity until the 18th
century and beyond. Christ, sometimes accompanied by God the Father and the
Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, places a crown on the head of Mary as Queen
of Heaven. In early versions the setting is a Heaven imagined as an earthly
court, staffed by saints and angels; in later versions Heaven is more often
seen as in the sky, with the figures seated on clouds. The belief in Mary as
Queen of Heaven obtained the papal sanction of Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam (English: Queenship of
Mary in Heaven) of October 11, 1954. It is also the fifth Glorious Mystery of
the Rosary. The Roman Catholic Church celebrates the feast every August 22,
where it replaced the former octave of the Assumption of Mary in 1969, a move
made by Pope Paul VI. The feast was formerly celebrated on May 31, at the end
of the Marian month, where the present general calendar now commemorates the
Feast of the Visitation ■
