Piero della Francesca, Polyptych of the Misericordia, about 1460, tempera and oil on panel, 134 x 91 cm, Sansepolcro, Museo Civico
     
   
Madonna della Misericordia | Madonna of Mercy
 
   
The Virgin of Mercy is a subject in Christian art, showing a group of people sheltering for protection under the outspread cloak of the Virgin Mary. It was especially popular in Italy from the 13th to 16th centuries, often as a specialised form of votive portrait, and is also found in other countries and later art, especially Catalonia and Latin America. In Italian it is known as the Madonna della Misericordia (Madonna of Mercy), in German as the Schutzmantelmadonna (Sheltering-cloak Madonna), and in French as the Vièrge au Manteau or Vierge de Miséricorde (Virgin with a cloak or Virgin of Mercy).
Usually the Virgin is standing alone, though if angels hold up the cloak she is free to hold the infant Christ. The people sheltered normally kneel, and are of necessity shown usually at a much smaller scale. These may represent all members of Christian society, with royal crowns, mitres and a Papal tiara in the front rows, or represent the local population. The subject was often commissioned by specific groups such as families, confraternities, guilds or convents or abbeys, and then the figures represent these specific groups, as shown by their dress, or by the 15th century individual portraits.
Usually the image, whether in sculpture or painting, stands by itself, but in the most famous example, the Madonna della Misericordia altarpiece in Sansepolcro by Piero della Francesca, of 1445-62, the subject is the central panel of a large altarpiece, with a smaller Crucifixion above it, and many other panels. Probably the oldest version known is a small panel by Duccio of ca. 1280, with three Franciscan friars under the cloak.[1] Here the Virgin sits, only one side of the cloak is extended, and the Virgin holds her child on her knee with her other hand.
 
   

Duccio, Madonna of the Franciscans
Duccio, Madonna of the Franciscans, c. 1300, tempera on wood, 23,5 x 16 cm; Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena

Little is known of his life, but several commission records survive, as well as two documented works, the Rucellai Madonna for the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella (1285) and the famous Maestà altarpiece for Siena Cathedral (1308 – 11); both represent landmarks in the history of Italian painting. He was the leading painter in Siena, one of Italy's most vital artistic centres in the Middle Ages. Duccio, Madonna of the Franciscans, ca 1280, the earliest known painting of the subject.

The Madonna of the Franciscans shows structural articulation, and was probably part of a diptych or triptych intended for private worship, perhaps of a small group of Friars Minor. Iconographically it follows the "Madonna of Mercy" type: while looking towards the spectator the Virgin holds back the edge of her robe the better to receive and protect the three kneeling friars, for whom the Child's blessing is intended.

This elaborate intermingling of echoes from Cimabue and Byzantine art, with the added softness of Duccio's personal touch, includes elements of the new artistic language from beyond the Alps. The tiny square panels of the backcloth, an innovation substituting the usual gold ground, are of clear French derivation. Thus, the measured breadth of contour, the sinuous curving of the robe's hem and the smooth masses of colour form part of a wider spatial dimension, where the Gothic predilection for linearity and flowing outlines reaches its maximum expression. The features of the supplicating friars and the throne, a simple wooden seat placed obliquely to create an effect of perspective, reflect the teaching of Cimabue. The unusual posture of the Child's legs belongs entirely to Duccio, however, who repeats the gestures of the early Madonna of Buonconvento and the Rucellai Madonna.

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Duccio, Madonna of the Franciscans, ca 1280, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena. The earliest known painting of the subject.
Piero della Francesca | Polyptych of the Misericordia 1445-1462
Piero della Francesca, Polyptych of the Misericordia, about 1460, tempera and oil on panel, 134 x 91 cm, Sansepolcro, Museo Civico

The Polyptych of the Misericordia is one of the earliest works of Piero della Francesca, located in the Pinacoteca Comunale of Sansepolcro.
Piero della Francesca was an Italian artist who also was an accomplished mathematician and geometer. His mathematical knowledge influenced his art as evidenced by his use of foreshortening, geometric forms and innovative perspectives. The cool colour palette and geometrical compositions contribute to the refined and meditative nature of his works.
Piero was born in Borgo Sansepolcro, in Tuscany. He worked in various central Italian towns, but retained links with Sansepolcro.
Here Francesca features the Madonna as the centerpiece of the polyptych, flanked by the Virgin of the Annunciation, various saints, and images of the life of Christ. The piece was commissioned in 1445 by the Compagnia della Misericordia and was completed in 1462.
This painting contains a self-portrait of the artist, third from the left, kneeling at the feet of Mary.

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Sano di Pietro | Madonna of Mercy
Sano di Pietro, Madonna of Mercy, ca. 1440. Private collection
   
   

St. Maria delle Grazie with the High altar of Andrea Della Robbia, containing the image of Madonna della Misericordia painted by Parri Spinello

 

 

Lippo Memmi, 1350s. "Madonna of Mercy" by Lippo Memmi (1320); Chapel of the Blessed Corporal; Cathedral of Orvieto, ItalyThe couple at the front were probably the donors.

Madonna della misericordia, fresco in the Vespucci chapel, by Domenico Ghirlandaio with his brother David (about 1472), of the Madonna della Misericordia protecting members of the Vespucci family, is reputed to include the portrait of Amerigo Vespucci as a child and Simonetta Vespucci (blond with uncovered hair).
source: Andreas Quermann, Ghirlandaio, serie dei Maestri dell'arte italiana, Könemann, Köln 1998.

    St Catherine of Siena protects some of the Confraternity of the Night Oratory, on a 16thC coffin panel (one of four, attributed to Benevuto di Giovanni). Maybe from Oratorio di Santa Caterina della Notte[1] Known since the Fifteenth century as the Confraternity of St Michael, the company devoted itself mainly to pietas towards the dead.
Date
    Hans Memling brugge
    Madonna with Child and Saint Dominic; Convent of the basilica of Saint Dominic, Bologna, Italy
     
 
   
Piero della Francesca
Polyptych of the Misericordia | The Baptism of Christ | St. Jerome in Penitence | St. Jerome and a Donor | Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta Praying in Front of St. Sigismund | Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta | The History of the True Cross | St. Julian | The Flagellation of Christ | Polyptych of Saint Augustine | Resurrection | Madonna del parto | Nativity | Polyptych of Perugia | Madonna and Child with Saints (Montefeltro Altarpiece) | Paired portraits of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza | Madonna di Senigallia
 
Notes


[1] In the Pinacoteca in Siena. An Armenian miniature of ca. 1274 also shows a variant of the motif. Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century, Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Sylvia Agémian, Annemarie Weyl Carr, Dumbarton Oaks, p. 159, 1993, ISBN 0884022021. A South German chalice may also be older, see Vasilake, 307, note 17.