Word of the Day
PIETA (pee-ay-TAH)
A painting or sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding and mourning over the dead body of Jesus.
Common clues: St. Peter's sculpture; Vatican masterpiece; 1499 marble masterpiece; Statue of Mary and Jesus; Michelangelo masterpiece
Crossword puzzle frequency: once a year
News: The mosaics of the Cathedral Basilica
Video: La Pieta - Michelangelo
A pietà (pl. same; Italian for compassion) is an artwork depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Christ. As such, it is a particular form of the devotional theme of Our Lady of Sorrows.
Pietà
by
Michelangelo, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence
One of the most famous pietà is Michelangelo's Pietà in the Vatican. A rare leather pietà is in the church St. Peter und Paul in Eschweiler.
The American Pietà was the name given to a famous Reuters photograph of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, depicting a policeman and four firemen carrying the body of fire department chaplain Mychal F. Judge out of the World Trade Center rubble. The name American Pietà was in reference to Michelangelo's Pietà sculpture.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Pietà".
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