Perpetual virginity of Mary

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Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

The perpetual virginity of Mary, Mary's "real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made Man", is part of the teaching of Roman Catholicism, Eastern, and Oriental Orthodoxy, as expressed in their liturgies, in which they repeatedly refer to Mary as "ever virgin". In Lutheranism, the perpetual virginity of Mary is an open question, although some Lutherans would opine that it is true. Thus, according to this teaching, Mary was ever-virgin (Greek ἀειπάρθενος, aeiparthenos) for the whole of her life, making Jesus her only biological son, whose conception and birth are held to be miraculous.

The doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, which is believed as de fide, i.e. as a doctrine that is an essential part of the faith and thus has the highest degree of certainty, states that Mary was a virgin before, during and after giving birth, and so covers much more than the doctrine of her virginal conception of Jesus, often referred to as the virgin birth of Jesus. It is also distinct from the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which relates to the conception of the Virgin Mary herself without any stain ("macula" in Latin) of original sin.

This common tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary is one element in the well-established theology regarding the Theotokos in both East and West, a field of study known as Mariology.

The virginity of Mary at the time of her conception of Jesus is a key topic in Roman Catholic Marian art, usually represented as the annunciation to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel that she would virginally conceive a child to be born the Son of God. Frescos depicting this scene have appeared in Roman Catholic Marian churches for centuries. Mary's virginity even after her conception of Jesus is regularly represented in the art of both the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox (as well as in early Western religious art) by including in Nativity scenes the figure of Salome, whom the Gospel of James presents as finding that Mary had preserved her virginity even in giving birth to her son.

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-'''''Hortus conclusus''''' is a [[Latin]] term, meaning literally "enclosed garden". "The word '[[garden]]' is at root the same as the word 'yard'. It means an enclosure", observed Derek Clifford, at the outset of a series of essays on garden ''design'', in which he skirted the conventions of the ''hortus conclusus''. Thus, at their root, '''both''' of the words in ''hortus conclusus'' refer linguistically to enclosure.
+The '''perpetual virginity of Mary''', [[Mary (mother of Jesus)|Mary]]'s "real and perpetual [[virginity]] even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made Man", is part of the [[doctrine|teaching]] of [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholicism]], [[Orthodox Church|Eastern]], and [[Oriental Orthodoxy|Oriental]] [[Orthodoxy]], as expressed in their [[liturgy|liturgies]], in which they repeatedly refer to Mary as "ever virgin". In [[Lutheranism]], the perpetual virginity of Mary is an open question, although some Lutherans would opine that it is true. Thus, according to this teaching, Mary was ever-virgin (Greek ''ἀειπάρθενος'', ''aeiparthenos'') for the whole of her life, making Jesus her only biological son, whose [[Virgin birth of Jesus|conception]] and [[Nativity of Jesus|birth]] are held to be miraculous.
-''Hortus conclusus'' is both an [[emblem|attribute]] and title of the [[Virgin Mary]] in [[Medieval]] and [[Renaissance]] poetry and art, suddenly appearing in paintings and manuscript illuminations about 1400,and a genre of actual garden that was enclosed both symbolically and as a practical concern, a major theme in the [[history of gardening]].
+The doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, which is believed as [[de fide]], i.e. as a doctrine that is an essential part of the faith and thus has the highest degree of certainty, states that Mary was a virgin before, during and after giving birth, and so covers much more than the doctrine of her virginal conception of Jesus, often referred to as the [[virgin birth of Jesus]]. It is also distinct from the dogma of the [[Immaculate Conception]] of Mary, which relates to the conception of the Virgin Mary herself without any stain ("macula" in [[Latin]]) of [[original sin]].
+This common tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary is one element in the well-established theology regarding the [[Theotokos]] in both East and West, a field of study known as [[Mariology]].
-==The Virgin Mary as ''hortus conclusus''==
+The virginity of Mary at the time of her conception of Jesus is a key topic in [[Roman Catholic Marian art]], usually represented as the [[annunciation to Mary]] by the Archangel Gabriel that she would virginally conceive a child to be born the Son of God. [[Fresco]]s depicting this scene have appeared in [[Roman Catholic Marian churches]] for centuries. Mary's virginity even after her conception of Jesus is regularly represented in the art of both the [[Eastern Orthodox]] and [[Oriental Orthodox]] (as well as in early Western religious art) by including in Nativity scenes the figure of [[Salome (disciple)|Salome]], whom the [[Gospel of James]] presents as finding that Mary had preserved her virginity even in giving birth to her son.
-The term ''hortus conclusus'' is derived from the [[Vulgate]] Bible's ''[[Canticle of Canticles]]'' (also called the ''Song of Songs'' or ''Song of Solomon'') 4:12, in Latin: "''Hortus conclusus soror mea, sponsa, hortus conclusus, fons signatus''" ("A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up." This provided the shared linguistic culture of Christendom, expressed in [[homily|homilies]] expounding the ''Song of Songs'' as [[allegory]] where the image of Solomon's nuptial song to his bride was reinterpreted as the love and union between Christ and the Church, the mystical marriage with the Church as the [[Bride of Christ]]. The verse "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee" (4.7) from the ''Song'' was also regarded as a scriptural confirmation of the developing and still controversial doctrine of Mary's [[Immaculate Conception]] - being born without [[Original Sin]] ("macula" is Latin for spot).
-[[Christian]] tradition states that [[Jesus Christ]] was conceived to Mary [[Virgin birth of Jesus|miraculously]] and without disrupting her virginity by the [[Holy Spirit]], the third person of the [[Holy Trinity]]. As such, Mary in late medieval and Renaissance art, illustrating the long-held doctrine of the [[Perpetual virginity of Mary]], as well as the Immaculate Conception, was shown in or near a walled garden or yard. This was a representation of her "closed off" womb, which was to remain untouched, and also of her being protected, as by a wall, from sin.  In the [[Grimani Breviary]], scrolling labels identify the emblemmatic objects betokening the Immaculate Conception: the enclosed garden (''hortus conclusus''), the tall cedar (''cedrus exalta''), the well of living waters (''puteus aquarum viventium''), the olive tree (''oliva speciosa''), the fountain in the garden (''fons hortorum''), the rosebush (''plantatio rosae''). Not all actual medieval ''horti conclusi'' even strove to include all these details, the olive tree in particular being insufficiently hardy for northern European gardens.
+== See also ==
+*[[Assumption of Mary]]
+*[[Blessed Virgin Mary]]
+*[[Immaculate Conception]]
+*[[Theotokos]]
+*[[Panagia]]
+*[[Acts of Reparation to the Virgin Mary]]
+*[[Roman Catholic Marian art]]
-The enclosed garden is recognizable in [[Fra Angelico]]'s ''Annunciation'' (''illustration, above right''), dating from 1430-32.
-==Actual gardens==
-In the [[history of gardens]] the High Medieval ''hortus conclusus'' typically had a well or fountain at the center, bearing its usual symbolic freight (see "[[Fountain of Life]]") in addition to its practical uses. The convention of four paths that divided the square enclosure into quadrants, was so strong that the pattern was employed even where the paths led nowhere. All medieval gardens were enclosed, protecting the private precinct from public intrusion, whether by folk or by stray animals. The enclosure might be as simple as [[Wattle-and-daub|woven wattle]] fencing; or it might be enclosed by trelliswork tunneled pathways in a secular garden or by an arcaded [[cloister]], for communication or meditative pacing.
-The origin of the [[cloister]] is in the Roman colonnaded [[peristyle]], as every garden history notes; the ruined and overgrown [[Roman villa]]s that were so often remade as the site of [[Benedictine monastery|Benedictine monasteries]] had lost their planted garden features with the first decades of abandonment. Though "when, in 1070, the [[Montecassino|abbey of Cassino]] was rebuilt," Georgina Masson observed, "the garden was described as 'a paradise in the Roman fashion'", it may have been merely "the aura of the great classical tradition" alone that had survived. The ninth-century idealised [[plan of Saint Gall]] (''illustration'') shows an arcaded cloister with a central well and cross paths from the centers of each range of arcading, but when a consciously patterned garden was revived for the medieval cloister, the patterning came through [[Kingdom of Sicily|Norman Sicily]] and its hybrid culture adapting many Islamic elements, in this case the enclosed North African courtyard gardens, ultimately based on the [[Persian garden]] tradition.
-The practical enclosed garden was laid out in the treatise by [[Pietro Crescenzi]] of Bologna, ''Liber ruralium commodorum'', a work that was often copied, as the many surviving manuscripts of its text attest, and often printed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Late medieval paintings and [[Illuminated manuscript|illuminations in manuscripts]] such as for ''[[The Romance of the Rose]]''— where the garden in the text is largely allegorical— often show a turfed bank for a seat as a feature of the ''hortus conclusus''. Only in the fifteenth century, at first in Italy, did some European gardens begin to look outward.
-Sitting, walking and playing music were the activities most often portrayed in the numerous fifteenth-century paintings and illuminated manuscripts, where strenuous activities were inappropriate. In Rome, a late fifteenth-century [[cloister]] at San Giovanni dei Genovesi was constructed for the use of the Genoese ''[[Nation|natio]]'', an ''Ospitium Genoensium'', as a plaque still proclaims, which provided shelter in cubicles off its vaulted encircling arcades, and a meeting place and shelter reuniting those from the distant home city.
-Somewhat earlier, Pietro Barbo, who became [[Pope Paul II]] in 1464, began the construction of a ''hortus conclusus'', the Palazzetto del Giardino di San Marco, attached to the Venetian Cardinals' Roman seat, the Palazzo Venezia. It served as Paul's private garden during his papacy; inscriptions stress its secular functions as ''sublimes moenibus hortos...ut relevare animum, durasque repellere curas'', a garden of sublime delights, a retreat from cares, and praise it in classicising terms, as the home of the [[dryad]]s, suggesting that there was a central grove of trees, and mentioning its snowy-white stuccoed porticoes. An eighteenth-century engraving shows a tree-covered central mount, which has been recreated in the modern replanting, with box-bordered cross and saltire gravelled paths.
-The [[Farnese Gardens]] (''Orti Farnesiani sul Palatino''-- or "Gardens of Farnese upon the Palatine") were created by [[Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola|Vignola]] in 1550 on Rome's northern [[Palatine Hill]], for Cardinal [[Alessandro Farnese (cardinal)|Alessandro Farnese]] (1520-89). These become the first private [[botanical garden]]s in Europe (the first botanical gardens of any kind in Europe being started by Italian universities in the mid-16th century, only a short time before). Alessandro called his summer home at the site ''Horti Farnesiani'', probably in reference to the ''hortus conclusus.'' These gardens were also designed in the Roman peristylium style with a central fountain.
-Again in the age of the automobile, the enclosed garden that had never disappeared in [[Islam]]ic society, became an emblem of serenity and privacy in the Western world.
-==In art==
-The ''hortus conclusus'' was one of a number of depictions of the Virgin in the late Middle Ages developed to be more informal and intimate than the traditional hieratic enthroned Virgin adopted from Byzantine icons, or the [[Coronation of the Virgin]]. Germany and the Netherlands in the 15th century saw the peak popularity of this depiction of the Virgin, usually with Child, and very often a crowd of angels, saints and donors, in the garden - the garden by itself, to represent the Virgin, was much rarer. Often walls, or [[Trellis (agriculture)|trellises]] close off the sides and rear, or it may be shown as open, except for raised banks, to a landscape beyond. Sometimes, as with a [[Gerard David]] in London, the garden is very fully depicted; at other times, as in [[engraving]]s by [[Martin Schongauer]], only a wattle fence and a few sprigs of grass serve to identify the theme. Italian painters typically also keep plants to a minimum, and do not have grass benches. A sub-variety of the theme was the German "Madonna of the Roses", sometimes attempted in sculptured [[altarpiece]]s. The image was rare in Orthodox [[icon]]s, but there are at least some Russian examples.
-One type of depiction, not usually compatible with correct perspective, concentrates on showing the whole wall, and several garden structures or features that symbolize the mystery of Christ's conception, mostly derived from the ''Song of Songs'' or other Biblical passages, as interpreted by theological writers. These may include one or more temple or church-like buildings, an [[Ivory Tower]] (SS 7.4), an open-air altar with [[Aaron's rod]] flowering, surrounded by the bare rods of the other tribes, a gatehouse "tower of David, hung with shields" (SS 7.4), with the gate closed, the [[Ark of the Covenant]], a well (often covered), a fountain, and the morning sun above (SS 6.10).
-This type of depiction usually shows the Annunciation, although sometimes the child Jesus is held by Mary. The miniature at right shows a relatively simple example; below a large Spanish altarpiece is able to combine many of the usual features (others no doubt contained in the many chapels) with correct perspective.
-A rather rare, late 15th century, variant of this depiction was to combine the Annunciation in the ''hortus conclusus'' with the ''Hunt of the [[Unicorn]]'' and ''Virgin and Unicorn'', so popular in secular art. The unicorn already functioned as a symbol of the [[Incarnation of Christ|Incarnation]] and whether this meaning is intended in many ''prima facie'' secular depictions can be a difficult matter of scholarly interpretation. There is no such ambiguity in the scenes where the archangel [[Gabriel]] is shown blowing a horn, as hounds chase the unicorn into the Virgin's arms, and a little Christ Child descends on rays of light from God the Father. The [[Council of Trent]] finally banned this somewhat over-elaborated, if charming, depiction, partly on the grounds of realism, as no one now believed the unicorn to be a real animal. In the 16th century the subject of the ''hortus conclusus'' drifts into the open air ''[[Sacra Conversazione]]'' and the Madonnas in a landscape of [[Giovanni Bellini]], [[Albrecht Dürer]] and [[Raphael]], where it is hard to say if an allusion is intended.
-An exhibition of later medieval visual representations of ''hortus inclusus'' was mounted at [[Dumbarton Oaks]], Washington DC; the exhibition drew a distinction between "garden representations as thematic reinforcements and those that seemingly treat the garden as a subject in itself"; in reviewing it Timothy Husband, warned against uncritical interpretation of the refined detail in manuscript illuminations' "seemingly objective representation". "Late medieval garden imagery, by subjugating direct observation to symbolic or allegorical intention, reflects more a state of mind than reality,"  if a disjunct can be detected where the objects of the world shimmered with pregnant allegorical meaning. South Netherlandish illuminations and painting appear to document the "turf benches, fountains, raised beds, 'estrade' trees, potted plants, walkways, enclosing walls, [[Trellis (agriculture)|trellises]], [[Acacia|wattle]] fences and [[bower]]s" familiar to contemporary viewers, but assembled into an illusion of reality.
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Perpetual virginity of Mary

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