Death of the Virgin

The Death of the Virgin, also sometimes known as the Entombment of Mary, was produced by Giotto in 1310 using egg tempera on poplar wood.

More precisely, the Berlin catalogue dates the panel to about 1310. Its recorded dimensions are 75.8 × 179.7 centimetres, and its shallow gable rises above a remarkably broad gathering. ^[1] The shape matters from the first glance: there is room for a whole community, yet almost everyone presses towards one body.

The original work can today be found at the Gemäldegalerie, Kaiser Friedrich-Museums-Verein in the German city of Berlin and remains in remarkably good condition in comparison to some of the artist’s other work. Specifically, the vibrant coloring, typical of the artist, remains relatively intact.

The colour remains compelling, but the impression of exceptional preservation needs qualification. Berlin's curator Stephan Weppelmann explicitly reports considerable damage to the paint layer. ^[1] The vividness of a photograph cannot establish how much original paint survives, or support a general ranking of this panel against Giotto's frescoes. The large design remains legible: a pale Christ above Mary, a pink covering drawn along her body, dark green garments near the centre, and blue figures anchoring the outer groups and foreground.

Mary's face lies towards the left; her covered feet extend to the right. Her body rests above the long, ornamented sarcophagus, on a cloth held by attendants. Behind her, faces accumulate in uneven rows. At the centre, Christ holds a small figure close to his own face. These two scales of the same person—the adult body below and the soul above—give the assembly its emotional and theological focus. The picture asks us to attend both to physical separation and to an act of reception.

Use of Symbolism

According to Giotto, The Entombment of Mary by Dr Steven Zucker and Dr Beth Harris, there is a strong use of symbolism within this piece. The small infant child is believed to represent the freed spirit of Mary, whilst her body is buried just below.

Mary's body is still visible, resting on the cloth above the sarcophagus; it has not disappeared beneath the ground. Zucker and Harris discuss the tenderness of the lowering gesture and the relationship between Christ and the childlike soul. Their reading also draws attention to an inversion of the familiar Madonna and Child: here the adult son receives his mother in his arms. ^[21] The small figure is therefore a representation of Mary's soul, rather than a second child attending her funeral.

Christ holds Mary’s small soul figure above her body in the Berlin panel. Image source. Public domain. Proportionally reduced reproduction; no colour or content enhancement.

Look at the difference between the two encounters. Below, an apostle bends so close that his bearded face almost meets Mary's. Her white head covering makes a clear boundary around the motionless face. Above, the small soul turns towards Christ, whose hand supports it at the chest and shoulders. The bodies below require carrying, cloth and collective care; the small figure above can be gathered into a single protective embrace. A gesture familiar from images of maternity becomes a way of picturing Christian hope after death.

This is therefore a touching piece, in which the surrounding congregation look on in mourning, with Giotto famous for the way in which he depicted emotions within his figures. This relatively wide piece was produced for a small church in Florence. The tones of color used in the drapery and clothing can be found throughout this artist’s career, and were one of his hallmarks.

The church was Ognissanti, the Florentine house of the Humiliati, and its communal religious life offers a more specific setting than the phrase “small church” suggests. Before exploring that setting, it helps to distinguish the subject from the Gospel accounts of Christ's death. The canonical Gospels do not narrate Mary's death. The Dormition belongs to later Christian traditions, transmitted through different texts and images. ^[22]

“Dormition” means falling asleep. In this context it describes Mary's death within a belief in her continued life with Christ. The wider narrative could include the gathering of the apostles, her death, funeral, burial and eventual bodily assumption into heaven. These are related subjects, yet an Assumption usually directs attention towards Mary's ascent. Here the horizontal body and the people attending it occupy the picture. Christ's reception of the soul makes the prospect of heavenly life present within that funeral gathering.

The literary history is layered: the Berlin essay names the Transitus Mariae attributed to Pseudo-Meliton, Gregory of Tours, and Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend. ^[1] This sequence should not be treated as a single eyewitness account or as a precise set of instructions followed by the painter. The distinction is visible in the work itself. Prayer, mourning, ritual service and the reception of the soul share one field. We do not move through separate compartments labelled before, during and after.

Transition in Italian Art

The Death of the Virgin reminds us of how significant Giotto was in moving on from the Byzantine era, bringing life and color to his portraits, whilst incorporating emotion. One can compare this to the likes of Duccio and Cimabue for an immediate visual indication of the transition.

Byzantine art already possessed colour, emotion and moving images of this very subject. A Byzantine ivory Icon with the Koimesis in the Metropolitan Museum, made in the late tenth century, shows Mary on a bier and Christ holding her infantlike soul. In the museum's commentary, curator Helen Evans calls attention to the apostles' emotional detail and the figures' three-dimensional carving. ^[23] Giotto's achievement becomes clearer when seen against this rich inheritance. He made an established sacred arrangement speak through the pressure of bodies, the direction of faces and the ordinary work of hands.

Many artists who followed shortly afterwards were influenced by Giotto. His work was highly influential within the Proto Renaissance , which helped to transition Italian, and wider European art from the Byzantine towards the earliest phases of the Renaissance. Additional changes would appear in the use of perspective as well as more lifelike facial details.

In this painting the sense of presence begins with overlapping. A head disappears behind another halo; a shoulder occupies the space in front of a neighbour; the sarcophagus hides the lower bodies of those standing behind it. Giotto does not need a deep architectural chamber to establish a crowded place. The narrow visible floor and the bodies advancing towards its edge are enough. Gold still surrounds the assembly, retaining the radiance and visual authority of a devotional image while solid figures gather before it.

The backs and elbows are as important as the faces. Near the lower centre, a blue-clad mourner kneels with his back towards us. The broad sweep of his garment turns around his bent legs and spreads along the floor. We cannot read his expression, but his position makes his attention unmistakable. He occupies the space a viewer might otherwise imagine entering, placing another witness between us and Mary's body. The effect draws us close while preserving the intimacy of those already gathered.

Figures Explained

Most of the figures displayed around The Death of the Virgin are angels, as signified by their halos, produced in golden tones. Each is given a different tone for their clothing in order to allow each one to stand separately, giving them their own personality and meaning.

Haloes alone cannot distinguish angels from apostles or other saints. Wings provide a clearer clue, especially in the groups towards the sides. The assembly includes human companions as well as heavenly attendants. Even their actions differ: some support the cloth, some hold candles, some attend to ritual objects, and others watch or mourn. These differences make the gathering feel organised without making every participant perform the same gesture.

On the left, an older, grey-haired figure in a warm yellow robe holds an open book. Weppelmann identifies him as Peter reading psalms; he identifies the green-clad figure to Christ's right as Andrew with the holy-water sprinkler. ^[1] Those names rest on iconographic interpretation as well as appearance. They should not encourage an attempt to name every partly concealed head. The book is clearly an object of attention, held up at an angle towards the reader rather than displayed as an explanatory label for us.

The left funeral group, candle bearers and head of Mary’s bier. Image source. Public domain. Proportionally reduced reproduction; no colour or content enhancement.

A careful study of the piece reveals that Giotto has included actions from some of them, such as blowing incense, talking amongst themselves, or contemplating this sad moment in their particular way. Additional saints have also been identified within this composition, helped by the solid condition in which it remains today (many other Giotto paintings have suffered from the centuries that have passed since, including lost detail and faded color).

The incense belongs to a particular task involving a censer. The Berlin essay describes an attendant with puffed cheeks blowing into it to kindle the embers; Zucker and Harris suggest blowing the incense towards Mary. ^{[1] [21]} The shared point is a concrete ritual action, rather than a general description of mourners “blowing incense.” The differing readings show how much interpretation can turn on a small gesture. Condition and the scale of a reproduction require care, especially when interpreting tiny objects or giving names to individual saints.

The candle bearers stand upright beside the sarcophagus. Their pale robes and slender candles introduce quieter vertical lines beside the weight and breadth of Mary's body. Nearby attendants lean inward to grasp the supporting cloth. The contrast between standing still and bending to carry makes their service tangible. The cloth curves under the body and gathers towards the hands at either end; the act involves weight, cooperation and attention.

At the far left, veiled women form a compact group. Towards the right, winged figures turn their faces in different directions. A blue-robed attendant holds the hands low near the waist, while another face appears in profile immediately behind. The open mouths can suggest speech or song, but the picture does not give us their words. Giotto makes a community audible in the imagination through its variety of postures, without needing an inscription for each voice.

Angle of the Composition

A further aspect about this painting that is worth noting is the overall angle of the congregation. There is a triangular format, with heads of the followers slowly leading upwards as you move towards the centerpiece. This helps to provide a clear hierarchy to the viewer of the importance of each figure within the painting.

The shallow gable reinforces that rise. Its two slopes travel towards the centre above Christ, while the long front of the sarcophagus runs almost parallel to the lower edge. The composition therefore combines an ascending movement with a strongly horizontal one. Christ stands at their meeting point. His light robe is visible through a relatively open central interval, making him readable even within the press of haloes.

The rows are deliberately irregular. Some heads rise behind the shoulders of others; a few are almost completely hidden. Overlapping golden discs make the crowd dense, yet each visible face retains a direction. Several turn towards Mary's head, others towards Christ or a neighbour. This is a hierarchy of attention as well as height: the assembly is united by its subject, while individual responses keep it from looking mechanically arranged.

The sarcophagus contributes a different kind of order. Its reddish front is divided into rectangular fields by bands of small geometric ornament. That firm, patterned surface gives a stable base to the bending bodies above it. The kneeling foreground figure interrupts the central rectangle, preventing the front from becoming a continuous decorative strip. Human action crosses the most regular part of the design.

Ognissanti and the work of remembrance

Weppelmann interprets the panel as a synthesis of funeral and memorial rites, relating it to a side altar at Ognissanti's screen with graves before it. ^[1] This is a curatorial reconstruction of the image's liturgical setting; it does not establish a measurable original hanging height or reconstruct every viewer's sightline. Its value is the connection it proposes between the pictured service and services performed in the church.

Seen in that setting, the many attendants acquire a communal purpose. The painting supplies an image of care around the dead: people remain present, prayers are read, a body is supported, and the soul is received. For someone standing before it, these actions could give visible form to the relationship between grief and the hope expressed in commemoration. The scene rewards a slow movement of attention from one act of care to another.

That connection need not make every gesture a special emblem of the Humiliati. Historian Frances Andrews, reviewing Julia I. Miller and Laurie Taylor-Mitchell's study of the order's patronage, questioned readings that assign its particular ideal of humility to bodily gestures also found elsewhere. She specifically discussed the Berlin Dormition and comparisons with earlier sculpture. ^[24] The distinction is useful: the Ognissanti context can illuminate the work without turning familiar acts of lifting, kneeling or folding the arms into an exclusive institutional code.

A different view of Mary at Ognissanti

The Ognissanti Madonna offers a revealing companion. Now in the Uffizi, it is a tall, enthroned image, measuring 325 × 204 centimetres; the museum dates it to about 1300–1305 and leaves its original position within the church uncertain. ^[25] The two surviving works should therefore not be arranged into an invented, precisely documented altar ensemble.

Their bodily relationship is nevertheless compelling. In the Maestà, Mary supports the child, and surrounding figures attend the throne. In the Berlin panel, her adult son supports her soul, while attendants gather around her mortal body. The broad funeral assembly allows many people to share the lower space; the tall throne concentrates attention upwards. Both pictures organise a community around Mary, with different proportions and different acts of care.

Giotto's Lamentation in Padua supplies another comparison. That fresco is part of the Scrovegni Chapel's Passion sequence. ^[26] There Mary bends over the dead Christ, with mourners gathered close to his body. Here she is the one being mourned, and the standing Christ receives her soul. The reversal makes the Berlin picture especially resonant beside the better-known fresco: bodily nearness remains central, while the direction of consolation changes. Neither scene needs every face to be exposed to communicate grief; the backs of foreground figures make the gathering feel inhabited.

The surviving panel in Berlin

The panel's present home also has a precise institutional meaning. It is owned by the Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein and held at the Gemäldegalerie as a permanent loan, rather than belonging to an institution with both names joined together. ^[27] Berlin's acquisition record identifies the purchase in 1914 from the London dealer Robert Langton Douglas. ^[1] Its museum life gives modern viewers a sustained opportunity to look, but it separates the painting from the funerary services and architecture that once shaped its use.

At less than eighty centimetres high, the panel compresses its assembly into relatively small figures. On a screen, an enlarged detail may make one face seem almost monumental. Returning to the whole restores the exchange between that intimate encounter and the long group. Christ and the soul are the centre of meaning, but the hands holding a cloth, the reader's book and the foreground mourner make that meaning part of a shared occasion.

Conclusion

We can conclude that Death of the Virgin by Giotto is a charming piece which perfectly captures many aspects of the artist’s style. Present are the emotions, the colors and the symbolism with which we remember Giotto, and it provides a fitting memory of his career. Its popularity has also been aided by the excellent condition that it enjoys today, as well as the prominent position that it holds within the Berlin art museum.

Its damaged surface asks us to qualify the language of excellent condition. Its enduring force lies in what the design still brings together: Mary's still body, a living-looking soul, and a company whose care takes many forms. Looking across the panel, we encounter grief through touch, ritual and patient attendance. Looking upwards at its centre, we encounter the hope those actions surround.