The Virgin of Mercy is a Marian devotional image type recognizable by its portrayal of Mary protecting the faithful with her cloak. This thesis situates the iconography of painted panels within their historical and cultural context in Spain from the late medieval period to the Age of Exploration. I explain the image's origins and introduce its various versions, focusing on three major frequently commissioned subtypes: the Sponsorship of the Virgin, plague commissions, and the Mercedarian's Virgin of Mercy. I present a case study of one famous version of the type, the Virgin of the Navigators, and focus on the Spaniards and Amerindians beneath the cloak, situating them in relation to the historic debate that called into question the very humanity of the peoples of the Americas. The thesis explores the painting's possible statement the patrons may have been making through the artistic treatment of both groups.

This study consists of an analysis of the artwork Conversazioni, by the artist Oliviero Rainaldi. It is a monumental bronze sculpture  situated in Rome, Italy, portraying the pope John Paul II. The initiative for the monument honouring the late pope was taken for the official celebrations of his beatification in 2011. This contemporary artwork is executed in a stylized form with very few details. The study aims to put in evidence the multiple layers of meaning which can be found, in opposition to the visible simplicity of its shape. The major narrative context emerges through an in- depth investigation of possible interpretations. This pope had a well known devotion to the Virgin Mary, a character strongly connected with the concept of mercy, being mercifulness a characteristics of Cristian faith. The artist has expressed this concept by focalizing on the opened cloak of the pope referring to the Virgin of Mercy, a Marian model of medieval origin. Furthermore it is possible to find and interpret other biblical quotations.  The theoretical framework consists in the one built around the art historian Erwin Panofsky’s iconographical three-step method. Referring to Panofsky this study could best be classified as an iconological analysis since  the intrinsic meanings of  rather vague and complicated  symbolisms have been sought. The method has consisted in field studies of the sculpture and its context as well as literature studies in order to create a background for major comprehension of the subject. An interview with the author of the artefact has also been made.  The work became immediately heavily critiziced in mass media both because of its supposedly unflattering shape and the  lack of resemblance with the portrayed person. The debate came to the point where the artist agreed to modify it. The study contains opinions from both people and institutions collected from  italian newspaper articles written after the unveiling of the statue.  An attempt has been done to try to better understand the negative reception it received. The answers can only be suppositions. Nevertheless, some valid hypothesis can be formulated: contemporary artworks easily seem out of context in Rome since they are quite unfrequent; The pope’s statue is out of context twice, being one of its kind in a profane and in modern history anticlerical environment; the iconography is not easily readable for an average beholder, a circumstance that could contribute to the initial low grade of comprehension;  The statue doesn’t live up to people’s expectations of likeness; John Paul II  is not immediately recognizable which is experienced by the viewer as disturbing as it is dealing with an homage to a famous person. It seems though, that the appreciation of it, after overcoming the initial disappointment, generally has grown. A plausible theory is that the sculpture Conversazioni however, manage to visualize universally valid religious concepts such as mercifulness and protection, a welcoming gesture readable and perceptible to everyone.