Swoon of the Virgin

The Swoon of the Virgin, in Italian Lo Spasimo della Vergine, or Fainting Virgin Mary was an idea developed in the late Middle Ages, that the Virgin Mary had fainted during the Passion of Christ, most often placed while she watched the Crucifixion of Jesus. It was based on mentions in later texts of the apocryphal gospel the Acta Pilati, which describe Mary swooning. It was popular in later medieval art and theological literature, but as it was not mentioned in the Canonical Gospels, it became controversial, and from the 16th century was discouraged by many senior churchmen.

The swoon might be placed during the episode of Christ Carrying the Cross, as on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, but very commonly also during the Crucifixion of Jesus; Nicholas Penny estimates that "about half of the surviving paintings of the Crucifixion made between 1300 and 1500 will be found to include the Virgin fainting". It also appeared in works showing the Deposition from the Cross and Entombment of Christ, as well as the 15th-century novelty of Christ taking leave of his Mother.

A fainting Mary is sometimes shown in art as early as the 12th century, and becomes common by the middle of the 13th century. By 1308 the pilgrimage route of the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem included a church formally dedicated to St John the Baptist but known as the site of the Virgin's swoon; by 1350 guidebooks mention a church of Santa Maria de Spasimo, which was later replaced by housing. The very popular book Meditations on the Life of Christ, of about 1300, mentions three points in the Passion where Mary faints or collapses. By the 15th century Italian sacri monti included shrines commemorating the spasimo in their routes, and an unofficial feast-day was being celebrated by many, especially the Franciscans, and the Vatican was being asked to make it official.

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