The United States Has Its Own Heavenly Patroness, and She Is Our Lady Immaculate, or the Virgin Mary Immaculata

The American bishops proclaimed her patroness of the country in May 1846, eight years before the Vatican made the Immaculate Conception a dogma.

The Immaculate Conception is one of the most widely reproduced images in Western art: a maiden in white and blue, a crescent moon beneath her feet, twelve stars about her head, a motif drawn from the Book of Revelation. The canon was fixed by the Spaniard Francisco Pacheco, and the standard was set by Murillo, followed by Velázquez and Tiepolo.

According to one version, the designer of the European Union flag drew his inspiration precisely from the crown of twelve stars worn by the Madonna Immaculata, so that the blue banner with its stars over Brussels is an allusion to a secularised image of the Mother of God.

Report a translation error

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

The United States Has Its Own Heavenly Patroness, and She Is Our Lady Immaculate, or the Virgin Mary Immaculata

Read more

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s