Immaculate Conception - Roma, Italy
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denben
N 41° 54.304 E 012° 28.975
33T E 291224 N 4642300
The statue of the Immaculate Conception stands on top of a column located in Piazza Mignanelli, steps away from Piazza di Spagna, in Rome, Italy.
Waymark Code: WM10WDN
Location: Lazio, Italy
Date Posted: 07/01/2019
Views: 5
The Column of the Immaculate Conception (Italian: La Colonna della Immacolata) is a nineteenth-century monument in central Rome depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Marian monument was designed by the architect Luigi Poletti, the actual figure atop was sculpted by Giuseppe Obici and commissioned by Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies. In part, he wanted to put closure to the dispute between Naples and the Papal States that had developed in the last century, when Naples abolished the Chinea, a yearly tribute offered to the Pope as ultimate sovereign of Naples.
The structure is a square marble base with statues of biblical figures at the corners that uphold a column of Cipollino marble of 11.8 meters. Atop the column is a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary. The standard imagery of the immaculate conception is used: a virgin on a crescent, atop the world, stomping a serpent (a symbol of the original sin assigned to all humans, except the Virgin Mary, since Adam and Eve). (
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In Christian theology, the Immaculate Conception is the conception of the Virgin Mary free from original sin by virtue of the merits of her son Jesus. The Catholic Church teaches that God acted upon Mary in the first moment of her conception, keeping her "immaculate".
While many Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, it is principally Roman Catholics, along with various other Christian denominations, who believe in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Although the belief that Mary was sinless, or conceived without original sin, has been widely held since Late Antiquity, the doctrine was not dogmatically defined in the Catholic Church until 1854 when Pope Pius IX, declared ex cathedra, i.e., using papal infallibility, in his papal bull Ineffabilis Deus, the Immaculate Conception to be doctrine. (
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