Empress, Virgin, Ecclesia. The Icon of Santa Maria in Trastevere in the Early Byzantine Context

The paper is dedicated to the icon of the Mother of God in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome. The panel was executed in the encaustic technique, which, together with the characteristics of style, allowed scholars to date the image from the late 6^th to the early 8^th century. The icon represents the Virgin as Queen, which is conveyed through her vestments that reproduce the dress of a Byzantine Empress. This iconography, generally known as Maria Regina, was widespread in early medieval Rome. For this reason it came to be regarded as a specific Western variant of Marian imagery, which emerged under the direct influence of the popes and served as an expression of their political aspirations. My research is dedicated to the analysis of the icon in the context of Early Byzantine culture. This paper concerns only one of a wide range of issues related to the topic. The iconographic peculiarities of the icon are considered from a new angle, suggesting that the Roman context alone cannot explain its origin. The analysis of the contemporary female imagery and Marian theology indicates that the Trastevere icon was created under the influence of ideas that belonged to a common religious heritage shared by the entire Christian world - ideas that determined the perception of the image of the Mother of God in the Roman icon as Empress, Virgin and Ecclesia.