The Immaculate Conception

In 1492 the Immaculate Conception, the belief that Mary herself was conceived free of original sin, was still an open quarrel in the Church. The Franciscans championed it, the Dominicans opposed it, and a Franciscan pope, Sixtus IV, had to forbid either side from calling the other heretics. It became Catholic dogma only in 1854. Crivelli signed and dated this panel that year for the Franciscan church in Pergola, a small town in the Marche, and it puts the friars' position into words. Two angels hold a ribbon over Mary's head that says, as from the beginning I was conceived in the mind of God, so have I been made. God the Father looks down among red seraphim, with the dove below him. On the ledge stand roses in a jug and white lilies in a glass vase.