Madonna of Loreto - Adjectives and Adverbs

Storytellers paint vivid pictures in the minds of their listeners and for guides it is no different. As you will know descriptive language is greatly enriched through the use of adjectives and adverbs.

Here is a short description of Caravaggio's masterpiece, the Madonna of Loreto, also known as the Pilgrim's Madonna. While reading, listen to the audio file to help your pronounciation. To provide you with additional help, I've also added a link below to the PDF script which shows all adjectives and adverbs highlighted:


Here we are at Sant’Agostino; the Basilica of Saint Augustine. From outside it’s an unassuming church. However, inside is a completely different story, as this church, houses a painting, a true masterpiece by none other than Caravaggio.

Let’s go and take a look! The Madonna of Loretto also known as the Pilgrim's Madonna was painted by Michelangelo Merisi, an artist more famously known as Caravaggio. He took the name Caravaggio from the hometown of his father near Milan. This painting, he completed around 1604, when he was 33 years old, just five years before his death.


Gentle, sensuous, tender and human is how Caravaggio depicted the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. It’s shockingly original for its time and caused quite an outcry when the public first saw it. As you can see, Caravaggio’s sacred figures are very human. The Virgin Mary, like the devoted pilgrims kneeling before her, is barefoot, leaning against the doorframe. This was scandalous at the time. 

While beautiful, the Virgin Mary could be any woman emerging from the night shadows. Also, she is struggling to hold a heavy well-fed baby Jesus, whose own eyes are in complete darkness as he raises his hand to bless the adoring pilgrims, who are subtly transfixed in their adoration. Much of the baby Jesus’s flesh is highly visible, as is Mary’s exposed neck and almost part of her shoulders. This painting is sensuous. 

Yet the Virgin mother looks resigned; exhausted. I guess she’s like most mothers of young babies; in need of a good night’s sleep. Rather than a glorious vision of Christ and the Madonna, it’s a depiction of gritty realism. Although if you look closely above her head, Caravaggio has given the Madonna the most subtle of halos just to remind us that she is the mother of God. Another important element to the painting is the contemporary setting, a dark doorway, next to a decaying wall with exposed brick. To our eyes it screams poverty!! And just look at those dirty feet of the male pilgrim prominently positioned in the foreground! Dirty feet in a holy picture! Dirty feet in a sacred painting. How scandalous it must have been!! 

Finally, we can certainly say this painting is very Caravaggio - dramatic with tremendous contrast - light and shadow. But perhaps in the end we can also say it’s tenderly dramatic, which just illustrates the daring mastery of Caravaggio.

Madonna of Loreto - Adjectives and Adverbs highlighted