Legends, Images and Miracles of the Virgin Mary in the Bay of Kotor in Early Modern Period

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present two icons of the Virgin from the Bay of Kotor: their iconography, style, but above all the legends about them, the miracles they performed and, in particular, the ways in which these wonders were used in the process of constituting the legitimacy of the communes and the region. At the root of the myth of Our Lady of the Reef was the political aspiration of the citizens of Perast to consolidate their domination over the broader territory. The citizens of Prcanj had a similar aspiration. But, while the creation of the cult of Our Lady of the Reef was officially based and rested on the heroic and masculine principle, the establishment of the cult of Our Lady of Prcanj, the cult of the icon of Italo-Cretan origin was based quite opposite, on the private and women's domain. Therefore, the creation of the Virgin cults in the early modern Bay performed a variety of cultural roles. The two icons followed the meticulously designed Post-Tridentine model of linking sacral and political power and both served as mirrors of social hierarchy. However, the dynamic nature of their cultural impact, which involved more than subtle differences in the ways in which the two Virgins were produced and consumed, resulted in the justification of local cults. The similarities and variations which followed their fashioning should be perceived as two sides of the same coin, complementary and interdependent, rather than mutually exclusive phenomena.