Last moments of Mary · Apostles, prayer and promise of Assumption

The Dormition of the Virgin organizes around Mary's bed a community of prayer where each gesture prepares the passage to heaven.

The Dormition of the Virgin is not described in the Gospels but in ancient traditions taken up in the Middle Ages. Saint John, recognizable by the palm, and Saint Peter, often equipped with the censer, join the other apostles around Mary. The artists construct the stage like a painted liturgy: open books, candles, prayers and blessings surround the bed. Duccio favors the sacred order, Mantegna opens the room onto a rigorously perspective landscape, Hugo van der Goes focuses attention on the faces and Ghirlandaio associates death with the Assumption in a resurgent architecture. Duccio favors the sacred order, Mantegna opens the room onto a rigorously perspective landscape, Hugo van der Goes focuses attention on the faces and Ghirlandaio associates death with the Assumption in a resurgent architecture. The selection "Dormition of the Virgin" notably compares The Death of the Virgin - Duccio di Buoninsegna and The Death of the Virgin - Andrea Mantegna. Its reading favors atmosphere.

Around the bed of the Virgin, the apostles do not form a crowd: they become a choir of gestures, readings and silences.