ABSTRACT
Until a few years ago, and certainly before the publication of the collective volume which formed the catalogue of the ‘Mother of God’ exhibition, it would have been difficult to make definitive statements about the role of the Virgin in the Middle Byzantine era.1 Now scholars in various fields have recorded their views on the Virgin cult2 and have made a decisive contribution to establishing a picture of the significant role she played at this time, in particular between the eighth and the eleventh centuries. Although her cult began in the early Christian era, it took centre stage when it became identified with the cult of icons during the period which conventionally we term as iconoclasm.3 As recent research has shown, it was at this time that the human image of the Virgin as Mother of God came to the fore.4
