• the important medieval fresco cycle in Castelseprio, Italy, (pictured) was rediscovered only in 1944?

Facts on topics related to Castelseprio

Mary (mother of Jesus)

• Anne Juliana Gonzaga became a Servant of Mary following the death of her husband, Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria in 1595, after receiving a vision of the Madonna, to whom her parents had prayed to cure her of a childhood illness?
• legend says that Osanna of Mantua miraculously learned to read just by looking at a piece of paper with the words Jesus and Mary written on it?
• the Moscow Kremlin's Church of the Deposition (pictured) is named after a Byzantine tradition that the robe of the Virgin Mary was taken to Constantinople?
• the Bandra Fair in Mumbai, India was established to commemorate finding a statue of Mary in the Arabian Sea?
• the Hortus conclusus or "enclosed garden" was both a title and attribute of Mary and a type of actual garden?
• the Monument of the Holy Mother of God (pictured) in Haskovo, southeastern Bulgaria, is the tallest statue of the Virgin Mary with the Infant Jesus in the world?
• the citizens of Morella, Spain, hold a sexennial nine-day celebration to commemorate their deliverance from the plague by the Virgin of Vallivana?

John the Baptist

• William Hogarth's Four Times of the Day (pictured) shows a sign for a pie shop with a picture of the severed head of John the Baptist and the words "Good Eating"?
• Martha, the mother of Simeon Stylites, is said to have only consented to marriage after John the Baptist appeared to her telling her to do so?
• owing to a fictitious 13th century account, St. Gratus of Aosta (pictured) is typically depicted carrying the head of John the Baptist?
• the late Roman Red Church near Perushtitsa in Bulgaria featured frescoes of apocryphal scenes such as the flight of Elizabeth and the murder of Zechariah, John the Baptist's parents?

Blessed Virgin Mary

• Estela Ruiz claims to have seen and spoken with the Blessed Virgin Mary in South Phoenix, Arizona continually from 1988 to 1998?
• May crowning is a traditional Roman Catholic ritual in which the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary is ceremonially crowned to signify her as Queen of Heaven and Mother of God?
• Blessed Veronica of Milan unsuccessfully tried to teach herself to read until an apparition of the Virgin told her that spiritual lessons were more important?
• the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a national monument in Singapore, was given by Sultan Ibrahim of Johor in Malaysia?
• the Marian column on which Our Lady stands on Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome originally supported the vault of the Basilica of Constantine at the Roman Forum and was the only one such column to survive the Basilica's destruction in an earthquake?

Gospel

• Codex Cyprius is one of the very few uncial manuscripts with the complete text of the four Gospels?
• Gatianus of Tours was one of seven bishops sent by Pope Fabian from Rome to Gaul to preach the Gospel?
• Kjell Fjalsett, Arnold Børud, Ivar Skippervold and Rune Larsen constitute the gospel group Frisk Luft, called the first Christian supergroup in Norway?
• Minuscule 113 (pictured) manuscript of the four Gospels contains 24 pictures?
• Minuscule 543, a manuscript of the four Gospels, has additional non-biblical material – Limits of the Five Patriarchates?
• the 1983 translation of the Gospel into Azerbaijani by Mirza Khazar has been republished five times in subsequent years?
• the fifth-century Syriac Curetonian Gospels found in Egypt represent a considerably older, independent textual tradition of the four gospels?
• the oldest surviving translation of the Gospels into English was made at St Mary and St Cuthbert (pictured), Chester-le-Street, England?

Nativity of Jesus

• Christian references in Islamic art include the Annunciation, the birth of Jesus and his baptism?
• as well as the Nativity of Jesus, Olivier Messiaen's organ composition La Nativité du Seigneur was inspired by birdsong, the French Alps, and medieval stained glass?

Saint Joseph

• Josephology is a modern theological study of Saint Joseph (pictured) and one of the most recent theological disciplines?
• it has been suggested that the shepherds in Mantegna's The Adoration of the Shepherds (pictured) are facing Joseph rather than Jesus?

Life of the Virgin

• medieval cycles of the Life of the Virgin could have as many as 53 scenes before reaching the Annunciation of her pregnancy?