On December 12, at 11:30 a.m., the book “The Generous Mother. From the Cult of Isis to the Madonna Lactans” (Zip editions) will be presented at the MuNDA National Museum of Abruzzo – Borgo Rivera, L’Aquila.
“Around that gesture, the breastfeeding mother,” reads a statement from the museum, “the oldest in the world, which begins the journey of life, Lucia Arbace, director of the Polo Museale d’Abruzzo, has anchored a performance, an exhibition, and now, finally, the volume “The Generous Mother: From the Cult of Isis to the Madonna Lactans,” requested even before its publication. It will be presented in the presence of Dr. Francesco Sirano, director of the Herculaneum Archaeological Park, where the iconic image, the Isis Lactans, originates.
The book, with fifteen contributions from leading specialists and young scholars, unfolds along complex paths. From ancient Egypt to Italic cultures, from Magna Graecia to the contemporary era, passing through the medieval Madonna Lactans, the highest humanization of the sacred, the moment in which distant, courtly religiosity approaches everyday reality. It is the theme of fertility, motherhood, and the apotropaic power assigned to deities with human faces and gestures. The exhibition, inaugurated in July with a tribute to the lives of young mothers who breastfed their children at the fountain of 99 spouts, in front of the Museum, has been extended until January 6th.
The texts and notes in the volume are by: Lucia Arbace, Simona Balassone, Valentina Belfiore, Alessandro Bencivenga, Caterina Cozzolino, Elena De Panfilis, Gianluca Di Luigi, Rita Di Maria, Alessia Di Stefano, Alessandra Giancola, Agata Grasso, Raffaella Lupia, Luigia Melillo, Marta Moi, Nicolina Picone, Marta Vittorini, and Lucia Zappacosta.
