**Preface to "The Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Devotion and Iconography"**

As its main scope, this reprint investigates some of the many ways in which Christianity venerated and performed the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Our motivations for writing this scientific work derive from the conviction that there is still much to rigorously document the various issues related to the Virgin Mary in the period under study. We believe that this book is a good response to this motivation. The reprint is especially addressed to scholars and researchers in religious issues, Christianity, Marian studies, medieval and Renaissance art and culture, as well as to everyone interested in the development of the societies and cultures of medieval and Renaissance Europe. The reprint, written by fifteen researchers in various areas of the Arts and Humanities, consists of two parts. In the first one, "Medieval and Renaissance Marian Iconography", seven papers deal with several iconographic manifestations by which Christians made their devotion to Mary visible in pictorial or sculptural forms. The second part, "Medieval and Renaissance Marian Devotion", six papers analyze some ways through which Christians rendered worship and devotion to the Virgin Mary during this long period. We take the opportunity to sincerely thank the managers and technicians of the Editorial Office of Religions for their valuable help in the difficult task of improving the content and form of each paper incorporated in this reprint.

> **Jos ´e Mar´ıa Salvador-Gonz´alez** *Editor*
