pietà

See also: pieta, Pietà, pietä, and pięta

English

Michelangelo's Pietà (1498)

Alternative forms

• pieta

Etymology

From Italian pietà. Doublet of piety, and pity.

Noun

pietà (plural pietàs)

1. A sculpture or painting of the Virgin Mary holding and mourning the dead body of Jesus.
   • 1905, Mary Augusta Ward, The Marriage of William Ashe‎^[1]:

     Two ladies were already in the cloister chapel, with a gentleman. As Kitty and her friend entered, these persons had just finished their inspection of the damaged but most beautiful "Pietà" which hangs over the altar, and their faces were towards the entrance.

   • 1998, David Adams, “Afterword: The Artistic Alchemy of Joseph Beuys”, in Thomas Braatz, transl., Bees, Rudolf Steiner, page 195:

     Whereas Beuys's early sculptural work was consciously formed within a modernized version of the stylized Romanesque tradition of art, frequently with a Christian content such as crucifixions or pietàs, he gradually was able to free himself from this more traditional approach.

   • 2009, Pico Iyer, “5: Making Kindness Stand to Reason”, in Rajiv Mehrotra, editor, Understanding the Dalai Lama, page 61:

     Ceremonial masks, Hindu deities, and pietàs shine down on you.

   • 2011, Caroline van Eck, Stijn Bussels, Theatricality in Early Modern Art and Architecture, page 10:

     It does not show the events it depicts as static, frozen in the eternal present of historia sacra in the way many late medieval crucifixions, pietàs or annunciations do, but as a narrative.

Further reading

• pietà on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Category:Pietà on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

Anagrams

• Tapei, Piteå

Italian

Alternative forms

• pieta, pietade, pietate

Etymology

Inherited from Old Italian pietade, pietate, from Latin pietātem (“piety”, “pity”). By surface analysis, pio (“pious”) +‎ -età (“-ity”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pjeˈta/^*
• Rhymes: -a
• Hyphenation: pie‧tà

Noun

pietà f (invariable)

1. pity, compassion, godliness
2. piety
3. (art) pietà

Derived terms

• pietismo
• pietoso

Related terms

• pietista

Further reading

• pietà in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
• Pietà (sentimento) on the Italian Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^it
• Pietà (arte) on the Italian Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^it
• Pietà (araldica) on the Italian Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^it

Lombard

Pronunciation

• (Milanese) IPA^(key): /pjeˈta/

Noun

pietà f

1. pity
2. piety