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• Pietà
  Pietà

  noun

  a representation of the Virgin Mary mourning over the body of the dead Christ, usually shown held on her lap.
• pietà
  pietà

  noun

  a sculpture, painting, or drawing of the dead Christ, supported by the Virgin Mary

Pietà

American  

[pee-ey-tah, pyey-tah, pee-ey-tuh, pyey-] / ˌpi eɪˈtɑ, pjeɪˈtɑ, piˈeɪ tə, ˈpjeɪ- /

noun

(sometimes lowercase)

1. a representation of the Virgin Mary mourning over the body of the dead Christ, usually shown held on her lap.

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pietà British  

/ pɪɛˈtɑː /

noun

1. a sculpture, painting, or drawing of the dead Christ, supported by the Virgin Mary

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Pietà Cultural  

1. A painting, drawing, or sculpture of Mary, the mother of Jesus, holding the dead body of Jesus. The word means “pity” in Italian.

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The most famous of four Pietàs by Michelangelo is a sculpture at Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

Etymology

Origin of Pietà

1635–45; < Italian: literally, pity < Latin pietās piety; cf. pity

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Pietà pietà

The most elucidating superimposes a Pietà by Anne-Louis Girodet, David’s little-known pupil, over David’s “Marat.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 21, 2025

Last year, the local alderman threatened to downzone the church property, reducing its value to developers, and its Pietà had to be moved from the church with a police escort.

From Slate ● Jul. 13, 2023

There are two Pietà images in the exhibition.

From New York Times ● Dec. 12, 2022

I took all the time in the world at the Pietà.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 21, 2022

These are the Madonna and Child, the great exercise in every age for painters, and the Pietà, which he has made peculiarly his own.

From The Venetian School of Painting by Phillipps, Evelyn March

For Taylor, this outrage from the newspapers becomes a pietà, driven by an intimacy based not on actual acquaintance but rather on personal identification.

From The New Yorker ● Jul. 23, 2018

That makes the play’s closing pietà risible when it should be moving.

From New York Times ● Feb. 14, 2011

Her expression of quiet hopeless grief was admirably suited to the high-bred cast of her features; she would have made a beautiful model for a Zenobia or a classisized type of pietà.

From The Whirligig of Time by Williams, Wayland Wells

However, Leo X.'s bull, Inter multiplices, exempts the so-called monti di pietà, and by this means put obstacles in the way of saving, and promoted real usury.

From Principles of Political Economy, Vol. II by Roscher, Wilhelm

It was painted by Moretto of Brescia, of whom Lanzi truly says that his sacred subjects express la compunzione, la pietà, la carità istessa; and this picture is an instance.

From Legends of the Madonna as Represented in the Fine Arts by Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)