It is an icon of tenderness. But it is also a symbolic image of steadfast and far-sighted love, of trusting abandonment to a faith that "believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" and of the indissoluble relationship between visible and invisible, immanence and transcendence, human and divine: embodied in the bond of a Mother nursing her child with bare breasts, with a sweetly melancholy look, both surrounded by angels, cherubs and saints. We are talking about the painting known as "The Madonna of Tenderness": a painting of the sixteenth century (155 cm wide by 165 high), the work of an unknown author, is kept inside the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples, in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.
