Ad Caeli Reginam in the context of "Botticelli"

Queen of Heaven (Latin: Regina Caeli) is a title given by the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy, to Mary, mother of Jesus, and, to a lesser extent, in Evangelical Lutheranism and Anglicanism. The title has long been a tradition, included in prayers and devotional literature and seen in Western art in the subject of the Coronation of the Virgin from the High Middle Ages, long before the Church gave it a formal definition status.

The Catholic teaching on this subject is expressed in the papal encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam, issued by Pope Pius XII in 1954. Therein, the pope states that Mary is called Queen of Heaven because her son, Jesus Christ, was charged as being "King of Israel" and the heavenly king of the universe. This would render the mother of the king as the "queen mother" of Israel.

Catholic Marian churches are religious buildings dedicated to the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. These churches were built throughout the history of the Catholic Church, and today they can be found on every continent including Antarctica. The history of Marian church architecture tells the unfolding story of the development of Catholic Mariology.

The construction and dedication of Marian churches is often indicative of the Mariological trends within a period, such as a papal reign. For instance, the 1955 rededication by Pope Pius XII of the church of Saint James the Great in Montreal, with the new title Mary, Queen of the World, Cathedral, was a reflection of his being called "the most Marian pope". A year earlier, Pius had proclaimed that title for the Virgin Mary in his 1954 encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam. This encyclical on the Queen of Heaven is an example of how the interplay between churches and Marian art reinforces the effect of Marian devotions.