"Stabat Mater speciosa" ("The beautiful mother stood"[1] [2]) is a Catholic hymn to Mary about the Nativity of Jesus.
It first appeared in a 1495 edition of the Italian poems of Jacopone da Todi, along with "Stabat Mater dolorosa", but "Stabat Mater speciosa" was almost forgotten until it was re-transcribed in 1852 in the French: Poètes Franciscains en Italie au Treizième siècle in Paris. It has since been viewed as one of the tenderest Marian hymns and one of the seven greatest Latin hymns.[3] [4] It has become part of standard oratorios (e.g. Franz Liszt's Christus[5]), and has given rise to various Christmas carols.