ACTA AC ADE MI A E AB 0 E N SI S, SE R.

A
HUMANIORA
HUMANISTISKA VETENSKAPER SOCIALVETENSKAPER TEOLOGI

Val. 31 nr 2

ICON TO NARRATIVE
THE RISE OF THE DRAMATIC CLOSE-UP IN
FIFTEENTH-CENTURY DEVOTIONAL PAINTING

BY

SIXTEN RINGBOM

ABO AKADEMI
ABO I965

JO Sixten Ringbom
Gnadenbild, 42 and similar prototypes have also been shown to form the models for
half-length representations of the Virgin in Westphalia and the Rhineland.43 For the
Netherlands. we have the striking example of the ,,Ntre Dame de Gdces" in Cam-
brai Cathedral. This Dugento painting was brought to Cambrai in 1440, and in 145 4
no less than fifteen copies of the Madonna were ordered from the painters Petrus
Christus and Hayne de Bruxelles. 44
Both the Gnadenbilder and the images of indulgence :in some cases adopted iden-
tical motifs and pictorial formulas, but the similarity does not end there. In fact,
both represent the same trend of late medieval ,piety, the tendency, that is, to regard
the devotion in front of an image as an effective means of supplication, the efficacy
in the one case consisting of the alleged authenticity and miraculous power of the
image itself1 in the other being the prospect of salvation affered by the indulgence
which was connected with the image.
3. The Private Image
Along with the diffusion of mysticism into lay circles 1 late medieval private piety
gradually assumed an individualistic character1 which, however, is easier recognized
than defined. Private devotion, the individual's personal intercourse with the Divi
nity, is not, to be sure, a characteristic of the late fourteenth and the fifteenth cen
turies alone, but it would nevertheless seem as if personal religion during this pe
riod developed in a new and significant way. The development may be difficult to
define precisely, but some of its external features are instead easier to sort out.
One such feature is naturally to be found in the fundamental accessory of private
devotion, the text needed for the prayer and meditation. Apart from the liturgical
texts used by the clergy - the Missal for the Mass and the Breviary for the choir
service - there had existed Prayer Books for the layman since the Early Middle
Ages. 1 During the thirteenth century the Psalter served the same pm-pose, and to the
42
_R. ~ritz, Da~ Halbfigurenbild in der westdeutschen Tafelmalerei um 1400", Zeit
schuft fur Kunstwissenschaft, 5, 1951, pp. 161 ff. E. Wiegand, Die bhmischen GnadenbiJ.
der, Diss. (Gttingen), Wrzburg, 1936.
43
Fritz, op.cit., pp. 170 ff. For Austrian late mcdieval Gnadenbilder>~ see the introduc-
tory chapter in H. Aurenhammer, Die Marlengnadenbilder Wiens und Niedersterreichs
in der Barockzeit, Vienna, 1956, pp. 41-58 with further references.
44
J. Dupont, "Hayne de Bruxelles et la copie de Notre Dame de Grces de Cambrai"
L'Amour de l'art, 16, 1935, pp. 363 ff.; Panofslzy, E.N.P., p. 29 7.
,
1
E.g. Alcuin's De ~salmorum usu (P.L., 101, cols. I383-I4r6). See Leroquais, Les livres
d heures, I, lntroductwn, p. V; M. Meertens, De godsvrucht in de Nederlanden naar Hss.
en__ geb~denboeken der XV eeuw, I, Brussels, 1930, p. 4i F. X. Haimerl, Mittelalterliebe
Fmmm1gkeit im Spiegel der Gebetbuchsliteratur Sddeutschlands {Mncbener theologische
l
!I!
!I
I]
Icon to Narrative JI i"' .'1
,,
::i'
Psa]ms we often find appended the texts for the hours of the shorter office. This
appendix was later separated from its original context1 and thus the Book of Hours
caroe into being.
The Book of Hours is 1 as we know, a collection of nffices and prayers for the per
sonal use of the pious, nune br6viaire 2. l'usage des lalques as the great authority in
the field, Abb6 Leroquais, has expressed it. 2 Intended for private devotion it was free
,,
,,,
from the bounds of litmgy and outside the contml of the Chmch. It could thus de-
velop a considerable freedom in composition and contents. The first examples of
separate Books of Hours come from the fourteenth century, but the overwhelming
ma.jority of manuscripts date from the fifteenth century. From about 1450 onwards
their popularity grew enormously, and the true heyday of the Book of Hours can
be said tobe the latter half of the century.
Besides the Book of Hours there existed, during the fifteenth century1 other col~
Iections of texts for the edification of the layman. Such were the various kinds of
Prayer Bocks of which the very popular Hortalus animae is a case in point. The
composition of the Prayer Books was even more varied than that of the Bocks of
Hours. In these repositories of religious poetry we meet a form of prayer which is
wholly aliturgical in character: the rhymed prayers or the Pia dictamina. These ver-
scs, of which the earliest datc from the ninth ccntury but the great majority from the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were exclusively composed for private devotion
and personal edification. Freed from the demands of liturgy they developed their
own, clearly discernible style tagether with a highly subjective and emotional tone,
using de"vices such as the enumeration of the epithets of Christ and the Virgin, ex
hortations and admonitions with address to the reader etc. 3
The distinction between, on the one band, the liturgical books of the church
service, and, an the other, texts intended for the private devotion, has a Counterpart
in pictorial art. As has been said before (above, pp. 13 f.), there are reasons for belie-
ving in the existence of isolated images intended for private devotion during the
1:
''
Studien, Abt. I, Bd 4), Munich, 1952, pp. 5 f. See especially Sister Meertens' (pp. 2I ff.)
and Haimerl's (pp. 34-6r) discussions of the individualistic trends of private piety as a
result of the diffusion of mysticism during the 15th century.
2 Leroquais, Livres d'beures, I, p. vi.
3 >> Reimgebete oder Leselieder ... , welche nicht fr den liturgischen Gebrauch son-
dern fr Privatandacht und husliche Erbauung gemeint waren." Bestimmt fr die per-
snliche Erbauung des Einzelnen, prgen sie diesen Character des Privaten, des Subjektiven
' im Gegensatze zu der liturgischen, auf das Allgemeine berechnete Poesie meist deutlich
und kenntlich genug aus. Ganz abgesehen von den mancherlei Vorwrfen, welche in der
liturgischen Poesie ausgeschlossen wren, ... ist das prgnante Hervortreten des Ich's des
Dichters beziehungsweise Beters meist ein sicherer Leitstern." (G. M. Dreves, Pia dicta
mina, I-VII [Analecta hymnica, I 51 29-33, 46L Leipzig, 1893-1905; I. pp. 5 f.).
- 32 Sixten Ringborn
Early and High Middle Ages, but, here again, their popularity seems to have increased
conspicuously during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The difference be-
tween images adapted to the needs of liturgy and pictures used for private devotion
is, incidentally, rather strikingly illustrated in a miniature coming from an ascetical
treatise executed about I457 (Fig. s). 4 In the interior of a church the celebration of
the Mass is going on; to the left the officiating priest is reading from a Missal, a
large book placed on the altar. The altar retable in front of him is divided into three
panels showing from left to right the "Carrying of the Cross", the Crucifixion",
and the >Deposition". To the right the chorus is seen chanting from an antiphonary,
and in the background the congregation is follnwing the celebration of the Mass 1
one man having advanced as far as to the altar where he is watehing the priest from
behind the riddel. Now, as a cantrast to the practice in public worship, Philip the
Good of Burgnndy is shown kneeling in prayer in the privacy of a tent decm:at,edfj
with the briquets of Burgundy. 5 He is reading from a Book of Hours or a Praycr Book
and in front of him he has a little diptych, displaying to the left a ha!Hength "Ma-
donna,. and to the right a kneeling figure 1 obviously intended to represent the Duke
himself. All the paraphemalia of private devotion 1 the prie-dieu, the Prayer Book
and the little image, are juxtaposed with the accessories of public worship 1 the altar1
the Missal and the retable. The relationship between public worship and private
devotion could hardly be better conveyed by words.
The miniature of Philip the Good in his tent would have a rather restricted value
as information on the function of private images, were it not for the fact that it can
be supplemented by other sources, textual and pictorial. If we look south of the
Alps we find, for instance, that the remarkable output of handy little Madonna
panels of the Italian Trecento and Quattrocento suggests a rather widespread cut:tom ,
to own private images intended for chapels, houses or travel. Thus Fra Ginvanni Do-
minici, writing shortly before I400 on the education of children1 treated private
images as a matter of course. His main concem was the beneficial effects of a sui-
table choice of pictures on young boys and girls. The first thing is to have, in the
house, paintings of holy boys and young virgins in which your child while still in
swaddling-bands can delight himself, since like calls to like, with the deeds and
characteristics that appeal to childhood. The same applies to sculpture as well as
4
TraitC asctique, Brussels, Bibi. Royale, MS. 9092, fol. 9r. See F. Winlder, Die flmische
Buchmalerei des XV. und XVI. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1925, p. r64. I am indebted to Pro~
fessor Francis Warmaid for calling my attention to this miniature.
5 The same arrangement for the private devotion of princely persans can be observed
in several dedication miniatures of the rsth and early r6th centuries. See e.g. a picture of
Margaret of York in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS.Douce 363, fol. rrs (0. Pcht, The
Master of Mary of Burgundy, London, 1948, pls. 2, 44), and our Figs. 2-3.
lcon to Narrative 33
to paintings, he added, and continued: Suitable themes are the Virgin Mary with
the Child on her arm, and a little bird or a pomegranate in his hand. A good motif
would also be the Suckling Christ1 Christ, sleeping in the Mother's lap; .. Thus let
the child mirrar hirnself in the Holy Baptist dressed in a camel's skin ... It would
not harm him to see Christ and the Baptist painted, Christ and the Evangelist to-
gether as children, the Massacre of the Innocents. One should thus nurture the little
girls with the sight of the eleven thousand virgins ... " Dominici thus regarded pri-
vate pictures as didactically valuable; they are the "books of the simple, which
contemplated and understood Iead to the knowledge of the highest Good". If one
cannot or does not wish to malze one's hause like a temple with the paintings one
should show the children the images in the church. One should not, however, use
pictures made of valuable materials as gold or jewels lest the young be made more
idolatrous than believing, revering gold and precious stones instead of the figures
or the reality represented by the figures." 6
Fra Giovanni's well-meant advice betrays familiarity with an already existing cus-
toro to make the hause lil<:e a temple with paintings, and his main concem was
the education of the young. N ow there is some information ab out one of his con-
temporary admirers which shows the kind of paintings that, during the end of the
fourteenth century could belang to a wealthy Italian merchant and trusted citizen.
Francesco di Marco Datini of Prato (c. I33S-I4IO), who, as we know, enriched
posterity with a wealth of information on late medieval life by bequeathing his
archives to the town of Prato, is known to have owned three sacred pictures in his
bedroom, one in each of his tw"o guest rooms, and one in his office. 7 In some letters
to Francesco the agent who arranged his art purchases, a man called Domenico di
Cambio1 made a number of suggestions which show us something of the character
of the private panels thinkable for such a purpose. Once two diptychs are menti-
oned1 in one each half being the size of a folio, and in the other one side rendering
Christ with the Virgin and St. John and the other side a Madonna and Child". In
another lettcr Francesco's agent suggests a >->-Pietit>-> with the Virgin Mary. 8 Messer
Domenico also expressed his opinions on the purpose of these images; they should
move a man's spirit to devotion. >Verily, men who are hard of heart and caught
up in this world1s toils need these pious stories ... " 9 As has been shown by Martin
Wackemagel 10 the Trecento domestic devotional image had its continuation in the
G Giovanni Dominici, Regola del governo di cura familiare, ed. D. Salvi, Florence, r86o,
pp. !30 ff.
7 See I. Origo, The Merchant of Prato, Francesco di Marco Datini, London, I957 1 p. 234.
' Cf. below, p. 67.
9 Origo, op.dt., pp. 234 f.
to M. Wackernagel, Der Lebensraum des Knstlers in der orentinischen Renaissance,
Leipzig, I938, pp. r8o .ff.
3
 34 Sixten Ringbom
Flotentine Quattrocento where it still retained its traditional place in interior deco-
ration. For_ the early_ and middle Quattrocento Wackernagel distinguishes between
threc main typcs, the very small Madonna, the middle-sized full-length Madonna
and the half-Iength Madonna, whereas narrative compositions remairred rare. Bu~
the new emphasis an the decorative and aesthetic functions of art1 as contrasted to
the purely cultic function of the Trecento image, resulted in new types of greater
size, as well as in greater numbers. The Minerbetti inventories of 1493 list ten pain-
tings of which four depicted religious subjects - three Madonnas and one "Pia-
11
tit - , but in 1502 we hear of a narrative representation of the Nativity given as
a present.1 2 By this time we also encounter the new type of collector represented by
the Medicis. But even in the inventories of Piero (1465) and Lorenzo di Medici
(1492) we come across references to pictures of a typethat appear to have belonged1
originally at least, to the same class of bedroom icons as Datini's paintings. The
inventory of Piero di Medici mentions about a dozen ,,Greelz,, pictures, e.g., "a
Creek panel with the half-length figure of the Saviour, decorated with silver.,,t:s
1
Lorenzo s inventory includes Flemish Madonnas", Holy Faces and double port-
raits of Christ and the Virgin. 14 Flemish pictures are also mentioned as a dearly
loved possession by Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, writing in 1460 from Florence to
her son in Bruges. She contemplated the selling of her pictures but would not part
from her "Holy Face", 15 In the papal bed room of Clement VII there was also a
Flemish painting, which was stolen during the Sack of Rome, and finally found a
place in the treasury of the Cathedral of Cagliari (Fig. 96)."
In the sixteenth century Giovanni Battista Armenini complained about the old
and ugly devotional images he had seen in Northem Italy. Hauses and places in
those parts were, according to Armenini, admirably decorated except for the paint-
ings of holy images which for the most part consisted of little panels of certain
figures alla Greca, very coarse, unpleasing and entirely sootblackened; and apt to
anything but to excite devotion or to be an ornament to the place. And it is, indeed,
a great shame that we, though Christians and true Catholics, spend so much on
11
A. Schiaparelli, La casa Fiorentina e i suoi arredi nei secoli XIV e XV, 1, Florence,
1908 1 p. 184.
12 Op.cit., p. 186, n. r.
13
E. MntZ1 Les collections des Midicis au XVe siGcle Paris & London r888 p 39
14 Ibid., pp. 82, 8s, 90. , ' ' . .
"El Volto santo serberO; ehe e una divota figura e bella. (Alessandra Maeinghi Strozzi
15
Lettere. a~ figlioli, ed. G. Papinil Lancianol I9I41 p. s8). See A. Warburgl >>Flandrische und
flmentnusehe Kunst im Kreise des Lorenzo Medici um 1480 1 in: Gesammelte Schriften,
I, Berlin1 1932, pp. 207~r2; esp. p. 2rr.
16
C. Aru, "Il trittico di Clemente VII nel Tesoro del Duomo di Cagliari" 1 M6langes
Bulin de Loo, Brussels & Paris, 193 r, p. 17 .
lcon to Narrative 35
v-arious kinds of pomp and that beyond measure; while in the rooms where we
rest and spend most of our lives in sweet rest, we should not lack images with
grace and good design. For whereto do we turn every day and pray to God if not
to such beautiful images?" 17 Holy images do not only teach the ignorant the right
path, but move us to true piety and devotion. 18
The paintings alla Greca seen by Armenini were probably Italo-Byzantine icons
acquired some time during the preceding centu1y or centuries and then inherited
from generation to generation in the families. But he also saw the most honourable
paintings by artists as Titian, Correggio and Giulio Romano, depicting the mysteries
of Our Lord and the Virgin>> where the women truly appeared full of tenderness
and shedding tears; such were the great vividness and excellence of the pictures. 19
Besides the old devotional images there existed, then, more recent ones answering
the new demands on emotional approach and psychological characterization.
Jacob Burckhardt, who was the first to study the phenomenon of private images
of .fifteenth-century Italy in detail, regarded the collections of Madonnas seen by
Ridolfi. and Sansovino in Venetian churches and scuole as originally coming from
private houses. In the course of time the paintings found their way to churches
and public buildings owing to shortage of space ur the absence of heirs. 20 Burck-
hardt also drew attention to a custom referred to by Armenini21 and Vasari; 22 in
Lombardy as weil as in Tuscany and Rome it was customary to give paintings a5.
11 " eeeetto di pitture delle Saere Imagini, le quali erano la maggior parte quadretti
di certe figure fatte alla Greca, goffissime, dispiaeeuoli, e tutte affumieate, le qualie ad ogni
altra cosa pareuano esserui state poste, fuori ehe a mouer diuotione, ouero a fare orna-
mento a simil luoghi: & nel uero che'6 pure una gran vergogna, poiche essende tutti noi
Christiani1 &. veri Cattolici, tanto si spenda in porope eosi varie 1 &. fuori di misura1 &
nelle camere doue ci riposiamo1 e trattaneroo la maggior parte del tempo del viuer nostro,
con dolcissima quiete non ci sia almeno una pittura di garbo 1 & ben'intesa: &. per doue
ei habbiamo noi a voltare ogni giorno, & suppliear il grande Iddio, se non in queste belle
imagini?" {G. B. Armenini, De' veri precetti della pittum, Ravenna, 1586, pp. 188 f.).
lB Ibid,, p. 34
19 Ho veduto honoratissimi quadri, ehe vengono da Titiano dal Coreggio, & da Giulio
1
Roroano, con dentro Misterij di N. Sig. & della Beata Vergine 1 i qua1i quando le Matrone
di chi erano; li vedeuano seoperti per tenerezza vsciano loro le lagrime da gli occhi, tanto
era la vivacit<l1 & l'eceellenza grande di quelle ... " (Ibid., pp. 88 f.).
20 J. Burckhardt, Beitrde zur K1mstg,eschichte von Italien. Die Sammler (Gesamtausgabe,
r2L Stuttgart1 1930, p. 296.
21 Ibid., pp. 300 f.; Armenini, op.cit., p. 189.
22 Vasari {Le vite, ed. Milanesi, VI Florence r88r, pp. 393, 4I7J also mentions images
1 1
for the dead; this has led P. Schubring (Ein sieneser Totenbild", Festschrift zum sechs-
zigsten Geburtstag von Faul Clemen, Bmm1 1926, p. 344) to assume that the Venetian
Cristo-morto pietures by Giovanni Bellini, Mantegna, and others were erdered in comme~
moration of a funeral.
~-,
SiXten Ringborn
wedding presents. The quadri da spose may also explain the increasing popularity
of the St. Catherine images., since this motif was naturally appropriate for wedcling
presents. 23 To this may be added that paintings appear as gifts in other connections
also; thus the marquises of Mantua, for instance, are known to have presented
Madonnas" to friends or arranged similar decorations to be painted for their
friends 1 cabinets. 24
Burckhardt saw the origin of art collecting in the custom to keep private
devotional images in the houses, and in bis opinion the history of the domestic
image can be founded an ,,fast sicheren Vermutungen". 25 He looked to early
fifteenth-century Florence for a starting point, but, as we saw, Giovanni Dominici
had already treated domestic devotional art as a matter of course before 1400. This
does not, however, affect the basic thesis of Burckhardt's account which supplies
a very plausible background to the rise of a whole series of new compositional
formulas during the fifteenth century, the half-length relief, the tondo, the Venetian
half-length groups, and the isolated half length figure in Tuscany and Northem
Italy. 26
North of the Alps the sources for the history of the private image must be
supplemented with pictorial evidence. Up to the early fifteenth century sculpture
seems to have been the most cmnmon medium for devotional art. This is shown by
the extant monuments as well as by testimony of the inventories. In the inventoty
of Charles V of France, however, we find among the profusion of statuettes and
goldsmith's work a group of tableaux. These panels mostly consisted of single
portraits of the Virgin or Christ, or a combination of the two into a diptych. 27
Christ is always shown as the "Man of Sorrows"; renderings of historical subjects
occur rarely. The inventory of the Duke Jean de Berry lists a greater nurober of
similar panels and diptychs of the Virgin and Christ, and here, too, narrative scenes
belang to the exceptions. 28 Two Byzantine or Italo-Byzantine icons, one Madonna
and Child with a kneeling woman, and one "Man of Sorrows 1 are also mentioned
in the inventory,29 which, moreover, shows that north of the Alps, too, there
existed a custo-m to present little panels as gifts. 30 In the inventories of the dukes
23 Burckhardt, op.cit., p. 3or.
24
P. Kristeller, Andrea Mantegna, (Engl. ed.), London, 1901, p. 322 and nn. r-2.
2
5 Burckhardt, op.cit., p. 299.
26
Burckhardt, op.cit., pp. 302-9 ..
27
J. Labarte (ed.), lnventaire du mobilier de Cbarles V, Roi de France, Paris, 1878, nos.
891, 2278 (the Virgin), 2140, 2380, (Man of Sorrows"), 2020, 2769 (diptychs), 2309 (triptych).
28
J. Guiffrey (ed.), lnventaires de Jean, Duc de Berry, I-II, Paris, 1894-96, A73, A77
[the Virgin), Ars, Ar6, A32, A34, A39, Bs3 [diptychs).
2
o Ibid., A6r, Arro6.
30
lbid., A73, A94, Arro6, Arw8, B53.
Icon to Narrative 37
of Burgundy we also find references to little panels. In the po-ssession of Charles
the Fearless there was ung petit tableau de devocion, oll est la passion",31 tog~ther
with diptychs, polyptychs and tondoes. 32 Philip the Good owned some pa1nted
"grants tableaux",aa a triptych de fac;on de Grece, 34 two tondoes35 and other
iroages.a6 King Rene of Sicily had in bis chamber a painting of the "Descent from
tbe- Cross, and in his chambre du petit retrait" there was a little panel of the
"Annunciation and an the bed a Madonna panel. 37 Later, Margaret of Austria,
daughter of Mary of Burgundy, is known to have owned several devotional images;
the inventories of rsr6 and 1525 mention panels depicting motifs as the >>Ecce
Homo, the Madonna", the ,,Man of Sorrows", etc.3 8
The inventories of royal and ducal collections do not1 of course, as such admit
generalizations as to the frequency of private images among laymen in general,
and for the beginning of the fifteenth century there is unfortunately little eise in
the way of textual evidence to rely upon. During the latter half of the century,
however, the custom to own little paintings must have been widespread, judging
from the fact that many popular inventions were produced an a semi-industrial
scale; designs invented by farnaus artists have thus come down to us through
groups of numerous co-pies, often of paar quality. In a few instances _such as the
Salvator coronatus;.;. by Dirc Bouts39 and the Ecce Homo by Jean Hey-4 we know
for certain that they were owned by private persons, but- as is only to be expected
when dealing with private art - there is little exterior evidence to connect the
images with their original owners. For the most part we have only the testimony
of size and/or mediocre quality, and large editions", tagether with the intrinsic
indications of iconography, to rely an when trying to restore the original function
of the paintings.
The faithfully executed interiors of northem art of the fifteenth and early
31 L. de Laborde, Les ducs de Bourgogne, 2e partie, Preuves, II, Paris, 1851, no. 3844.
32 nos. 385 (tableau ront de la Trinite, de brodure"), 2230, 3290, 329r.
Ibid.,
33 nos. 4078, 4083, 4085.
lbid.,
3J no. 4079. A ,,Greek" Madonna panel is also mentioned as item 4249.
Ibid.,
35 nos. 4081 4084.
Ibid., 1
36 nos. 4082, 4086, 42501 4251.
lbid.,
37 Inventory of the Chateau d'Angers 1471-72; A. Lecoy de la Marche (ed.), Extraits
des comptes et mmoriaux du Roi Rene, Paris, r873, pp. 240, 24r.
3s L. de Laborde, Inventaire des tableaux, livres, joyaux et meubles de Marguerite
d'Autriche, Paris, 18501 nos. rr2-r6, 124~25, 128, 135 1 151, 174, 194, 196~ 199. One diptych,
assez vieille", depicting the Passion and. an aultre misthe" had been acquired as a
present (no. 135).
39
W: Schne, Dieric Bouts und seine Scbule, Berlin &. Leipzig, 1938, Document 83,
p. 247
40
Panofsky, Jean Hey", pp. 95 H.
 Sixten Ringbom
sixteenth centuries do, however, provide us with some information on the place
of the devotional image in the houses. The bedroom was, then as now, the
appropriate place for the image, and in some "Annunciations we find the Virgin's
tbalamus so elaborated as to include even a little picture. In the "Annunciation"
by the Master of Maulins in Chicago, Art Institute (Fig. 6), we notice the little
Holy Face or rather a >->Salvator lv1undi~> on the head~end wall of the bed. It may the protection .effected by the wings when folded, triptychs of this size were,
have been a Flemish Holy Face like this, which, as we remember, Alessandta
Macinghi Strozzi would not part with, and, although earlier and coming from the
North, this Annunciationn illustrates the reflections of Armenini who wrote that
we should not lack images in the rooms where we rest and spend most of our
lives.
The holy portrait is, by its nature, the most natural subject for the devotional
image, but, as we have seen, historical or semi~historical themes could just as well
serve the same purpose. In Italy, Giovanni Dominici bad recommended suitable
histories for domestic use, and in the North we found, among the pictures listed
as belanging to the Chambers of King Rene a "Descent from the Cross" and an
Annunciation". The use of sacred histories in private panels is also indicated by
a portrait of the abbot Christian de Hondt, which forms tbe right half of a little
devotional diptycb (3oX r4 cm.) executed by a nBruges Master of I499" and now
in Antwerp, Musee des Beaux~Arts. (Fig. y). The abbat is seen at prayer in bis
chamber, and in the background is a bed in which there hangs a diptych - such
as the diptych itself. Here the left panel depicts a Descent from the Cross" with
four or fi.ve persans {not visible in the reproduction) and the right panel portrays
the owner.at prayer.
The bedroom images were apparently, if of a smaller format, hung in the beds
in the manner illustrated by Figs. 6-7. For compositions on a larger scale there
were other possibilities; either the image was hung on the wall, often in a niche
or bay which could be shut off from the rest of the room with a curtain, 41 or, if
an altarpiece, it could be placed on a domestic altar, 42 or in wealthy houses even
41
See a Flemish miniatme of Pope Sixtus IV at prayer (British Museum, Add. MS. -35313,
fol. 237r; repr.: Ringbom, op.cit., pl. 45d). A similar arrangement seems refLected in the
miniatme of the pious Saracen (Fig. r), although the spatial ambiguity makes the details
unclear. For Italian examples, see the interior in Carpaccio's Legend of St. Ursula",
Venice, Accademia; W. Hausenstein, Das Werk Vittore Carpaccis, Berlin $-.. Leipzig, 1925,
pl. 4; and a Florentine 15th century embroidery of the Death of St. Verdiana", London,
Victoria and Albert Museum; G. Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting,
Florence, 1952, fig. II36 (there dated to the 14th century, ibid., p. 1010).
42
See M. Heyne, Fnf Bcher deutscher Hausaltertmter, I, Das deutsche Wohnungs-
\Vesen von den ltesten geschichtlichen Zeiten bis zum r6. Jahrhundert, Leipzig, 1899, pp.
271 f., fig. 70. Cf. also A. Schultz, Deutsches Leben im XIV. und XV. Jahrhundert, Vienna,
1892, p. 106.
Icon to Narrative 39
. a domestic chapel. One such little altarpiece is seen in a late miniature {dated
~ ) representing the ~'Education of the Virgin in a domestic i~terior (Hours of
32
Jacqueline de Lalaing, art market, Fig. 8). Agairrst the far wall 1s a carved altar
on which we see a triptych with a Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. John
in the middle panel and a saint on the left wing. Owing to the handy- format and
rooreover, suitable as travel altarpieces.
*
It is mainly within this sphere of private piety that the developments forming
the subject matter of the present study must be thought to have taken place. It
cannot n3.turally be shown that all the pictures to be dealt with were of the above
character - a few on the contrary seem to have adomed places of public worship
-, but there can be little doubt that it was the demands of private devotion that,
during the latter part of the fifteenth century, resulted in a form which combined
the vividness of the narrative (as such, as we recall rare in this function) with the
portrait character and direct appeal of the traditional icon.
4. The Holy Portrait eh buste
The half~length portrait icon of eastem origin, the devotional image par excellence,
was referred to in the West during the early Middle Ages by a special term thoraci~
cula, derived from thorax. In the seventh century we find Adamnarr tt~lling a story
about a miraculous sancta Marie Matris Domini thoracida (or thoraciola) in Con~
stantinople.l The legend of St. Sylvester mentions thoracyclae" which are explained
as an "i_mage of the apostles,2 and, although at times corrupted and m.,isunderstood,
the term seems to have been in use until the eleventh century. 3 Later references
to such icons give short descriptions such as ,,effigies a pectore superius 4 or
nim.agines ab umbilico supra, 5 and only rarely do we find special terms such as
1 Adamnan, De locis sanctis, III: 5 (P.L., -88, col. 813).
2 >Tune sanctus Silvester iussit diacono suo, ut toracyclas, id est imaginem apostolorum
exhiberet." (W. Levison, Konstantinische Schenkung und Silvesterlegende", Miscellanea
Francesco Ehrle, II [Studi e testi, 38], Rome, 1924, pp. 195 f.). The passage is illustrated in
the St. Sylvester cycle, 1246, in SS. Quattro Coronati in Rome (van Marle, I, fig. 244).
3 See n. r6 below, and, for further references, Levison, loc.cit.
4 Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperalia, Dec. III: 25 (after Dobschtz, Christusbilder, p.
292**).
5 Durandus, Rationale, 1: i: 2. The terms imagines et picturae dimidiatae" occurring
in the summa of the Lyons edition 1612 (leaf 12r) seem to be an invention of the editor.
 40 Sixten Ringbom
medietas ymagmiS (as opposed to >>imago plena J. 6 In the Iate fourteenth and
early fifteenth centuries we fin~ the first equivalents to our modern ward half-
length image: the demy-ymage of the French alld Burgundian inventories. 7 The
Italian equivalent mezza fighura seems to have come into use during the latter
hall of the fifteenth century 8 Towards the end of the thirteenth century the Byzan-
tine habit of painting holy images an panels and in half-length :f.igures invited
Cardinal Durandus to speculations as to the reasons of this predilection. Durandus
wrote that the Creeks make no images in the round because of the prohibitions in
Exod. 20:4, Lev. 26: I and Deut. 4:15. Moreover, the Greeks make use of images,
it is said, painting them only from the navel upwards 1 and not below it in order
. ,I.
to remove all occasion of vain thought. 9 The passage shows that the half-length
formula appeared sufficiently remarkable to require an explanation, and Durandus 1
theory must have achieved wide currency through the universal importance of
his Rationale where it occurs. In the fifteenth century no less than forty-four
editions of this work were printed during the four decades between 1459 and 1500.10
The portrait icon in its eastem form, isolated as it was from all historical fixation
in space and time, presented the Deity in the purest conceivable manner. 11 Accord-
ing to Greek conceptions this image partook of the existence of the Deity itself;
it constituted a channel to the object of worship and an extension of the invisible
in the world of sight. But the Byzantine half-length image such as the >>-PantolaatOT>>,
was more that a portrayal; it was by its very form and its origin a panegyric, a
glorification of its prototype. The en huste composition was a symbolic form i
it had a symbolic connotation inherent in. the mode of representation.
The portrait of Christ was, as we know, modelled 'on the image of the emperor
used in connection with the ruler cult of the first centuries A.D. The imperial
6
See 0. Lehmann-Brockhaus, Lateinische Schriftquellen zur Kunstgeschichte in England,
Wales und Schottland vom Jahre 901 bis zum Jahre I3D7, I-V, Munich 1955-6o, no. 2900
(A.D. 1295): " .. et in patena est medietas ymaginis salvatoris."
7 15 For early connections between the ruler portrait and the image of Christ, see Kit-
Labarte, lnventaire de Charles V, nos. 2140, 2309, 2852, 2960, 2987; Guiffrey, lnven-
taires de Jean de Beny, Ar6, A34. Cf. also D. Hartwig, Der Wortschatz der Plastik im fran-
zsischen Mittelalter, Diss. (Frankfurt), Wrzburg, 1936, pp. 15 f.
8
Mntz, Les collections de Midicis, pp. 39, 84.
9
Graeci etiam utuntur imaginibus pingentes illas, ut dicitur, solum ab umbilico supra,
et non inferius, ut omnis stultae cogitationis occasio tollatur .. _" (Durandus, Rationale,
I: iii: 2). As late as after Tridentinum a similar line of reasoning occurs in Cardinal Bor-
romeo's De pictura sacra, VI (ed. C. Castiglioni, Sora, 1932, p. 10); Graeci ipsi servientes
honestati, et modestiae . . . cum Sauetissimam Virginem pingerent, superiorem tantum-
modo divini corporis partem ostendebant, reliqua tegumento involvebantur".
10
Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, VII, Leipzig, 1938, nos. 9101-44,
11
See above p. I, n. 11 and especially L. Ouspensky Symbolik der orthodoxen Kirchen-
gebudes und der li<:one", in: Symbolik der Religionen, 10, Stuttgart, 1962, pp. 71 f.
lcon to Narrative 4I
ortrait was thought to represent the ruler so effectively that many of the honours
p aid to the emperor in pe;~on could just as weil be paid to his image instead. 12 As
~ happens, we know what these representational portraits looked Iike; they were
for the most part single bust panels, and occasionally double portraits. 13 Christ
being regarded as a king and an emperor/ 4 the ruler portrait thus readily lent it-
self to the transformation into a Christian cult image. At times bornage could be
paid to the emperor's and to Christ's portrait alike, and in its original context St.
Basil's farnaus and much-quoted dieturn "the honour paid to the image is trans~
ferred to the prototype,, referred, not to a Christian cult image, but to the imperial
portrait which he used as an illustration of the relationship between God the
Father and His Son. 15
The panegyric character of the bust image was not unknown in thc West
either. Before 690 St. Aldhelm of Malmesbury wrote that the makers of images of
the ~~bles and painters of royal persans use to adorn the bust images with gilded
plate and elaborate the beautiful contours of their limbs with fashioned omaments_,, 16
As the compositional formula appropriate for ruler portraits the thoracicula, when
transposed an religious imagery, conveyed a sense of majesty and might. Thus, in
the West, too, the Byzantine icons of the Fantokrator could be understood in their
'
original sense of panegyrics. [ i
I
12 H. Krause, Studien zur offiziellen Geltlmg des Kaiserbildes im Rmischen Reiche,
(Studien zur Geschichte 1md Kultur des Alterttuns, 19), Paderborn, 1934, pp. 99 f.
11: Notitia dignitatum imperii Romani. Reproduction riduite des ras miniatures du ms.
lat. 9661 de la BibliotbCques Nationale [ed. H. Omont], Paris, I9II, pls. 17 1 21, 23, 27, 29-
33, 39, 40, 62, 64, 6_s, yr, 76 (single); 19, 73 (double). Such portraits also occur in Christ
Brought before Pilate in the Codex Rossanensis (0. Wulff, Altchristliche und byzanti-
njsche Kunst [Handbuch der Kunsh\Tissenschaft], Berlin, 1914, fig. 282).
u J. Kollwitz, Das Bild von Christus als Knig in Ktmst tmd Liturgie der christlichen
Frhzeit", Theologie und Glaube, 1947-48, H.4, pp. 95-II?; Reallexikon, III, cols. 691-
702 (s.v. Christus als Knig).
zinger, ,,The Cult of Images ... ", pp. 90 ff., ur ff., 125 f. and n. 260 on p. 145; Kollwitz,
"zur Frhgeschichte ... ", pp. 67 f.; H. von Campenhausen, Die Bilderfrage als theolo- !i
gisches Problem der alten Kirche", in: Schne e.a., Das Gottesbild, pp. 77-108, esp. pp.
93 f. During the reign of Justinian II (685-95, 705-II) the -bust of- Christ appears on
coins with the bust of the emperor on the reverse (A. Grabar, L'iconoclasme byzantin,
Paris, 1957, pp. 37 f., figs. r2-r6; J. D. Breckenridge, The Numismatic Iconography of Jus-
tinian 11 [NumL~matic Notes and Monogmpbs, 144], New York, 1959, pp. 46 f., figs. 5-!2).
16 " quemadmodum solent nobilium artifices imaginum et regalium personarum
pictores deauratis petalis thoraeielas ornare et pulcherrima membrarum liniamenta fabre-
factis cultibus decorare, cum tarnen opifices plerumque turpi natura corporis deformes et
contemptibiles existant, magisque iconisma regale compto stemmate depictum laudatur
quam dispicabilis persona pictoris veneratur." (Aldhelm, De virginitate; after Kngel,
Schriftquellen, no. ro63).
 Sixten Ringbom
42
In the Western Middle Ages the monumental version of the Fantokrator was
also readapted in a manner which not only preserved but, indeed, enchanced the
majestic effect of the half-length figure. Christ and the saints sometimes appear in
tympanum reliefs behind a parapet, the effect being that of a royal person looking
down from a balcony or through a window opening. This cnmpositional device
served the same function as the more frequent throne of the -Majestas Domini>>;
the parapet, like the throne, emphasized the majestic character of Christ.1 7 The
conception of Christ loolting through a window operring bad, moreover, an alle-
gorical significance derived from Cant. 2:2: "Behold he standeth behind our wall, he
Iooketh forth at the windows, sheWing bimself through the lattice. Christ watches
the mortals from the window of his divinity, appearing not fully visible but not
wholly invisible either. 18
During the later Middle Ages the window formula occurs in connection with
17 Tympanum of North portal, Hildesheim, Godeshardkirche, c. uoo (S. H. Steinbefg
& C. Steinberg-von Pape, Die Bildnisse geistlicher und weltlicher Frsten und Herren,
Leipzig & Berlin, 1931, Plates, pl. 131); Main portal, Millstatt (ibid., pl. 8o); tympanum
from Egmond Abbey, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (ibid., pl. 6o). The half-length figure,
appearing, as it were, in an imperial box or behind the parapet of a palace balcony, is
common in Byzantine imperial iconography. See e.g. the base of the Theodosius obelisque
(T. Beckwith, Tbe Art of Constantinople, London, r96r, fig. 22); a consular diptych c. 480,
Brescia (Wulff, op.cit., fig. 193,), and ivories of the emperors Leo III (A. Grabar, L' ernpereur
dans l'art byzantin, Paris, 1936, pl. XXIV: r) and Leo VI (Beckwith, op.cit., fig. 79). Similarly
the farnaus image of Christ once above the portal of the imperial palace in Constantinople
may, judging from reflections in carvings, have been a bust figure appearing below a
rounded arch and behind a parapet (Wulff, op.cit., pp. 150, 195; fig. 196), thus forming an
impmtant model for later tympanum representations in half Iength. For an analogy in
painting, see a painted Crucifi:x (Pisan School 1205-25, Pisa Museo Civico, repr.: G. Kaftal,
Iconograpby of tbe Saints in Tuscan Painting, Florence, 1952, fig. 1092) rendering the
"Incredulity of St. Thomas-" set on the bakony of an arcaded palace fac;ade.
18
Wolbero Abbas, Cornrn. in Cant., II (P.L., 195, col. ruo): '' .. stetit post parietem
mortalitatis nostne prospiciens ad nos per fenestras et cancellos divinitatis suae ... Qui
1
enim per fenestras et cancellos prospicit, nec totus videtur, nec totus non videttir: sie
nimimm et redemptor noster in caTne veniens Deum se ex miTaculis ostendit, ex passio-
nibus veTo occultavit". Cf. also Hrabanus Maurus (P.L., II2, col. 924), Rupertus Abbas
(P.L., 168, col. 866). This notion may explain an oilierwise unexplicable detail in an
Avignon painting (second half of c. 15) in the Louvre (La peinture an Musoie du Louvre,
I, Paris, 1929, fi.g. 22) where God the Father in a window operring pours the Holy Ghost
on the Man of Sorrows. The window was also used as a symbol fm prophets and Evange-
lists, the fmmer being regarded as the windows of Solomo's Temple (Hrabanus Maurus,
loc.cit.; Rupertus Abbas, loc.cit.; Bede, De templo, cap. VII; see F. Picinelli, Mundus sym-
bolicus, Cologne, 1797, Lib. XVI, cap. 7, Fenestra), This, again, may account for the
window theme in the iconography of prophets and Evangelists; for an early example, cf.
the curious throne structure in Cimabue's Uffizi Madonna.
Ico11 to Narrative 43
westem adaptations of Byzantine half-length icons where a parapet or a tabemacle
was introduced as if to justify the truncation of the represented figure. ~ preparatory
s to be seen in the architectural elaboration of the framewerk m polyptychs
5tep 1 .
ith half-length saints,19 and in the Tuscan Trecento the first pa1nted pseudo-
Trames,, are introduced into Madonna panels. 20 During the Itahan ~~attrocento the
j)vvindow aspect becomes one of the most popular forms of composltwn for Mado~
nas in relief and panel; it was used by the della Robbias, by Donatello and hrs
21
imitators, and by painters from Masolinoand Gentile da Fabriano to Carlo Cnvel11
and the Veneto artists. The parapetto effect was often enchanced by means of
a rug hung from the plinth, which added to the triumphal impression of_ the ~om
position.22 While constituting, at the same time, an allusion to the favo~nte eplthet
0
f the Virgin as a fenestra coeli "through which God shed the true light . an the
world,,2s the window motif was as eloquent a means of indicating her maJesty as
placing her on a throne; this was the way in which rulers normally appeared to
the masses, and in this manner princes and nobles liked to have themselves
portrayed. 24
u The tabernacle-like frame has precedents in Byzantine painting. See a r2th century
"virgin and Child" in Athens, Benake Museum (no. 538), repr. A. Xyngopoulos, Katalogos
ton eikonon, Mouseion Benake, Atbenai, Athens, 1936, pls. 1, 2.
26 M. Meiss, Andrea Mantegna as Illuminator, Glck.stadt-Hamburg, 1957, p. 27 and n.
42 . A "Madonna with Saints by a foliower of Bernardo Daddi, dated 1334, F~orence, Mu-
seo del Duomo (Offner, Corpus, III: 4, pl. XXII), and a variation in the Vattcan Gallety
!ibid., pl. XXIII; van Marle, III, fig. 212) are fully developed "window Madonnas". For the
earllest instance of the ByzantinC: half-length Madonna in western art, see H. fantzen,
Ottonische Kunst, Munich, 1947, p. 1461 fig. 147 (ivory boolc cover in Aix-Ia-Chapelle,
Cathedral Treasury).
21 See e.g. Gentile da Fabriano, "Madonna", New Haven1 Yale University (also referred
to by Meiss, loc.cit.; van Marle, VIII, fig. 19), and Masolino, Madonna"1 New York,
Metropalitau Museum (van Marle, IX, f:ig. 178). . .
2~ The festive carpet occurs e.g. in Giotto's painting of Pope Bolliface VIII m S. Gw-
vanni in Laterano. Jacopo Bellini seems to have popularized the device in Venetian art.
In the North we find it used early by Jas Ammann in a Madonna with Angels in the
sepulchral monument for Otto ITI, bishop of Hackeberg 1 Konstanz (repr.: Jahrbuch der
Berliner Museen, I, 19591 p. 64).
2s See a sennon variously (and erroneously) attributed to St. Augustirre and to Fulgen-
tius: "Facta est Maria fenestra coeli, quia per ipsam Deus vemm fudit saeculis lumen. "
(P.L., 39, col. 1991; 65, col. 899); also: Petrus Berchorius, Dictionarium; vulgo Repertorium
morale, I-III1 Cologne, 1712, s.v. Fenestra (II, p. 223); "fenestra numinis est puris~ima &.
ista est beata virgo, vel etiam humanitas ipsius Christi .. . Cf. Picinelli, loc.clt., and
Y. Hirn, Tbe Sacred Sbrine, London, 1958, p. 322. .
24 See e.g. a portrait miniature of Doge Vendramin, formerly London, Heseltme Collec-
tion (A. Venturi, Storia dell'arte italiana, I-XI, Milan, 1901-40, VII: 4, fig. 343); do. of
Federige Montefeltro (Miniatures de la Renaissance, Catalogue de l'exposition [I95D], Vati-
i I~
I
I,
 44 Sixten Ringborn
As a symbol of majesty the window aspect was recognized almost universally in
European painting of the fifteenth century25 reaching, perhaps, its most effective
expressions in the painting of the Yeneta and Lombardy and .in the book illumina-
tion of the Netherlands. A highly typical exarnple of the latter is given by a page
from a Book of Hours illustrated in Fig. 9, a Ghent-Bruges work from about rsoo.2o.
Here the Virgin is seen displaying her Child to the beholder through a window
aperture, standing, as it were, in her royal box against the rich texture of a brocade.
The painted framewerk is no mere decoration or embellishment of the main subject
the Virgin. How such an image was, in fact, intended to be understood by
beholder is seen from another miniature related to the Ghent-Bruges school, a page
th:
showing ,,St. Luke Painting the Virgin" from a manuscript in San Marino, H. E.
Huntington Library27 (Fig. ro). The evangelist is seen working on his panel, a
quite ordinary half-length Madonna. His model is standing in an aperture in the
wall to the left, appearing in a window with the customary carpet hauging over
the parapet. The painter's interpretation of his subject is thus given a concrete and
simple explanation: the half-length formula of the painting expresses the manner
in which the Virgin and the Queen of the Heavens condescended to appear to him,
can City, 1950, fig. 53), and the famous portrait of Muhammed 1I by Gentile Bellini in
London, National Gallery. A northern variant is given by an anonymaus portrait of
Count Wilhelm Schenk von Schenkenstein and his wife, Donaueschingen, Frstenbergische
Sammlung (E. Buchner, Das deutsche Bildnis der Sptgotik und der frhen Drerzeit The atmosphere of quiet prayer and inward meditation was heightened by the
Berlin, 1953, pl. 195). Cf. also the nobleman in his church pew in a painting by the Maste;
of Ste Gudule; Paris, Louvre (Friedlnder, IV, pl. LV).
25
It ~s thus_ characteristic that the worldly power of Pilate is indicated by letting him
appear ~~ a wmdow in representations of the Ecce Homo>>. A textual analogy is given by
the Passwn nach dem text der vier Evangelisten, Augsburg, Anton Sorg, 148o; Darnach
nam Pylatus jhesum mit der kron vnd stellet in .hoch in ein venster dz in das volck alles
gesehen mach" (A. Schramm, Der Bilderschmuck der Friihdrucke, I-XXIII, Leipzig, 192 o-
43, IV, p. I?). Panofsky (Jean Hey", n. 67) discusses the passage whose source he says
~e has been unable to identify, and thinks it ,,not impossible" that it was inspired by
Images. But it may just as well have been conceived independently of textual or pictorial
precede~tsi to display Christ "mit der kron" hoch in ein venster" was certainly only an
elaborauon of the mockery of His kingship by the addition of yet another ruler symbol.
26
British Museum, Add.MS. 17026, fol. 491.
27
MS. H.M. II73, executed by Sirnon Marmion c. 1475 according to Edith Hoffman
S1moz: Marmion (Ph.D. thesis, University of London), type-script, 195 s, pp. 12 6, 1ss. Fo;
later mstances of this motif, see woodcuts in Passional der bylgen, Lbeck, Steifen Arndes,
1492 (Schramm, Bilderschmuck, XI, fig. 884), Hortulus animae, Lyons, 1513 (D. Klein, St.
Lukas als Maler der Maria [Diss., Hamburg], Berlin, 1933,pl. XIII: 3), and Hortulus animae,
N~remberg, 15I9-.2o (ibid., pl. XIII:4). Klein, who did not know of the existence of Mar-
mwn's miniature, thus rightly suspected an older tradition behind the iconography (op.cit.,
p. 72).
lcon to Narrative 45
the way in which a secular queen might be expected to appear to the humble
people.
That the half-length formula in secular portrait art could be understood in an
<lllalogous manner is shown by representations where patrons and princes appear
in boxes similar to the one in which the Virgin poses for St. Luke in the Huntington
Hours. In a miniature depicting Jean Mielot writing at the order of his patron,
philip the Good of Burgundy (Fig. rr), the scribe humbly works at his writing pulpit
while the duke, imperiously raising his right hand issues his order from an aperture
in the wall.28 The distance in social status between the two is expressed in exactly
the same way as the divine majesty of the Virgin was made clear in the Hunt:ington
Hours. This characteristic window aspect could thus, just as the more common
attribute, the throne, symbolize divine majesty and secular power alike. 29
The half-length composition being used for portraits of rulers and nobles, as weil
as for holy icons, the way was paved for a characteristic creation of the fifteenth
I
century: the devotional diptych in half-length figures or the "devotional portrait"
consisting of a portrait and an image of Christ or the Virgin. This invention which
has been attributed to Roger van der Weyden 30 represents a fusion of the half-
length religious icons and secular portraits, modelled on the precedent of the
devot:ional diptych in full length. 31 The character of a perpetualized prayer 32 I,
present in older forms of altarpieces with donors, votiv:e panels and full-length
devotional diptychs, became even more emphasized in these devotional portraits.
absence of a definite setting or scenery, and the double image hence expressed the
relationship between the Deity and the worshipper in a timeless and almost abstract
form. Panofsky has remarked that such diptychs possess a ,,quality of love,,, since
I'
2 '.1'
I'.
Q Christine de Pisan, Epitre d'OthCa Q Hector, Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale MS. 9392,
fol. ro4v. Another strilting example of the Window bust is seen in'British Museum, MS.
Harley 7026, fol. 4v, where John Lovel of Tichmersh is presented with a book by the
illuminator John Siferwas (F. de Mely, Les primitifs et leurs signatures: ]es mimatmistes,
Paris, 1913, fig. 263). Since the representation in any case is in half length, the curious
frame enclosing the patron must have had a definite purpose, and this purpese was
probably to emphasize the noble status and dignity of Lord Lovel.
29
Cf. Roger van der Weyden's St. Luke Painting the Virgin", Boston, Museum of Fine
Arts: with Jean Waquelin Offering a Book to Philip the Good", Brussels, Bibliotheque
Royale, MS. 9241, fol. rr (Panofsky, E.N.P., figs. 313 and 330). II
ao Panofsky, E.N.P., p. 294 f. ,,,,I
31
For earlier instances of the full-length devotional diptych, see Reallexikon, IV, cols.
67 f., s.v., Diptychon (Malerei). I
32
This term is borrowed from Garrison, A New Devotional Panel ... ", p. 34, notes
79-80 an p. 65. I
I
II
11 i
1
'
'
,I,
,,".1

Sixten Ringbom
they are always composed of a masculine and feminine element a.nd even seem
to conform to rules of heraldry in their placing of the persons. 3 3
In the first extant devotional portraits by Roger van der Weyden the half-length
composition is not emphasized by any painted parapet or window frame, and it is
possible that an elaborate frame originally served to convey this effect.34 Later
however, the window aspect became part a.nd parcel of these diptychs. It can, fo;
instance, be observed in works by Dirc Bouts 35 and Hans Memling,a6 and in one
case - in the devotional portrait of Mart:in Nieuwenhove in Bruges, Hospital _
lVlemling even gave it a witty commentary in the form of a mirrar behind the
Madonna in which the Virgin and the sitter are seen from behind leaning agairrst
the window-sills. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the Netherlandish
devotional portraits became markedly elaborate in their depiction of the setting.
The landscape behind the figures, absent in Roger's diptychs and later visible only
through a window in the far wall, finally occupied the entire background as in the
late fifteenth .century painting by a Bruges master in London, Courtauld Institute
(Fig. 12). The window composition is here emphasized both by a parapet in the fore
ground on which the Virgin and the sitter lean their elbows and by the polished
columns of a gallery in the middle plane which serves the dual purpose nf framing
the figures and giving depth to the Iandscape in the background.
33
Panofsky, E.N.P., p. 295 and n. 29416 . According to the heraldic rules the husband in
a double portrait always occupied the left panel r =dexter side) and the wife the right
panel (=sinister side). In devotional portraits the sitter occupied the sinister side leaving
the more dignified dexter one to the holy person. The general validity of this rule is,
however, contradicted by more exceptions than those mentioned by Panofsky, e.g. the
Boutsian diptych in London, National Gallery [our Figs. ro7-8L and the Rogerian Man
of Sorrows" diptych {our Figs. 8r~2), where the Virgin is seen, contrary to our expecta~
tions, on Christ's dexter side. For a devotional portrait with the sitter turning to his left,
see an anonymaus South Netherlandish pmtrait of a Canon Regular in Antwerp, Musee_
des Beaux~Arts [no. 253; [D. LambinJ, Koninklijk Museum van schoone kunsten, Antwer-
pen, Verzameling van 200 fotogravuren, Antwerp, I924, pl. 8!). Here the orientati.on cannot
be explained [as in some other cases, E.N.P., n. 29416 ) by postulating a triptych with the
wife on the right wing.
34
Such a frame is to be seen later in e.g. the Antwerp portrait mentioned in the pre-
ceding note. The pillow on which the Christ Child is sitting in two of Roger's Madonnas
in Bruges, Renders Collection (Friedlnder, II, pl. XXIVL and New York, Huntington Col-
lection .fibid., pl. XXXIV), represents an allusion to a parapet. The only clear example
of a wmdow Madonna by Roger wou.ld be the one in Berlin, Museum [ibid., pl. XXXVIL
but this painting does not seem authentic {ibid., p. !05).
35
The Salting Madonna", London, National Gallery {Friedlnder, III, pl. XXI).
.% See ~h.e portraits in London, National Gallery [Friedlnder, VI, pl. XLIIIL London, art
market (1b1d., pl. XLL New York, Bache Collection [ibid., pl. XIX), and Madonnas in Lis-
bon, Museum (ibid., pl. XXX), Chicago, Ryerson Collection {ibid., pl. XXXI), and Portrait
of Martin Nieuwenhove, Bruges, Hospital [ibid., pls. XVII-XVIII).
r-
il
i
I'
Icon to Nanative 47 I
In the development from the serene dignity and even rigidity of the earllest
e:xamples to the elaborate setting and the sumptuous dricor of the later ones, it is
tempting to see a reflection of social factors. The devotional diptych, just as religious
diptychs in general, originally served the needs of a noble laity, 37 but during the
late fifteenth century a new type of commissioner emerged: the wealthy burghers
of the towns. By adopting the en buste composition, a form of portrait which
traditionally had been reserved for the nobility, the burghers emulated the aristocracy
in the domain of portrait art, At the same time this trend resulted in an increased
output of such devotional portraits, of which a great number date from the last
decade of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth.
The devotional portrait seems to have been most popular in the Netherlands
where it originated. It was comparatively rare 1 e.g., in Germany where the earliest
extant example is a ,,Man of Sorrows,, with the Count of Lwenstein, executed
by Hans Pleydenwnrff before 1464. 38 The motif of the Man of Sorrows" represents
a new departure in the genre, since the earlier Netherlandish diptychs always had
a ,,Madonna,,.39 In South Germany the "Man of Sorrows", by a curious assimilation
of related concepts1 could even be transformed into a semblance of Death1 a trans
formation which deprived the devotional portrait of its religious chara.cter changing
it into a moralizing portrait. 40 In addition to these, devotional portraits by Hermen
Rode41 and Bernhard Strigel42 are the only other extant German examples, although
the design of some isolated Madonnasn as weil as the poses of some single portraits
malze it appear probable that they originally might have formed halves of diptychs. 43
In France we find devotional portraits in the work of Jean Fouquet. 44 Later both
37 Reallexikon, IV, col. 62, s.v. Diptychon (Malerei).
as Basle, ffentliche Kunstsammlung, and Nuremberg, Germanisches Museum (Buchner,
op.cit., text fig. 30, with discussion of date, p. r24).
3!1 Only as late as 1522 we come across a Netherlandish devotional portrait with a
"Christ Carrying the Cross" by Jan Provost, Bruges, Hospital [Friedlnder, IX, pl. LXV).
40 See a diptych by a Basle Master of 1487 with the sitter to the left and an image of
Death to the right, Basle, ffentliche .Kunstsammlung [Buchner, op.cit., text fig. 8; cf.
text fig. 9) That the figure of Death is modelled on a Man of Sorrows is seen from the
inclination of the head and the elbows leaning upon the frame.
41 Hermen Rode, Madonna with Donor", Meerseburg a.B., Kisters Collection (Buchner/
op.cit., pl. 26). Here the two halves have been fused into one single panel.
4,:: Bernhard Strigel, Diptych, Munich, Alte Pinakothek {ibid., text fig. 24). Cf. A. Schd
ler, Bernhard Strigels Devotionsdiptychon in der Alten Pinakothek" 1 Mnchner Jahrbuch
der Bildenden Kunst, III.F., 5, 1954, pp. 12o-23.
43 See Buchner, op.cit., pp. 102, 42.
4 1 Jean Fouquet, ,,Melun Diptych", Berlin, Deutsches Museum, and Antwerp, Musee des
BeauxArts (G. Ring, A Century of French Paint:ing I4oo-rsoo, Londoll, I949 1 pls. 73-74).
The portraits of Charles VII, Louvre {ibid., pl. 69L and of Guillaume Jouvenal des Ursins,
Louvre [ibid., pl. 72) very probably formed the left panels of devotional diptychs.
 Sixten Ringborn
Siman Marmion and the Master af Maulins seem to have painted such diptychs.45
In Italy, an the pther hand, the Netherlandish form of devotional portrait does not
seem to have gained foothold. Here the tradition of introducing the donor or
commissioner into the composition itself seems to have prevailed in spite of
Netherlandish influences on other features of Italian portrait art.
* somewhat with the different versions. The oldest ones list the eyes, soul, body,
The popularity of the half-length composition in devotional painting was not,
however1 exclusively determined by the various symbolical connotations of the en
buste image and the window aspect. There must, of course, have been a number
of different reasons. Apart from the trivial but still significant fact that the simplicity
of composition was reflected in the price of the picture/6 and that a single half-
length figure thus was comparatively inexpensive, there was one factor which
stands out in importance: the psychological properties of the half-length image.
The intimate quality of the half-length icon made it particularly weil suited for
the private devotion and profound empathy of the individuaL Its character of a
"close-up" gave to meditation the immediacy of a quiet conversation; it had the
"nearness so dear to the God-seeking devout (cf. above, pp. 16 f.). All these qualities
distinguish the close-up from the full-length narrative. By rendering the subject
in isolation from the narrative context, the artist stressed the emotional element
of the motif, giving predominance to expression instead of action.
As a compositional device the half-length farntula also conformed ta a character-
istic trend of late medieval piety, the intimate preoccupation with details of the
appearance of Christ and the Virgin. Durlug the fifteenth century various bene-
dictians and devotions direqted to single limbs and parts of their borlies appear in
devotional mannals and block-prints, often with advice on the practical execution
of these exercises. Thus the originally twdfth century Benediction of the Virgin's
Limbs, a devotion once attributed to St. Bernard, 47 figures in a late fourteenth
century Breviary, of Soyons. Here it is preceded by a rubric which prescribes that
this devotion, which is So agreeable to the Virgin that one could hardly invent is a sybenfrmige grssung>.
another form of service so pleasing to her", has to be perfmmed in front of an
45
Sirnon Marmion, Donor with St. Jerome", Philadelphia, Jolli1son Coll., [ibid., pl. 98)
which may have been part of a diptych or a triptych. For the Master of Moulins, See a
Portrait of a Young Princess", New York, Lehmann Coll. (ibid., pl. 169),. and Cardinal
Charles II of Bourbon, Munich, Alte Pinakothek (ibid., pl. qo), both of which apparently
once formed halves of diptychs.
46
On the Florentine Quattrocento art market, e.g., the price of paintings was determined
by the material, the number of figures, the size, and the intricacy of design; see H. Lerner~
Lehmkhl, Zur Struktur und Geschichte des florentinischen Kunstmarktes im rs. Jahr-
hundert (Diss., Mnster), Wattenscheid, 1936, pp. 36 ff.
47
See p. 21, n. 48 above, and n. 50 below.
Jcon to Nanative 49
.
Image of her 48 The salutation of the Virgin's limbs became connected with indulg-
ence during the fifteenth century, 49 and towards the end of that century we come
across block~prints purporting - snmewhat fantastically - that the devotion had
been composed by St. Bernard >in front of a picture of the Holy Virgin Mary in the
chmch of Speyer. 50 The limbs recommended for benediction by the pious vary
words and womb,s1 while later texts include lips, mouth, ears, teeth, nose, neck
and head1 breasts etc. 52
The body of Christ was in the same manner made an object for detailed medita~
tion. Here, too, the oldest versionwas attributed toSt. Bernard who was credited with
the invention of a prayer to the single limbs of Christ. 53 In the fifteenth century
Thomas a Kempis, possibly under the influence of the Benediction of the Virgin's
Limbs, composed fourteen prayers to the different limbs of the Saviour/' 4 and_ a
similarly detailed treatment also occurs in connection with the limbs of the Chnst
Child to Whom he devoted a whole chapter called De desiderio videndi et osculandi
Jesum. 55 In this connection it should also be remernbered that the cult of the Holy
Face or the Veronica reached its peak during the fifteenth century. 56
See p. 2r, n. 50 above.
J8
49In an Andaechtig vnd fruchtbei lob der gelyder Marie preceding an edition of Ber-
tholdus' Zeitglcklein, Ulm, Konrad Dinckmut, I493, an indulgence of fifteen hundred
days is promised for this devotiontagether with 25 Aves. . .
50 Schreiber, no. m33. The image given in the print is a half~length Hodegetna sa1d to
reproduce the portrait by St. Luke.
5t See Donais "po6sies ou prihes ... ", p. 126: oculi, anima, corpus, verba, uterus.
52 Jan Momb;er (Rosetum, leaf 197 vff.) apparently set a record: Mens, vires, h~bitus,
species, affectus et actus. Caput, os, aures, oculi, dentes, gena, nasus. Collum, humen, cor,
bracchia, venter, manus, digiti, ossa. Ubera, lacte, pedes, pellis, genua, intima, crura. Cor~
pus, membra, actus, sangu1s, caro, nomina, cuncta" Hereafter he embarked on the
elaboration of bis points: "OS mellifh.mm", Octdi clari" etc. In the Andaechtig vnd frucht-
her lob (n. 49 above) the nurober is twelve, and in the blockprint Schreiber ro33 there
53 P.L., r84, cols. I3I9 ff. A more elaborate version was during the r5th century con-
nected with an indulgence of 300 days for each limb=I5X300=4,500 days for praying to
the head, face, eyes, mouth, ears, neck, hands, ehest, soul, heart, knees, feet, body, blood,
and veins and bones (Haimerl, op.cit., p. 56). See also Axters, Gesclliedenis, III, p. 407, who
quotes sources giving the indulgence as 300 years granted by St. Peter with additions by
30 later Popes. 'I
54 Thomas 3. Kempis, Grationes ad membm Christi (Opera omnia, V, pp. 204-8). I
55 stende mihi faciem tuam, sonet vox tua in auribus meis. Vox enim hw dulcis et I
facies decora ... 0 amande puer, non tauturn pedes, sed et manus et caput ac cetera
praebe mihi ad osculandum, benedicendum et laudandum ... 0 mellifluum os Domini mei,
quam pulchra sunt labia tua, quam candidi dentes tui ... " etc. (Op.cit., III, pp. I07 ff.).
'" Cf. below pp. 69 f.
4

;o Sixten Ringbom
How the intense preoccupation with isolated details of the bodily appearance of
holy persans could crystallize into an image is excellently illustrated by the rise
of the x..Fnfwundenbild. 57 The devotion of the Five Wounds of Christ, the ante~
cedents of which go back to the thirteenth century, if not even earlier, became
increasingly popular during the late Middle Ages. 58 The appropriate image for this
exercise was naturally the Crucifix, but in the beginning of the fifteenth century a
new image emerged: a condensed version of the Crucifix where only the focal points
of the original were combined into a pattern of Chrisfs five wounds. 5 9 The objects
of the devotion had thus been isolated from their original context, and, as it were,
put an display for the pious beholder to watch with myopic closeness.
The devotion of the single limbs of Christ and ti1e Virgin, and especially the
elaboration of the facial features, similarly favoured- images where these features
were clearly visible. As far as the head and the face were concemed, there was -
fortunately it may be said - no need to disintegrate the elements as in the >>-Fnf~
"WUildenbild>->- since a detailed portrait icon served the purpese quite satisfactorily.
This is how the Benediction of the Virgin's Limbs could be illustrated with a wood-
cut of a rather ordinary Byzantine half-length Hodegetria said to be the portrait
painted by St. Luke. 60
From au artistic point of view the half-length image embodied latent possibilities
capable of being developed into a forceful means of expression. Evell the eastem
form of portrait icon contains, in spite of its rigidness, an element of pathos, and
with a few suitable modifications the same formula could be adapted for renderings
of a singular emotional appeal. A form of composition which is limited to the most
expressive parts of the human body, i.e. the face, head, neck and hands, provides
excellent opportunities for elaborating physiognomical details and rendering the
finer shades of emotion.
Owing to an increasing skill and interest in matters of physingnomy and psycho-
logical characterization it was also artistically possible to satisfy a demand for
emotionally charged and closely detailed representations. During the fifteenth century
we find Italian theorists speculating on the problern of depicting the finer shad~s of
human emotion, while northem - especially Netherlandish - artists o.ffered their
57
The term was coined by R. Bauerreiss (Pie Jesu, p. 123), who emphasizes that the
Herz Jesu image originally was a representation of the Hve wounds, an opinion earlier
also expressed by L. Gougaud, Divotions et pratiques ascetiques du moyn fige, Paris,
1925, p. 89.
58
During the 14th century a Feast and a Mass were introduced for the celebration of
the wounds, the Mass being connected with indulgences by John XXII and Innocent VI
(Gougaud, op.cit., pp. So :ff.).
59
Schreiber, nos. !787-88, !794-95. Bauerreiss, op.cit., figs. on pp. n8-22.
60
See n. so above.
r-
!
lcon to Narrative SI
practical solutions ta the same problem. The di:fficulties in this ficld were~ indeed,
sometimes greater than we tend to think now. To us a problern such as, for mstance,
distinguishing between laughter and crying in painting appears simple, but until
the middle of the fifteenth century it was a decidedly real one. Leon Battista Alberti
commented an the issue in the 143o's, writing that the rendering of a face >>in
which the mauth, the chin, eyes, cheeks, farehead and eyebrows all agree in ex-
pressing laughter ar crying" required the utmost study. 61 Nether~andish pan:ters
were, as we knaw, much admired in Italy far their skill in handlmg such th1ngs.
In a farnaus passage Bartalommeo Fazio praises a painting by Roger van der Weyden
in Ferrara, writing that >>in the middle panel Christ is talzerr down from the cross,
and His Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea are portrayed
62
with such sorrow and tears that you can hardly tell them from reality.'' In an
equally farnaus passagc Francisca de Hallanda some hundred years later treatcd the
emotionalism of Netherlandish art with cantempt instead of admiration. In his 1 .
"Michelangelo Dialogues he makes the master answer Vittoria Colonna in the
following way to her question about the devout" character of Flemish art: >>Flemish
painting . . . will, generally spealdng, Signora, please the devout better than any
painting of Italy, which will never cause him to shed a tear, whereas that of I
Flanders will cause him to shed many; and this not owing to the vigour and quality
of the painting but because of the gooduess of the devout person. It will appeal to
warnen, especially the very ald and the very young, and also to monks and nuns
63
and to certain noblerneu who have nn sense of true harmony.>>
But the emotional approach and psycholagical penetration was not, as Francisco
de Hollanda wishes to imply, a Netherlandish prerogative only. Even Italian masters, I
when painting images for the personal use nf the pious, could eam themselves
praise of a kind which customarily was reserved for their northem colleagues.
We remernher Annenini praising Titian, Carreggia and Giulio Rarnano in similar
terms; they had painted pictures of an almest uubelievable realism and psychological
perception where "the women laoked full of tendemess, with tears streaming from
their eyes". 64
i
The popularity af the half-length portraits of Christ and the Virgin in fiftccnth-
century devotional art can thus be regarde-d in the light of the above considerations.
n1 L. B. Alberti, Trattato della pittma, ed. H. Janitschek (Quellenschriften fr Kunstge-
schichte, XI), Vienna, 1877, pp. 120 ff.
6~ Bartholomaeus Facius, De viiis illustribus, Florence, 1745, p. 49 The entire passage
on Roger is given by Panofsky, E.N.P., n. 27
63 Francisco de Hollanda, Four Dialog,ues on Painting,, transl. A. F. G. Bell, Oxfo:d, 1928,
pp. IS f.
GJ_ See p. 35, n. 19 above.

52 Sixten Ringborn
The en buste composition, and particularly the variant presenting the holy person
in a window"like aperture, had its specific air of majestic dignity. Generally the
half-length composition conformed with the high-strung emotionalism which
doli)jnates so much of late medieval piety. It suited the preoccupation with details
in the bodily appearance and i11 the emotional reactions of the holy models, and it
invited artists to excel in the rendering of physiognomic minutiae and psychological
nuances. The apparent discord between the heraldic connotations of the window
scheme and the emphasis an psychological description did not in any way result
in contradictions. On the contrary the two elements could be reconciled in one and
the same picture. The dignified aloofness of a Virgin behind a parapet was not in
any way diminished by the motherly love and tender affection which otherwise
might characterize the image. An even more striking combination of two apparently
opposite concepts is seen in paintings of the "Man of Sorrows" and the >->-Ecce Homo>-~
where Christ is seen in a framed aperture reminiscent of a royal box. A recently
published painting by Petrus Christus (Fig. 13) shows the Saviour displaying His side
wo und between two angels who hold weapons of His Passion. 65 The humiliation
and sufferings of Christ are vividly emphasized, but 'still he appears to the beholder
between curtains drawn aside in a window-like aperture familiar to us from dynastic
portraits. 66 This polarity between kingship and humiliation, a notion known to us
from various sources, 6 7 is thus achieved through the application of a specific com~
positional form tagether with a vividly realistic treatment of the subject matter.
The popularity of the half-length formula has prompted no less authority than
Erwin Panofsky, writing on the >>Ecce HomO>>- motif, to state that " .. 'Andachts-
bilder' in three-quarter length, not to mention full length, are foreign to the
fifteenth century,,.Gs But before subscribing to such a radical proposition we should
make sure what we mean by the term Andachtsbild>>, a concept which has been
much used and possibly even a little misused in art history discussion of this
century.
5 Types of Half-Length Devotional Images
In the preceding discussion the ward "devotional image,, has been used witl1out
any kind of definition. The term is somctimes used as an English equivalent nf the
65 Published by John Rowlands, "A Man of Sorrows by Petrus Christus", Burlington
Magazine, ro4, r962, pp. 4r9-23.
66 See e.g. Jean Fouquet's portrait of Charles VII in the Louvre.
67
In a Passion play of the 14th century Pilate is made to declare: Seht an alle und
Nemendt war/Das ist doch eur Knig Zwar" (Reallexikon, IV, col. 68r). Cf. also n. 25
above.
es Panofsky, "Tean Hey",n. 43.
lcon to Nanative 53
German >-~Andachtsbild, and since this translation appears misleading, some space
h uld perhaps be devoted to a definition of terms.
s The
0
devotional image bclongs to the domain o f pnvate
. .
p1ety w h ere 1"t IS
.
use d as
a recipient of prayer and benediction, or as an incentive and .aid to ~editation
which is a preparatory stage for the higher level of contemplatwn, an 1mage-less
state of mind where extemal aids should no Ionger be needed. Although. the
d otional image may have its place in the chapels of a church as weil as m a
n
private dwelling, it is distinguished from the public art of ecclesias~caldecoratwn,
1.e. from the altarpiece in the choir which serves the needs of hturgy, and the
monumental narrative compositions which are thc letters of the unlettereJ,.
The difference between the devotional image and public art is then primarily
one of function and size. Fonnally and iconographically this difference is much less
marked. Many subjects used in official church decoration are easily adaptable for
devotional images. The altarpiece and the devotional panel are both cult images,
and motifs used in the fonner could thus be repeated in the latter. Narrative scenes
occuring in the programme of church decoration could also form the subject matter
of devotional images. Although Old Testament scenes do not as a rule have their
place in devotional art, small private altarpieces need not differ very much from
church retables as to contents, and the microscopically detailed ivory diptychs and
goldsmith's work so popular in the fifteenth century, may in spite of their size -
sometimes that of a match-box - contain several vividly narrative scenes, re-
producing an a miniature scale the more vast systems of altarpieces, windows, ~r
wall paintings. It is, however, true that some distinct types such as the holy portialt
tended to become, for reasons indicated earlier, more important than others within
the sphere of devotional art, but this should not obscure the fact that narratives
could be used quite as well.
The term Andachtsbild has a more restricted application which is detennined
by the subject matter and iconography. The tenn was, as we know, introduced by
German art historians who wished to describe a group of iconographical innovations
of German fourteenth-century sculpture; the Pietii, the German Man of Sf1rrows",
and Christ with the Sleeping St. John". Same of these inventions, tagether with I'
'
other ones such as the Christ as a Child>> and the Virgin in Childbed", were
considered as pictorial creations based on visionary experiences. 1 Andachtsbilder
were defined by Dehio as certain sculptural representations which did not suit the
liturgic,al conditions of the altar service. 2 According to Dehio a characteristic
feature nf the Andachtsbilder is their expression of the religious sentiment in the
form 'of a group of fig;rues, an arrangement otherwise basically foreign to the medium
1
Cf. above p. I9.
G. Dehio, Geschicbt'e der deutschen Kunst, II, Berlin & Leipzig, I92I 1 p. II7.

54 Sixten Ringbom
of sculpture.a Pinder regarded the An.dachtsbild as an exponent of German mysti-
cism;4 _according to him it consisted of a fixation of a lyrical element of the Gospel
Narrative and formed an expression of the desire to isolate the emotional centr
h .
"t e symbol of feehng from the stream of action=". This fixation was in sculpture
~ Jlirdachtsbi]d and the pure narrative is altogether diffuse. The Andachtsbild is "an
achieved by isolating the central figures or the rnain protagonists from a narrative
composition. 5 The >>Christ with the Sleeping St. fohn" was thus isolated from the
Last Supper", Christ Carrying the Cross", from the Carrying of the Cross etc.
If applied only to images of this type, the tenn Andachtsbild remains fairly precise
in its meaning. Its sense is then restricted by the fact that all images in question
are sculptures, and that the inventions chronologically and geographically belang
to fo~rteenth century Germany. Even there their occurrence is restricted a.ccording
to regwn.
. A much wider application of the term was, however 1 proposed by Erwin Panofsky
1n a famous article some forty years ago. 6 He extended his definition to include
painting as well as sculpture, a modification which widerred the scope both
chronologically and geographically. Panofsky S treatment of the vicissitudes of the
1 tis>:. itself, tagether with its derivations such as Nostre Seigneur de Piti61 Nostre
>>Imago Pietatis~> motif amply proved the fundamenta.l fruitfulness of his approach,
but at the same time the wider application leads to certain difficulties. According
to Panofsky the concept of Andachtsbild can be delimited in two ways; first as
distinguished from the Scenic history", and secondly, as opposed to the hierati~ or
"cultie> representational image". It differs from these two categories in the same
way as lyric poetry differs from on the one hand epic and drama, and on the other
hand liturgical poetry; it offers the beholder an occasion for- contemplative absorptiori
or >~Versenkung. 7
Although widely used and sometimes taken for granted, the definition ha.s been
~riticized by Rudolf 'Berliner and Hans Aurenhammer. Professor Berliner mainta:ins
3 lbid., _p. !22.
: W. Pind~r, _Die deutsche. Pla~tik des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1925 , p. 35.
ldem, D1e deutsche Plast1k vom ausgehenden Mittelalter zum Ende der Renaissance I1
!H~ndbuch der Kunstvvissenschaft), Wildmark-Potsdam, 1929, pp. 92 ff. ' iconogra.phically it applies to a figure or a group isolated from a narrative Context,
Panofsky, l.P.>~.
7
Op.cit., p. 264_. Another literary parallel lies near at hand: the meditation as a
hterary form b~rdering on the one hand to the Gospel narrative, and on the other h~nd
to prayer and htany. Cf. Pseudo-Bonaventure's declaratiOn (my italics),: " .. I interid to
recount a_ f.ew m:ditations according to imagined representations ... Rarely will 1 impede
my expos1twn wzth narration for I am inadequate at this and also my work would become
t~o long. Therefore be present at this event and be a_ttentive to everything for ... herein
i1es the whole strength of these contemplations" (Meditations on the Life of Christ, transl.
~agusa & R. B. Green1 Princeton1 r96r, pp. 49 f.). "Presence at the event and not "nar
ratwn" can indeed be said to be the "whole strength" of an Andachtsbild.
lcon to Narrative 55
that the alleged fundamental distinction between Andachtsbilder and narratives does
not exist. It is according to him quite wrang to hold that the contemplative Er-
fblbcu:lzeit>:. constitutes an essential quality; objectively the borderline between the
incentive or object of a devotional a.ttitude and prayer" 1 and a comprehensive narra-
8
tive can just a.s well as an isolated figure in that narrative become an Andachtsbild.
s:in:rila:r objections have been raised by Aurenha.mmer,9 who remarks that, apart
from the fact that Panofsky's categories overlap, the definition is unsuitable for a
historical treatment of the subject matter of religious images1 since the division is
made according to two different criteria, one of species (Gattung) and one of func-
tion.
It should1 however, be remernbered that Panofsky hirnself was weil aware of the
approxima.te nature of his definition. 10 Moreover, the division of images into narra-
tives1 .Andachtsbilder and cult images is far from being unhistorical in the sense
of having been foreign to late medieval conceptions of art. The term Imago Pieta-
11
Dame de Piti6", titles such as Nostre Seigneur ainsi qu'il fut aprf:s la Passion", or
>>Salvator coronatuS>->, and an expression like >>Uno Christo giovinetto de anni circa
duodeci ehe seria de quella eta ehe rhaveva quando disputo nel tempio 12 all betray
the same consciousness of the special character of the Andachtsbild: the isolation
of the central figure from its narrative context with the preservation of the allusions
to this same context. In the random examples above, the first three derrote subjects
different from the Passion but yet connected with it. We also have Salvator cowna-
tus instead of the Crowning with Thoms", and Christo giove-ne-tto de anni circa
duodeci instea.d of Christ among the Doctors".
But all the same Panofsky1 S definition is open to criticism. Aurenhammer is ceru
tainly right in pointing to the difficulties in using both formal and functional
criteria. The concept of history or narrative is a formal and iconographic one, while
cult image is a functional term indicating the use and purpose of the image. The
term Aiidachtsbild again, ha.s both an iconographical and a functional meaningi
and functionally it derrotes a pictorial aid to ncontemplative absorption" .
Now, as remarked by Berliner1 there is nothing to prevent a narrative from being
8 Berliner, >Bemerkungen ... "1 n. 13.
9 Aurenhammer, Dte Mariengnadenbilder, p. 7.
1 0 " natrlich nicht so, dass Ubergangsfiille ausgeschlossen wren, aber doch so,
dass die charakteristischen Beispiele getroffen sind .. " (Panofsky, l.P.>~, p. 264).
11 Labarte, Inventaire de Charles V, no. 2769.
12 See below p. rys.
 s6 Sixten Ringbom
used as an aid to contemplative absorbation" like, the Andachtsbild, or even as a
receptacle for prayer like a cult image. 13 Historical scenes were used in private de-
votional art as representational images> (cf. Fig. 7). In an illustration in an early
sixteenth century Book of Hours in the Vatican Library IFig. 14) we see the worship-
ping gentleman praying and meditating in front of an elaborate seenie composition
of the Ecce Homo.
Not only could a narrative be used as an Andachtsbild in the functional sense,
but an Andachtsbild in the iconographical sense could also be used for other pur-
poses than "contemplative absorbation". A typical Andachtsthema such as the Ar-
ma Christi>> c-ould as an image of indulgence serve as a recipient o.f prayers. At the
other extreme we have the Crucifix which, although gradually transformed into an
emotionally charged rendering of Christ an the Cross, always preserved its function
in liturgy and its place in the decorative system of the church building. Gerhard
Schmidt14 has recently thrown light an the meaning of some composite motifs nor-
mally classed as Andachtsthemenx. It thus appears that during the fourteenth
century it became increasingly con1mon to consecrate churches in the name of a
title" instead of dedicating them to specific saints. These titles denoted more or
less abstract and composite concepts such as the Holy Body and Blood", >>Corpus
Christi et gloriosae Virginis>). etc. In order to illustrate these abstract notions artists
made use of motifs usually occurring as Andachtsbilder. 15 The Holy Body and
Blood was illustrated with a Man of Sorrows" I= bodyj with a chalice I= bloodj
at His feet. The Franciscan monastery in Bhmish-Krumau was consecrilted in
honore Cerparis Christi et gloriosae virginis Mariae", and in a manuscript made in
the monastery, the title is illustrated by means of an "Apocalyptic Woman-" com-
bined with a Man of Sorrows. 16 That an Andachtsbild could be employed in order
to symbolize a theological concept or. a mystery of faith otherwise difficult to ex-
press in a picture, is also shown by the fact that the Man of Sorrows at times
stood for the mystery of _Eucharist. 17
13
See e.g. the Visitation., recommended for prayers by Geiler von Kaisersberg, p.
29, n. 40 above.
14
G. Schmidt, Patrozinium und Andachtsbild", Mitteilungen des Instituts fr ster-
reichische Geschichtsforschung, 64, 1956, pp. 277-90.
15
Schmidt calls these images Andachtsbilder (p. 283), althaugh it is evident that re-
presentations located to the architectural decaration of partals cauld not passibly serve
as incentives for contemplative submersion".
16
Vienna, National Library, Cod. 370, fol. rr [ibid., fig. 3). For the iconography of this
figure, see E. M. Vetter Mulier Amieta Sole und Mater Salvatoris", Mnchner Jahrbuch
der bildenden Kunst, IILF., 9ho, I958/s9, pp. 32-71.
17
Bauerreiss, Pie Jesu, Ch. I., and passim.; H. Sehrade Beitrge zur Erklrung des
Schmerzensmannsbildes", Deutscbkundliches; Fr. Panzer zum 6o. Geburtstage (Beitrge
zur neueren Literaturgeschichte, N.F., XVI), Heidelberg, 1930, pp. 175 :ff.
lcon to Narrative 57
Retuming to the original question of terminology, we could summarize the dis-
cussion above in the following way. Devotional images are simply distinguished
f ro.m _the liturgical and didactical
.
compositions of ecclesiastical decoration by their
. . . . d d' ts
intended function in connectwn w1th pnvate edi.catwn, prayer an me rtatwn.
"Devotional image,, is thus a functional term, while the Andachtsbild in the
present writer's opinion should be defined by formal and iconographical criteria
alone. Panofsky's definition works quite well if we accept only the formalandnot the
functional part of it: Andachtsbilder are distinguished an the one hand from narra-
tives, and on the other from static >representational images. They are essentially
symbolical representations expressing, mysteries of faith, pictorial renderings of. c~n
cepts such as the Sufferring Christ, the Triumphant Saviour, the Immaculate Vrrgm,
the Mater Dolorosa etc. As conceptual iHnstratians they were employed in official
church decoration (cf. the >>title images,, referred to above), but their special charac-
ter made them suitable as devotional images - up to this point we are thus going
to follow the functional part of Panofsky's definition of the Andachtsbild. 19
It is especially in facing the problems posed by the cmnplicated iconography of
late medieval devotional painting that we have reason to acknowledge the useful-
ness of Panofsky's approach. According to him the Andachtsbild can be produced
in two ways: either by subtraction from a narrative or by the augmentation of a
representational image. The first method - indicated already by Dehio and Finder,
cf. above - consists of isolating the rnain figure or the most important protagonists
from a history. This brings the action to a standstill and gives the emotional expe-
rience connected with the action a duration suitable for the contemplative absorba-
tion". In this way Christ Carrying the Cross has crystallized from the Carrying
of the Cross", Christ Tied to the Pillar,, from the Flagellation" etc. The other
method consists of the transformation of suitable representational images, if need be
by the introduction of additional figures, into images where the static character is
softened by nhumanely appealing sentiments. As exarnples of this transformation
1s This usage, which appears prevalent in English except for unfortunate translations
of the ward Andachtsbild, conforms with the theological concept of Andachtsbild as
oppased to the art historical one [see R. Guardini, Kuitbild und ~Andachtsbild, Brief an
einem Kunsthistoriker, Wrzburg [1939], pp. 13 ff.; Lexikon der Marienkunde, s.v., An-
dachtsbild).
19 There is an excellent ald ward for Andachtsbild>>, namely, mystery image", a term
which unfortunately has l3een used in an entirely different sense [U. Rapp, Das Myste-
rienbild, Wrzburg, 1952). In the inventory of Margaret of Austria Mistete is used in the
sense of a composite Andachtsbild (Laborde, lnventaire ... de Marg,uerite d'Autriche, na.
135). Similarly Armenini speaks of Misterij di N. Sig,. eJ della Beata Vergine, and in the
Decor puellarum [see p. 25, n. r8 above) the Arma Christi are referred to as uno christo
passo cum li misterii de la pasione.
'
I
 ss Sixten Ringbom lcon to Narrative 59

Panofsky mentions the Crucifix which was remodelled in an emotionally more ex~ of these the Madonna with Child" and the Salvator Mundi had belonged to
pressive way, the Madonna which was developed into the Holy Familyn and the the stock-in-trade of Christian art since the Early Church, while the vera icon and
;.:.Pietd>>, 20 and the Man of Sorrows" which assumed the various appearances that the "Man of Sorrows" can be said to have been incorporated with westem art du-
form the subject matter of Panofsky's fundamental study. 21 In a later article Pa- ring the thirteenth century. The single Virgin without child, finally, enters the
nofsky supplemented this principle by drawing attention to a way in which many scene even later.
a representational image was remodelled into an Andachtsbild: a new motif could
be created by >>Analogiebildung>->-, that is, by fusing tagether elements from existing
(r a.) As for the Madonna and Childn the nhumanely appealing emotions
types in a fresh combination. 22 This is, Panofsky maintains, the manner in which
constitutive of the Andachtsbild can be observed in the earliest history of the motif.
e.g. the Christ Crowned with Thorns" was modelled on the Salvator Mundi with
The nursing theme in the Byzantine Galaktotrophousa and the western Virgo lac
features borrowed from the Man of Sorrows. The aim of the present study is to
tans exists even in Early Christian art. 23 Originally a representation of the mether
follow the mechanism of Panofsky's second principle: the transformation or aug~
of the Man-God the motif gradually assumed a more and more genre-like character,
mentation of static icons in fifteenth century devotional painting. Since the proto~
and in the ltalian Trecento the human element in the scene tended to supersede the
types, the descendants of which we are going to follow, consist of half-length repre-
divinely hieratic qualities of the original Theotokos. The same applies to many of
sentations, the study of their transformations will tell us something of the history
the other classical Byzantine formulas: the iconic prototype already embodied an
of the half-length narrative in fifteenth century art. Without wishing to go quite as
anecdotical element which needed only slight modifications in order to present the
far as saying that Andachtsbilder in three-quarter length, not to mention fulllength,
nMadonna Oll the lines of a Western Andachtsbild. Thus the Panagia E!eousa, an
are foreign to the fifteenth century [cf. above p. 52), the present author yet hopes
iconographic type occurring both in half and fulllength and appearing in the West
that the discussion to follow will show that the half-length formula, earlier used for
sometimes during the twelfth century,2 4 shows the Virgin and the Christ Child
static portraits only, during the course of the fifteenth century was taken into use
tenderly embracing with their cheeks lightly tauehing each other. The emotional
for compositions with a strong narrative character, and that Andachtsbilder of this
charge of this otherwise rigidly fixed type was apparently so marked that the for-
kind gradually began to dominate the scene of devotional art.
mula could be adapted without substantial alterations for the so-called "Motherly
Madonna" of the Dugento and its descendant variations in fourteenth century art
south and north of the Alos. 25 The Virgin with the Playing Child", a type appa-
The single half-length icons of Christ and the Virgin current in the West about
reently also of eastem origin26 _represents still another early deviation from the
I400 may roughly be placed nnder three main headings:
hieratic rigidness of the ideal icon.
The "Virgin and ChiJd", whether hieratically motionless or already displaying a
r) The Virgin: a. Madonna and Child
rudimentary vividness, could with the addition of suitable implements or homely
b. Single Virgin
details develop into a genre-like image with various allusions. We remernher Cardi-
2) Man of Sorrows
_p_al Dominici recommending domestic pictures With the Virgin Mary with the
3) The Holy Face: a. Salvator Mundi
Child in her arms, with a little bird or apple in his hand", and Jesus' nursing 1
b. Vera icon
sleeping in his Mother's lap, or standing courteously before her while they look at

2
n :he explanation of the Pietii as a transfonnation of the Madonna (instead of an
Isolation from ~e Lamentation) is later elaborated by Panofsky in "Reintegration of a Book 2:1 V. Lasareff1 "Studies in the Iconography of the Virgin" 1 Art Bulletin, 20, 1938, pp. 27 ff.
of Hours1, Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter, II, Cambridge, Mass., 1939 , 24 lbid., pp. 36 ff., with further references.
f
PP 490 For a recent survey of the Stand der Forschung>>, see W. K.rnig, "Rheinische 25 C. H. Weigelt, ber die 'Mtterliche Madonna' in der italienischen Malerei des 13.
Vesperbilder aus Leder und ihr Umkreis 1 Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, 24, 19 62 , pp. 97 ff. JahrhundertS 1 Art Studies: Medieval, Renaissance and Modern, 6, 1928, pp. 195 ff. E. Sand-
T~e development of the Pietil. from the Madonna and Child is discussed ibid., pp. 103 f. bergVavala, L'iconografia della Madonna col Bambino nella pittura italiana del Dugento,
-
1
Panofsky, ->l.P., pp. 294 f. Siena, I934, Ch. III, pp. 57-69.
22 ,Id., nJean Heyn, p. III.
2 6 Lasareff, op.cit., pp, 42 ff., with further references.
 6o Sixten Ringbom
27
each other .. ,>> Once the principle had been laid down, the development gained
momentum and especially the later fourteenth and the fifteenth century saw the
rise of a wealth of naively moving or pleasantly easy little scenes with the Virgin
and Christ as participants.
One such transformation, the Virgin of the Writing Christ ChiJd" (Fig. rs)
usually classed as an Andachtsbild, 28 offers a good illustration of how little a given
prototype actually bad to be modified in order to become anecdotical. The motif
seems to have been conceived about r380 in the Hainaut,29 and some Iearned
labour has been sperrt in the search for literary sources for the scene, without, it
may be said, any definite results sn far. 30 Indeed, it appears highly uncertain whe-
ther any textual analogies will ever be found in this case since the motif can be
explained as an artistically self-contained development of an earlier type. The new
element consists of the fact that the Christ Child is depicted writing on a scroll or
in a codex, and we should therefore look for related details in earlier Madonna
iconography. Now the Byzantine Hodegetria already embodies, as it were, the kernel
of the motif in the shape of a scroll kept by Christ in His left hand. 31 This scroll,
ultimately deriving from antique portraits and a symbol of the Logos, is, for a
beginning, always rolled up, but when the image was transplanted on Italian soil
the scroll began to uncoil, as in Giotto's "Madonna in Florence, Uffizi. In Sirnone
Martini's Virgin in Majesty" of 1315 the scroll is even more conspicuous and
now also having a text. In Simone's Madonna in Rome, Palazzo Venezia/2 the
Christ Child holds it with two hands, pointing with the fingers of the right hand to
the text. From then on the motif can be seen in numerous Madonnas of the Trecento
by Lippo Mernmi, the Lorenzetti and others. In sculpture the scroll or codex held
by the Christ Child occurs as early as the Romanesque period,a3 and in the second
half _of_ the fourteenth century - at about the same time when the motif of the
writing Christ Child appears- we come across the motif of the Christ Child point-
27
Dominici, Regola [ed. Salvi), p. 131: " .. Vergirre Maria cal fanciulla in braccia e
l'uccellina o la melagrana in pugno." " .. Iesu ehe poppa, Iesu ehe dorme in grembo d:lla
Madre; Iesu le sta cortese innanzi, Iesu profila ed essa Madre tal profilo cuce".
29
C. P. Parkhurst, Jr., The Madonna of the Writing Christ Child"', Art Bulletin, 23 ,
1941, p. 306.
29
Loc.cit.
30
Op.cit., pp. 303 ff., with further references.
31
W. Felicetti-Liebenfe1s, Geschichte der byzantinischen Ikonenmalerei, Olten & Lau-
sanne, 1956, p. 29.
32
van Marle, li, fig. 124.
33
E.g. >>Virgin and Child" af the first half of the nth century, Paderborn, Dizesan-
Museum (A. Feulner & Th. Mller, Geschichte der deutschen Plastik, Munich, 1953 , fig. 19 ).
lcon to Narrative 6r
ing to the operred boolc 34 In painting, as well as in sculpture, we have, then, the
b.asic prerequisites for the Madonna of the Writing Christ Child" which is one
of several possible variations of the Madonna where Christ holds a book (others
being e.g., the above mentioned motif of Christ pointing to the book, and the
"Education of Christ>,). To render the Christ Child as writing in the book can
thus be seen as a variation for which no textual source has to be postulated. 35
The paraphrases of the "Virgin and Child theme in late medieval iconography
present a highly varied field where considerable freedom apparently was .given to
the creative imagination of individual artists. One typical trend, however, has been
noted by several writers: "Madonna,. Andachtsbilder of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries frequently contain more or less disguised allusions to events later in the
life of the Saviour. The ,. Viigin with the Sleeping Christ Child" represents a pre-
figuration of the >>Lamentation", and the >>Pietcl has been viewed as the result of
a similar polarity of concepts applied to the ,,Virgin and Child,,_ 36 The >>Madonna
of Humility> 1 an Andachtsbild corresponding to the narrative motif of the ,,Nativityn
similarly depicts the Virgin seated on the ground in the same pose as she was to
adopt when she lamented over the dead body of her Son. 37 And even in idyllic
genre >>Madonnas,, disguised symbols in the form of pomegranates and flowers
give a discreet hintat the Passion. 38
(r b.) If the "Madonna and ChiJd" could serve as a base for various paraphrases,
the siruplest Madonna icon, the bust of the single Virgin without child, affered no
M German woad sculpture, second half of the fourteenth century, Florence, Museo
Nazianale (Dehia, Geschichte, Abbildungen, II, fig. 245; Europische Kunst um 1400,
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien, Vienna, 1962, no. 342, pl. sr). A later, sitting type
dating from c. 1430 exists in MUnich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum (Feulner & Mller,
op.cit., pl.vi). For a French example of the rsth century, see a Burgundian alabastre sta~
tuette, Cluny (M. Vloberg, La Vierge et l'Enfant dans l'art franc;ais, Grenoble, n.d., TI, fig.
an p. 29). The earliest instance of this motif seems to be Italian, see a Daddiesque panel
in Parma, Galleria (Offner, Corpus, III: 4, pl. LVII).
35 The most frequent wording af the Trecento scrolls (Ego sum Jux mundi et via veri-
tatis) recurs in representations of the writing Christ Child (e.g. in our Fig. rs). Since the
legend consists of Christ's own words, the idea of letting Hirn write them on the scroll
must have seemed near at hand. The Trecento precursors are mentianed in passing by
Parkhurst (op.cit., p. 304, n. 6).
38 See above n. 20.
37 Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena, pp. 145 f., with a discussion of the "polar
thinking" (loc.cit. and pp. 153 f.).
33 E. M. Bloch, The Iconograpby of Mantegna's Half-Length Madonnas (M.A. thesis,
New York University), type-script, 1942, n. r6; I. Bergstrm, Den symboliska nejlilzan,
Malm, 1958, pp. 15-86, passim.
 62 Sixten Ringborn
less possibilities for the creation of new images. In the middle of the fourteenth
century there appears in the West a characteristic Schulterbste of the Virgin.
Based an an eastem prototype this image, which occurs as a pendant to a shoulder
bust of the triumphant Christ, spread, according to Otto Pcht, from Avignon in
the early fifteenth century. 39 The same image could, however, also occur coupled
with a "Man of Sorrows" instead of the original triumphant Saviour. In an English
manuscript of the first half of the fi.fteenth century (Figs. r6-ry) 40 two miniatures
on vellum have been inserted in a codex otherwise written on paper, thus pre-
serving the original character of a diptych. But, by what may be termed distribution,
the new context gives the Virgin a distinct pathetic quality, visible even in this
rather crude miniature: the formerly expressionless icon is made to stand for sorrow
and grief.
In the well-lmown little Christ and the Virgin" by the Master of Flemalle [Fig.
18) dating from approximately the same period as the English manuscript, the main
features of the original eastem diptych have been preserved. Christ is rendered
in His Majesty and the Virgin inclines her head in the customary manner. The only
im.portant modifi.cations consist in the addition of the hands and in the fact that
the two halves of the diptych have been united into one single panel. Christ now
appearS as the judge of mankind while the Virgin with her hands raised in prayer
is shown interceding. By these slight modifications the Master of Fl6malle has
converted the iconic double portrait into a representation of a fact of faith: the
glory of the Saviour and the intercession of the Virgin.
In Netherlandish painting of the fifteenth century the expanded Schulterbiiste
of the Virgin was to flourish in the form of the Virgo doloris. When in a diptych
combined with the Man of Sorrows" or Christ Crowned with Thorns" [cf. Figs.
Sr-82, IO?-ro8) 41 instead of with a Christ in His glory, the figure of the Virgin
assimilated the emotional import of the pendant, just as the seemingly expression-
less Madonna in the English miniature received its meaning from its context. In
order to adjust the contents of the one half of the diptych to that of the other half,
slight corrections in the facial expression of the praying Virgin bad to be introduced.
30
0. Pcht, "The 'Avignon Diptych' and its Eastern Ancestry", De artibus opuscula.
Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, New York, 1961, pp. 402-2I. To Pcht's examples
can be added a diptych depicted in a miniature dated 1494, where it occupies a honoured
place on an altar (Pantheon, I9, r96I, p. 120, fig. 1).
40
Desert of Religion, British Museum, MS. Add. 37049, fol. rv, 2r. For the date1 see
Catalog;ue of Additions to the MSS. in the Britisb Museum, I9DD-19DS, London, 1907, p.
332; J. W. Ross, "Five Fifteenth-Century 'Emblem Verses' from Brit. Mus. Addit. MS
37049", Speculum, 32, I957, p. 275. This instance is not discussed by Pcht.
41
The Salvator caronatus motif itself resulted, as pointed out by Panofsky (Jean Hey",
p. rrrL from a fusion of the Salvator Mundi with the Man of Sorrows. Cf. below p. 142.
lcon to Narrative
The humble inclination of the head, visible even in the original eastem version,
is made to a gesture of grief through sorrowful eyes and streaming tears as in Fig. 19,
a copy after Roger van der Weyden in Cracow, Museum Czartoryski. In the further
developments of the image the original scheme is finally dissolved. In a panel, on
the art market figuring as attributable to Roger van der Weyden (Fig. 20), 42 the
praying position of the hands has been changed into a gesture of crying modelled
on the female moumer to the extreme left in the master's great Prado Descent
from the Cross". The increased age of Mary prompts us to speak of a Mater dolo-
rosa instead of a Virgo doloris. The composition shows a certain affinity to the
Italian Mater dolorosa known from innumerable lateral terminals of painted Cruci-
fixes, and the panel, whether originally forming part of a diptych or not, can be
said to represent the final point in a pictorial tradition starting from the eastem
shoulder bust imported to WesternEuropein the fourteenth century.
Besides the Schulterbte there is another type of half-length icon of the single
Virgin, an image which, although rare, bad much older traditions in the West than
the fmmer one. This is the Virgo orans consisting of either the asymmetrical Panagia
Chalkoprateia or the symmetrically frontal form connected with the Panagia
Blacherniotissa. The first variant, which may date back to the sixth century, shows
the Virgin with raised hands tumed to the right looking towards the spectator.
More often than not Christ appears with raised hands in a one-quarter sector in
the upper left comer. The image has been seen as a condensed version of the
Deiisis:43 the Virgin is seen interceding before Christ who has been reduced
to a secondary motif in the Chalkoprateia. In the West this Madonna [Fig. 2r) was
called Advocata nostra, 44 a name inclicating the intercessorial character which,
incidentally, was shared by the frontal Virgo orm1S [Fig. 22) who figures in this
function in, e.g., the Torcello Last Judgment and in numerous top term.inals of
Dugento crucifixes.
The praying Virgin is, however, a motif which can be given several interpretations.
In the life of Mary there are many situations and incidents to which this image
applies with equal right. There are the Annunciation, the Pentecost, and the
Assumption, to mention only a few. Of these the Annunciation stands out in spe~
cial importance i it was the moment of incarnation and the first event in the history
42 Brussels, Giroux, d'Arenberg Sale, IS.II 1926, no. 83.
43 Felicetti-Liebenfels, op.cit., pp. 29, 64.
44 Loc.cit. In Jacopo Torriti's vaults in Assisi, S. Francesco, the medallion with the
Chall<:.oprateia (van Marle, I fig. 278) is inscribed Sta Maria Mater Dei, ora pro nobis.
4 :; In Pseudo-Bonaventure's Meditationes Mary is said to have been ever in prayer"
before the Incarnation, to have knelt during the Annunciation, and to have prayed after-
wards "with humility and devotion" (Meditations, transl. Ragusa & Green, pp. I3 1 19, 20).
 Sixten Ringborn
of the Salvation. In fourteenth century Italy the growing cult of the Annunciate
Virgin is shown by the number of churches dedicated to St. Maria Annunziata and
for popular Iiterature the theme apparently held a streng fascination.45
The notion of the Virgo orans as a representation of the incamation, the Virgin
Annunciate, already exists in Byzantine iconography. The praying gesture of the
Blacberniotissa alludes to the Annunciation46 and the medallion with Christ's
image, which belongs to the formula, is the sign of Immanuel (Isaiah 7: 14).
Similarly, the Cbalkoprateia was open to such an interpretation. The original mean-
ing of this image may have been a condensed Disis, but it could also be under-
stood - or misunderstood, as one chooses - as a Virgin of the Annunciation. The
apparition in the upper left con1er could be seen either as the sign of Immanuei
(as in the Blacberniotissa), or as God the Father pouring out the Holy Ghost, a
motif which in the narrative Annunciation appears for the first time in the
thirteenth century. 47 In a Romanesque panel (Fig. 2r) the upper right corner is
occupied by an angel, and the painting, moreover, bears the (possibly later?) in-
scription Ave gratia plena, the angel's salutation customary in representations of
the nAnnunciation".4s
It can thus be safely said that the Andachtsbild of the >>Annunziata>~, when it
appeared in early fourteenth century, had powerful precedents in earlier iconography.
The earliest extant instances of this motif are, according to E. von Witzleben,49
a Daddiesque panel dated 1334 in Florence1 Museo del Duomo, and a repetition of
this in the Vatican Gallery. 50 In these two paintings the Virgin appears in a window
with a book in one hand affering her blessings to the beholder, or, as in the Floren-
tine version, to a couple of donors below the window. Neither of these two images
can, however, beyond doubt be classed as representations of the >>Annunziata>>, They
show the Virgin in the act of blessing, instead of praying and receiving blessings
herself, and the book in her hand is strictly speaking the only allusion to the
~ 6 Grabar, lconoclasme, pp. 254 f.; cf. G. Millet, Recherehes sru l'iconog,raphie de
l'Evangile, Paris, 1960 (1916), p. 85: Marie orante figure la 'conception sans semance'"
41
W. Braunfels, Die Verkndigung, Dsseldorf, 1949, p. xv. Cf. the illustration of the
Virgin thanking God in the MS. published by Ragusa & Green, Meditations, .fig. 14.
48
It should be noted that the text, in leaving out "Maria", does not refer to the Ave
prayer, which, of course, occurs frequently on Madonna panels from the Dugento onwards.
49
In Lexikon der Mmienkunde, s.v. Annunziata, col. 26r. Braunfels' contention (op.cit.,
p. xxvi) that the usage of representing the Virgin of the .Annunciation isolated was
common in Italy since Sirnone Martini, is in this context misleading since Martini's
panels of the single Virgin once formed parts of diptychs with the Angel in the other
half now missing, as in still completc examples by Niecola di Buonaccorso (van Marle,
II, fig. 333) and Andrea Vanni (ibid., .fig. 289).
50
Offner, Corpus, III: 4, pl. XXII and pl. XXIII (or van Marle, III, fig. 212).
lcon to Narrative
Annunciation. Witzleben took the text in the book in the Vatican panel (Luke r: 46
-48) as an allusion to the Annunciation but the Gospel passage in question refers
to the Visitation.
A somewhat later example, however, a Tuscan painting from the end of the
Jourteenth century, also adduced by Witzleben, 51 already displays the fundamental
features of an Annunziata. The half-length Virgin is rendered strictly frontal,
her hands are folded symmetrically over the book, and she gazes steadily and ex-
pectantly out from the picture. Here we have the hieratic Virgo orans neatly trans-
formed into an Andachtsbild with a definite reference to the Annunciation. The
sam.e frontal view recurs in a painting attributed to Domenico di Bartolo and dating
from about !430-40. 52 Here the Virgo orans again lacks explicit reference to the
Annunciation, but some fo-rty years later, in the middle of the 147o's, she is given
the definite formulation as a Virgo annunciata by Antonello da Messina in his
famous painting in Muni eh (Fig. 23), where the setting is clea.rly indicated by the
book on the parapet in the foreground. In Antonello's other impressive treatment
of the same subject in Palermo, Museo Nazionale, the symmetrical composition has
been enlivened on the lines of a Cbaikoprateia. Instead of the stiff position of the
hands of the frontal orans we behold the Virgin raising her right hand while at the
same time grasping the folds of her maphorion with the left. 53 The somewhat
irrelevant motif of the parapet in the Munich version is here replaced by the more
, appropriate prie-dieu. 54 Araund and shortly after the year rsoo the Annunziata,
finally, can be observed outside Italy in the Netherlands andin Spain. 55
51 Munich, Alte Pinakotheki Witzleben, op.cit., fig. r.
52 Siena, S. Raimondo (van Marle, IX, fig. 335).
53 S. Bottari, Antonello, Milan &. Messina, 1953, pl. 65.
54. Yet another >>Annunziata existing in two versions (Venice, Forti Coll. [Bottari, op.cit.,
pl. 30L Baltim.ore, Walters Art Gallery [ibid., pl. 32]) is attributed to Antonello. Here the
Virgin is dressed in contemporary clothes reading a book while two Angels hold a crown
above her. Witzleben gives a date before 1460, which seems a little early considering the
hair styling and dress (cf. e.g. Ercole Roberti'sportrait of Ginevra Bentivoglio, Washington,
National Gallery of Art (National Gallery of Art, Paintings and Sculptme from tb.e Samuel
H. Kress Collection, Washington, 1959, p. II9) which certainly is latter than 1480.
55 A surprisingly early instance outside Italy is affered by an engraving by Master E.S.,
dated 1467 (Witzleben, op.cit., .fig. 2). It is a little too early to have been influenced by
Antonello (granted even that the Forti-Walters version, with which it has litde in com-
mon, dates from before 1460). The pose of the Virgin on the one hand, and the window-
lil:e frame with a book on a pillow an the sill on the other hand, suggest two possible
pictorial sources. In the one respect the invention is related to the Virgines doloris of the
type in Fig. 19, or the Virgin in Fig. r8, in the other respect the window setting resembles
the half-length devotional portrait. That the motif may have been conceived independently
in the North and the South is by no means unthinkablei the theme being particularly
66 Sixten Ringbom
(2) The second main group of ha!f-length icons listed an p.58 above consists of the
Gregorian Man of Sorrows,, and its derivations. This figure of eastem origin56
reached Europe in the thirteenth century,57 and spread all over Europe in the course
of the fourteenth century. 58 The figure became connected with the farnaus legend
purporting that St. Gregory the Great during Mass in S. Croce in Gerusalemme had
had a vision of Christ In specie pastoris sub effigie Pietatis> 1 and an an engraving
by Israhel van Meckenems 9 about 1499 we read that hec ymago contrefacta est
ad instar et similitudinem illius prime pietatis custodite in ecclesia sancte crucis ...
quam fecerat pingi sanctissimus gregorius ... propter habitam ac ostensam visio~
ncm". The venerated image 1 which thus at least at the end of the fifteenth century
existed in S. Croce, has been identified by Alois Thomas with a thirteenth century
mosaic still extant in the church. 60 Thomas' discovery has not won general accept-
ance, but it does1 indeed, seem as if the mosaic acted as an immediate model for
copies of the Imago Pietatis as early as the first half of the fifteenth century, that
is, at least fifty years before Israhel van Meckenem's print which is the earliest
one adduced by Thomas. 61 The Roman Gnadenbild owed- its remarkable diffusion
to the munificent indulgences connected with it (cf. above, p. 25) and spread by
means of pilgrimage souvenirsi such an image is probably meant by the phrase
Tableau d'ancienne facon, semblablement venu de Romme, comme an dit, fait
d'un Dieu de Piti6 which occurs in the inventory of Jean de Berry 1413-16. 62
The single icon of the Man of Sorrows", once being available1 soon gave rise
appropriate for a devotional image. In connection with the Annunciate Virgin we find
the same attention to details in her appearance that we found in the image devotion,, of
the virginallimbs (pp. 48 f. above). Thus Jacobus de Voragine dwells on details as her body,
heart, mouth and hands, and quotes St. Bernard to the e.ffect that she conceived through
the ears, the heaxt, the mouth, the body, and the womb (Legenda aurea, transl. R. Benz,
Heidelberg, n.d. pp. 250, 254).
56 Millet, op.cit., pp. 483 ff. H. Loeffier's Ikonographie de-s Schmerzensmannes (Diss.,
Berlin), type-script, r922, was not accessible to the present author.
57 It occurs in Munich, Bayer. Staatsbibliothek, Cim. 23094, and Florence, Laurenziana,
Plut. XXV,3 (Loeffier, op.cit.; after G. von der Osten, Der Schmerzensmann, Berlin, 1935,
p. r). The head on the left in Matthew Paxis' Cambridge MS. (Fig. 25), beginning of the
13th century, also represents, although in a condensed form, the type of the eastern
Imago Pietatis.
58 Male, L' art relig,ieux de la n du 1\IIA., pp. 99 f.
59
W. Mersmann, Der Schmerzensmann, Dsseldorf, 1952, pl. r.
60 A. Themas, Das Urbild der Gregoriusmesse,,.
61
The coarse contour drawing in Fig. I7 1 measuring 19.5 X 13.5 cm, agrees exactly with
the S. Croce mosaic (19 X I3 cm), and, although lacking the caption it is by far a closer
copy than Israhel van Meckenem's print with its legend.
2
ll Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean de Berry, Ano6 (Vol. I, p. 290).
lcon to Narrative
to a rich off~spring in the form of paraphrases and variations. An ilmovation easily
contrived was the combination of the image with a Madonna into a diptych. As
a religious implement such a diptych formed, one might say, almost an ideal
devotional image, simple, handy and suitable as a recipient both for the Aves and
the Pater nosters. This coupling was accomplished in the Trecento in the circle
araund Simone Martini,63 and spread to Bohemia through Tommaso da Modena
about 1360. 64 In France the diptych form is documented from about the same time.
In the inventories of Charles V there are two references to a Pitie de Nostxe Seigneur
with a Notre Dame, 65 and one such diptych is very probably depicted in a miniature
io the Coronation Book of Char1es V (Fig. 24) although the right half is concealed
by a riddel. Once combined with a ,,Man of Sorrows" the image of the Viigin
gradually was adjusted to the context, and rendered as a Mater Dolorosa (Figs. I9-
2) iostead of the Madonna and Child in the earliest diptychs. 66
The diptych composition does not represent any change in the iconic Man of
Sorrows" as such. Such a change, however, also takes place in the fourteenth
century, and even reaches back to the thirteenth. This decisive development con~
sists in the augmentation of the original scheme with lamenting figures or angels.
G3 Barna da Siena, Florence, Casa Horne (van Marle, V, figs. 27o----7r). The S. Croce
reliquary on which the once farnaus mosaic is mounted, has on the reverse a (full-length)
Virgin which once may have been coupled with the Imago Pietatis on the front, thus
forming a model for later diptychs. I owe the knowledge of this icon to Dr. C.-J. Gardberg.
The inventory of Jean de Berry (ASo) mentions a reliquary with the same arrangement:
"un petit reliquE:re ou il a une Pitif: de Nostre Seigneur ... par derriE:re a un ymage de
Nostre Dame .. _"
64 Tommaso da Modena, Panels of Christ and the Virgin, Schloss Kar1stein (Bohemia),
Schlosskapelle (Venturi, Storia, V, figs. 751-52); Bohemian Master, Diptych, Karlsruhe,
Kunsthalle (A. Stange, Deutsche Malerei der Gotik, I, Berlin, 1934, figs. 155-56).
65 Labarte, lnventaire de Charles V, nos. 2020, 2369. Cf. Guiffrey, lnventaires de Jean
de Berry, Ars, 32, 34, 39, B53; Laborde, Le-s ducs de Bourgog,ne, 2e partie, II, no. 408r. G.
Troescher (Die 'Pitif:-de-Nostre~Seigneur' oder 'Notgottes'", Wallraf-FJchartz-Jahrbuch,
IX, 1936, pp. 148-68) has argued that the PitiB de N.S. refers to the motif of God the
Father holding the dead body of Christ (cf. Master of Flf:malle, Diptych, Leningrad, Her-
mitage). The inventories, however, speak of God the Father when they mean God the
Father (e.g. Gniffrey, B390). The expression Une Pitif: de N.S. et un angel qui la soustient"
(ibid., A68) definitely disproves Troesher's suggestion.
66
Loeffler (op.cit., pp. 62 f., 126 f.; quoted after Panofsky, l.P.>~, n. 88). In France the
type is documented in the inventory of Jean de Berry (Guiffrey, A39): "la Pitif: de Nostre
Sejgneur et deux angels ... et ... Nostre Dame en pleurs" although the diptych here
already appears to have been augmented with additional figures on two wings. An eastem
odgin of the Mater Dolowsa variant, too, is suggested by a late 14th century diptych in
Meteora, Monastery of the Transfiguration, see J. Beckwith, Byzantinc Art in Athens",
Bmlington Magazine, ro6, 1964, p. 400, and. f.ig. 2.
68 Sixten Ringborn
In the Trecento more and more elements belanging to the narrative versions of
the Descent from the CrosS" 1 the Lamentation" and the "Deposition are attracted
by the Man of Sorrows" araund which the lamenting figures are grouped in a way
corresponding to the respective contexts from which they stem. In this way im~
portant new inventionssuch as Giovrumi da Milano's (r365) and Lorenzo Monaco's
(1404) group compositions araund the dead Christ67 grew out of the single figure
of the Man of Sorrows,,.6s
The ,,Angel Pieta", or the Man of Sorrows with Angels", first appears in Gio-
vanni Pisano's chancel in Berl:in, Museum 1 dating from the first decades of the
fourteenth century. 69 It recurs in Tommaso Pisano's marble predella in Pisa, S. Fran-
cesco/0 and in Donatello's famous bronze in Padua, Il Santo, which during the last
third of the fifteenth century achieved such a conspicuous following in the painting
of the Veneto. In France, finally, the Angel Pied_" seems to have achieved a singular
popularity during the first half of the fifteenth century in the form of little domestic
altarpieces, .for which the motif seems particularly appropriate. 71 As such, angels
occur in the epitapbioi that form one of the preparatory steps for the >->-Imago Pie-
tatis>->-,72 and later they form part of the sacramental symbolism of the motif as
angeli missae. 13 But as auxiliary figures in a devotional image the angels perfonn
the important function of presenting the dead body of Christ to the worshipper,
while at the same time by their presence acting as interm.ediaries in affering to
God the prayers directed to the image.74
67 Both in Florence, Accademia (our Fig. 64 and Mersmann, op.cit., pl. n}.
68 The history of these types is dealt with comprehensively by Panofsky, l.P.>-> The
Dugento painting in Florence, Casa Horne, which occupies a crucial place in his argument,
has been degraded to a later derivative work by Meiss (Painting in Florence and Siena,
p. 124, n. 75) but is nonetheless included among the examples in Mersmann, op.cit., (p. xf.,
pl. 4).
Ga Mersmann, op.cit., pl. 7
70 J. Braun, Der christliebe Altar in seiner geschiehtlieben Entwicklung, IT, Munich,
1924, pl. 2!2.
>J G. Swarzenski, Insinuationes Divinae Pietatis", Festschrift fr A. Goldschmidt zum
6o. Geburtstag 1923, Leipzig, 1923, pp. 65-74; T. Mller &. E. Steingrber, ,,Die franz~
sische Goldemailplastik um I400 1 Mnchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, III. F., 5,
1954, PP 33, 48 f.
72 Panofsky, ~>I.P., pp. 261 f.; Mersmann, op.cit., pl. 9
73 Schrade, Beitrge zur Erklrung ... ", pp. 175 ff.
7 -1 The notion of angels acting as intermediarics for worshippers is based on Ps. 137: r
(Confitebor tibi Domirre in toto corde meo, quoniam audisti verba oris mei. In conspectu
angelorum psallam tibi"). St. Be1nard (Cant. 7: 4) believed that angelos sauetos astare
orantibus, offerre Deo preces et vota hominum, ubi tamen sine ira et disceptatione levari
puras manus perspexerint."
Icon to Narrative
Especially during the fifteenth century the Man of Sorrows" was recast in
numerous new appearances. A combination with the Trinity yielded the Christ
supported by God the Father"/5 and the single Man of Sorrows", as well as ver-
sians already expanded, could by means of suitable interpolations be converted into
an )>Anna Cl1risti,1 6 an Ecce Homo>->, 71 or into any suitable station of the Pas-
sion.78
(3 a~b.) The third main group of half-length devotional irnages consists of the
bust portraits of Christ in the form of a Holy Face" or the related Salvator Mundi>->-.
In Byzantine iconography the portrait icon of Christ originally fell into a nurober
of distinct types, the >->-Pantolu:ator with the book in His left hand/ 9 the Schulter-
bste related to the Pantokrator," 0 and the acbeiropoetai, i.e. the imagesnot mad.e
by human hands, which d.epict only the face of Christ and of which the most
famous was the Abgar image of Edessa. 81 In the West the corresponding types, the
Salvator Mundh, the Holy Face" and the >>Veronica" image, are less clearly kept
apart and frequently mix with each other and with allen elements. The Salvator
Nlundi occurs frequently in middle gable panels of the Trecento, and a little less
often in the main suite of panels or as an isolated image. 82 In the fifteenth century
the motif enjoyed a renewed popularity in prayer books and books of hours where
'
it often illustrated the hymn Salve Saneta Facies, which strictly speaking refers not
to the Salvator Mundi but to the Holy Face, and especially to the Veronica version !
75 Panofsky, l.P.>->, pp. 278 ff.
76 Berliner, -Arma Christi-.
77
Panofsky, Jean Hey".
78
For a discussion of the relationships between the Man of Sorrows and the Stations
of the Passion, see Berliner, Bemerkungen ... ", pp. ro8 ff.
79
Apart from the monumental apse compositions, the type exists as an icon. Such
icons are depicted in the margins of the Theodore Psalter, executed in ro66, British
Museum, Add. MS. 19532, fol. 143V (B.M. negative 2293). From the 12th century two exam-
ples are extant in Berlin, Museum (Felicetti-Liebenfels, op.cit., pl. 70) and Florence Museo
Nazianale (ibid., pl. 71). '
80 Also occurring in the Theodore Psalter. fol I99I
, rp acht, 0 p.c1.,., fi g. 19 I.
81
Felicetti-Liebenfels, op.cit., pp. 48 ff.
~z For vari~tions on this formula, see e.g. the motif of Christ with the insignia of
pnesthood, kmgship and teaching (U. Middeldorf, Ein neuer Nardo di Cione mit einem
ikonographischen Anhang von E. Herzog", Ivfitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts
in Florenz, VII, r956, No. 3/4, pp. 169-72), and the yo-uthful and beardless Salvator in. a
Ducciesque ?olyptyc~ in Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum (no. 5o9 ; .van Marle, II, fig.
ro6}. As a d1ptych With the Virgin and Child the Salvator Mrmdi occurs in Paolo Serafini
da Modena's panels in Barletta, Cathedral (van Marle, IV, figs. 19 8-'--99 ) of the last
decades of the 14th century.
70 Sixten Ringbom Icon to Narrative 7'

of this image. 83 The cult of the Holy Face, again, was in the West centred araund
the venerated sudarium of Veronica, a relic which at least since the twelfth century
had been kept in St. Peter's in Rome. 81 The earliest representations of the Roman
sudarium, Matthew Paris' two miniatures - made from autopsy - in manuscripts
in London85 and Cambridge (Fig. 25), show a hieratic Schulterbste of Christ. This
tradition tenaciously persists isolated until the fifteenth century86 in spite of the
ultimately more powerful pathetic version in which, as in the Byzantine acbeiro~
poetai, only the face of Christ is depicted. In the latter form the connection with
the legend of S. Veronica is elaborated into a representation of Christ as He appeared
during the Passion, and this pathetic version is the one which we habitually have
come to regard as the typical Gothic Veronica. This transformation, the course of
which yet remains obscure, 87 may well have been accomplished by an Analogie~
bildung with elements derived from the Man of Sorrows", the other of the two
farnaus Roman miraculous images. In Matthew Paris' Cambridge MS. the Holy
Face of the sudarium is juxtaposed with another representation of the head of
Christ which may, indeed, in spite of its incompleteness, be the fust pictorial
testimony of the Roman >>Imago Pietatis. By crossbreeding these two conceptions
it would have been possible to produce the off-spring fulfilling the demands of the
ever growing Veronica mythology. 88
to show the latent possibilities of development embodied in the half-length icons
of the Madonna", the Man of Sorrowsn and the Salvator Mund.i>~ and the Holy
Face>>. In the more or less random examples given, there is, however, one salient
feature: with the exception of the variations of the Man of Sorrows", the trans~
formations have been carried out through modifications of the figure itself, and not
by the introduction of additional figures.
On the pages to follow, however, an attempt will be made to give an exposition
of similar developments of single icons where the desired effect of Andachtsbild
has been achieved by the introduction of additional figmes who have been integrated
into the image by mean.s of a unitin.g narrative context. This is a development which
for the most part talces place during the fifteenth century. We can say that this
century saw the rise of the half-length narrative, a compositional form which was
to have a far-reaching importance for later European painting, creating the pos~
sibility of rendering in a close-up the subtlest emotional relationships e4pressed (
with a minimum of dramatic scenery.

It canno't be our purpose here to enumerate all or even the greater part of the varia~
tions on the themes mentioned on page 58. The above reflections are only intended

sa See below Ch. V: r.

S<t Dobschtz, op.cit., pp. 218 ff., and J. Wilpert, Die rmischen Malereien der kirchlichen
Bauten von 4.-I3. Jahrh., 2nd ed., Freiburg, 1917, II: 2, p. n23.
85 British Museum, Arundel MS. 157, fol. 2r (Pcht, op.cit., fig. 21).
86 See two early rsth century Florentine panels, one on the art market, the other in

Florence, Casa Horne, (Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena, figs. 42-43).
87 The problern of the relationship between the hieratic Version illustrated by Matthew

Paris and the later (not earlier than 14th century) Veronica images is neatly summarized
by Pcht, op.cit., p. 406. Of the three possible solutions suggested by him the second
appears most plausible: " .. the later representations are free adaptations, modemizations,
as it were, of the ancient icon-model (which like all such acheiropoetai was not easily
accessibleL adjustments made to bring the pictorial form in harmony with the facts
reported by popular legend."
88 Pearson (Die Fronica, p. So, n. I, and p. 84) already drew attention to the left-hand

figure in Matthew Paris' Cambridge MS., but did not realize its connections with the
Man of Sorrows", while Dobschtz again (op.cit., p. 230) thought that "in die Legende
selbst, nicht in irgendwelchen Bilde1n haben wir m.E. den Grund zu den verschiedenarti~
gen Darstellungen zu suchen." For a similar, though later, fusion between the Salvator
Mundi aild the Man of Sorrows resulting in a Suffering Christ in Glory" (!), see below,
p. 143, n. 6.