Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/yvjrdcvo1y
He Set Her on the Third Step of the Altar. The Iconography of Mary’s Presentation to the Temple in Manuscript Illuminations of the Speculum humanae salvationis
Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky
orcid.org/0000-0002-5538-1512
; Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, Italy
Abstract
This investigation focuses on the iconographic construction of Mary’s Presentation to the Temple in relation to visual depictions of Christ’s Presentation. In tracing this, the research presents the illustration of the event, inside the Temple, as reflected in three fourteenth-to-sixteenth-century French manuscript illuminations of the Speculum humanae salvationis which depict a crowned and nimbed Mary on an altar. The analysis builds on the argument of Jacqueline Lafontaine-Dosogne that Mary’s Presentation is visually modelled on that of Christ’s, an assertion that needs further demonstration. In a first instance, the author elaborates on presenting the textual sources with regard to the narrative on the Virgin’s and Christ’s presentation to the Temple, the contexts of the celebration of their feasts, and, then, discusses and compares the constructions of the altar, characters, and gestures as reflected in both of these cases. The research concludes with the use of a common iconographic pattern.
Keywords
Marian devotion; iconography; Virgin Mary; Saint Anne; Joachim; Presentation of Mary to the Temple; Presentation of Christ to the Temple; miniature; offering/sacrifice
Hrčak ID:
302145
URI
Publication date:
17.5.2023.
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