His nudity references classical antiquity, but David embodies the ideals and concerns of 15th-century Florence.

Donatello, David, date unknown but likely late 1430s–1440s, bronze, 158 cm high (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Donatello, David, date unknown but likely late 1430s–1440s, bronze, 158 cm high (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Michelozzo di Barrtolomeo, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi (Florence), begun 1444

Between 1445 and the mid-1450s, Cosimo de’Medici, the most powerful man in Florence, built his family’s palace on a central thoroughfare in the heart of the city. A savvy patron, Cosimo was aware that the appearance of this formidable building, designed by Michelozzo, would reflect upon his family. Although technically private citizens of a republic, in reality, the Medici clan dominated the city’s politics, a fact they shrewdly endeavored to obscure. The architecture projected an image of strength and refinement while drawing calculated associations with the city’s republican government through the rusticated stone of the lowest story mimicking that of the Palazzi dei Priori also known as the Palazzo Vecchio (the town hall). For a public figure like Cosimo, a private house was never private in our modern sense: the Palazzo Medici was a place of business (Cosimo was a banker and de facto ruler of Florence) and bustling social interactions with an open courtyard, visible from the street, leading to the main entrance. High upon an elevated base and visible when the main entry to the palace was open to visitors stood one of the most innovative sculptures of the early renaissance: Donatello’s bronze David.

Donatello, David, date unknown but likely late 1430s–1440s, bronze, 158 cm high (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Donatello’s hero is remarkable for numerous reasons, not least of which is the sculpture’s all’antica (“in the manner of the antique”) form. In some ways the work epitomizes new trends in early renaissance art: it is the earliest known freestanding nude sculpture since antiquity. Furthermore, it is cast in bronze, a costly medium not generally used for large-scale freestanding sculpture in the medieval era—it would take a Medici to afford such an expense. Although it is a difficult sculpture to date, it was probably finished by the early 1450s. [1] And while no documentation survives for the commission, primary sources confirm that it was displayed in the Medici courtyard by 1469 and was thus likely a Medici commission from the start. 

Goliath’s severed head (detail), Donatello, David, date unknown but likely late 1430s–1440s, bronze, 158 cm high (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Who’s the naked guy?

The subject of this statue is David, the future king and hero of the Hebrew Bible, who as a youth slayed the giant Goliath and liberated his people (the Israelites) from the tyranny of the Philistines. In Donatello’s sculpture, David’s immaturity is unquestionable: his nude body is that of an adolescent and is sharply contrasted with the heavy beard and maturity of Goliath, whose severed head is at his feet. David’s vulnerability is emphasized by the stone he clasps in his left hand, a reminder that though he holds a sword, he brought down his massive foe with a simple sling-shot. The message here is clear: David triumphed not through physical power, but through the grace of God.

Donatello, David, date unknown but likely late 1430s–1440s, bronze, 158 cm high (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

While the biblical account (1 Samuel 17) does note that David chose not to face Goliath wearing the armor offered to him by the king, nowhere does it state that he removed his clothes completely. In all earlier images of David, including an earlier marble version carved by Donatello himself, David is clothed. The choice to depict David as completely nude, except for a shepherd’s hat adorned with laurels of victory and elaborate sandals, was unprecedented. 

Spinario, c. 1st century B.C.E., bronze, 73 cm high (Musei Capitolini, Rome; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

So . . . why is he naked?

David’s nudity serves several functions. Exposing his youthful (weak) body overtly reinforces the miraculous nature of his triumph. David is literally bared before God and the viewing public, victorious through God’s will alone. Standing in contrapposto and displaying accurate anatomy, the sculpture also demonstrates the growing interest in humanism, an intellectual movement that looked to the Greco-Roman past for inspiration.

Donatello’s nude is reminiscent of ancient Greek and Roman statues, like the youthful Spinario. This ancient bronze sculpture at the Lateran Palace in Rome had already inspired Donatello’s contemporaries, Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti who both riffed upon the figure in their respective bronze panels displaying the Sacrifice of Isaac created for the competition of the Florentine baptistery doors.

Artemision Zeus or Poseidon, c. 460 B.C.E., bronze, 2.09 m high, Early Classical (Severe Style), recovered from a shipwreck off Cape Artemision, Greece in 1928 (National Archaeological Museum, Athens, (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

In ancient art being shown without clothing often had positive connotations: ancient Greek and Roman gods and heroes signaled their virtue through their idealized nude bodies. By showing David in the nude, Donatello appropriates this convention. From the point of view of renaissance Christians, David’s nudity would have been seen as an improvement upon the ancient tradition, heroizing a Judeo-Christian subject rather than a pagan one.

Piero della Francesca, Flagellation of Christ, c. 1455–65, oil and tempera on wood, 58.4 × 81.5 cm (Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino)

This points to another key aspect of the work: its original placement upon an elevated column. This reflects a medieval practice of representing pagan cults using the motif of a nude figure—what renaissance audiences would have viewed as an “idol”—upon a column. We see this represented, for example, in Piero della Francesca’s fresco, the Flagellation of Christ, where the Christian savior is tortured while tied to a column topped with a nude “ancient” statue. Placing the biblical hero David in this position may have communicated the triumph of Christianity over pagan Antiquity, making the sculpture both fashionably all’antica and appropriately Christian. 

Donatello, David, date unknown but likely late 1430s–1440s, bronze, 158 cm high (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

But . . . isn’t he a little too sexy?

When seen from behind, the sex of Donatello’s David is ambiguous. In this patriarchal world, this androgyny may have been yet another reminder of his ineptness for battle. Renaissance Italy was male dominated: power passed from father to son and both religious and secular authorities insisted upon the superiority of men and masculinity. The sexual ambiguity, even effeminacy, of Donatello’s David helps emphasize that the youth’s victory could only be achieved by God’s intervention. When viewed from up close—an experience likely only available to privileged visitors to the palazzo—this androgynous nudity is further complicated by erotic undertones. Goliath’s helmet is adorned by a scene of Eros (Love) riding a chariot and a feather delicately caresses David’s inner thigh, both elements suggest themes of erotic love.

Feather (detail), Donatello, David, date unknown but likely late 1430s–1440s, bronze, 158 cm high (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Scholars have tied this eroticism to Florentine obsession with youthful male beauty, an interest that is evidenced in numerous works of art and even brought the ire of Florentine preachers who called it a sinful perversion. The fact that the sword, hat, and sandals are of contemporary Florentine fashion and not that of biblical times, suggests a connection to these renaissance preoccupations. Of course, David’s beauty, his desirability, was also part of the biblical tradition. He is referred to as “most beautiful among the sons of men” in Psalm 44 and the name “David” was translated to mean “beloved.” The message would have been clear to renaissance Florentines: Donatello’s David embodies desirability, he is beloved by God and this is the source of his victory.

Donatello, David, 1408–09, marble, 191 x 57.5 cm (Museo Nazionale de Bargello, Florence; photo: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Symbol of Florence, symbol of the Medici (or “let’s pretend we’re not really tyrants”)

By the time the bronze David was created, the hero was already a symbol of the Florentine Republic. Donatello’s marble David had been on display inside of the Palazzo dei Priori since 1416 against a backdrop of lilies, an insignia of Florence. By placing this civic hero in their private courtyard, the Medici claimed for themselves this state symbol, making David a Medici emblem as well as a Florentine one. 

Donatello, David, date unknown but likely late 1430s–1440s, bronze, 158 cm high (Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

For a family of supposedly private citizens of a republican state who were all but absolute rulers in practice, the Medici had good reason to associate themselves with David’s anti-tyrannical symbolism. Cosimo and his family likely wanted all visitors to their palace to regard them—like David—as defenders of liberty. This reading is reinforced by an inscription (now lost) that once adorned the column at the statue’s base:

The Victor is whoever defends the fatherland! God crushes the wrath of an enormous foe. Behold! A boy overcame a great tyrant. Conquer, O citizens!

Donatello, Judith and Holofernes, bronze, c. 1455, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Another work by Donatello displayed nearby in the palazzo also supports this message. In the garden adjacent to the courtyard where the bronze David was displayed was the artist’s bronze Judith and Holofernes. Judith was understood to be an exemplar of virtue; like David she was a heroine of the Hebrew Bible who slayed an enemy leader and thus liberated her people. It is likely that Judith and Holofernes was intended as a pendant with the bronze David, the pair working together to visually reinforce the Medici family as defenders of Florentine liberty. 

David for the win

Donatello’s costly life-sized  bronze is often eclipsed in the modern imagination by Michelangelo’s better known marble version. The later artist’s nude colossus, however, owes much to the early renaissance sculptor. An intimate work in a semi-public setting, Donatello gives us a hero for the ages: a youth who does the implausible and therefore achieves the miraculous.

Can stone be that soft? Contrast defines this sculpture. Mary is sweet but strong, and Christ, real yet ideal.

Michelangelo, Pietà, 1498–1500, marble, 174 x 195 cm (Saint Peter’s Basilica, Rome). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

The Pietà was a popular subject among northern European artists. It means “Pity” or “Compassion,” and represents Mary sorrowfully contemplating the dead body of her son which she holds on her lap. This sculpture was commissioned by a French Cardinal living in Rome.

Look closely and see how Michelangelo made marble seem like flesh, and look at those complicated folds of drapery. It is important here to remember how sculpture is made. It was a messy, rather loud process (which is one of the reasons that Leonardo claimed that painting was superior to sculpture!). Just like painters often mixed their own paint, Michelangelo forged many of his own tools, and often participated in the quarrying of his marble—a dangerous job.

When we look at the extraordinary representation of the human body here we remember that Michelangelo, like Leonardo before him, had dissected cadavers to understand how the body worked.

Carving marble is all about trapping shadows and watching light play across the surface.

Sculptor Simon Smith tells us why marble is “the Emperor of all stones” and “like a slice of the moon,” as he recreates a panel from the 15th-century Prato Pulpit in Italy. The carved pulpit features meter-high dancing cherubs, which Simon copies from photographs—scaling them down to fit his block of marble, while retaining the spirit and joy of Donatello’s original. Watch the shapes appear as Simon uses different chisels and tools to cut and refine the marble, explaining how carving is all about trapping shadows and watching light play across the surface.

How did ultramarine go from being more expensive than gold to one of the cheapest pigments for artists? Follow the journey of this vibrant blue color, ultramarine, one of the most celebrated and sought-after pigments in art.

Joanna Russell from the National Gallery’s Scientific Department looks at the use of ultramarine blue in The Wilton Diptych and Renoir’s Umbrellas. The Chemistry of Colour series explores some of the weird and wonderful ways pigments were historically produced, and how we can identify them today.

With luminous light and color achieved through a mastery of oil paint, van Eyck creates a jewel of a painting.

Jan van Eyck, Lucca Madonna, c. 1437, mixed technique on oak panel, 65.7 x 49.6 cm (Städel Museum, Frankfurt). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Military power, intellectual endeavor, and artistic mastery come together in this 15th-century Italian altarpiece.

Piero della Francesca, Madonna and Child with Saints, Angels and Federico da Montefeltro (San Bernardino Altarpiece), 1472–74, tempera on panel, 251 x 172 cm (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Van der Weyden captures grieving bodies with meticulousness and compositional rhythm.

Rogier van der Weyden, The Descent from the Cross, before 1443, oil on panel, 204.5 x 261.5 cm (Prado Museum, Madrid). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Marriage portrait, or memorial? This dense and detailed painting does not lack for symbols—or interpretations.

Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, oil on panel, 82.2 x 60 cm (The National Gallery, London). Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris

Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, oil on oak panel, 82.2 x 60 cm (National Gallery, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

But is she pregnant?

Dress (detail), Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, oil on oak panel, 82.2 x 60 cm (National Gallery, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Jan van Eyck’s equally enigmatic and iconic Arnolfini Portrait often prompts art history newcomers and experts alike to ask: is the female figure pregnant? Questions about the presence of pregnancy in the portrait are so common that the London National Gallery’s website addresses the issue on the second line of the painting’s official explanatory text. [1]

Is the woman in the Arnolfini Portrait pregnant? The short answer is no. The illusion is caused because the figure collects her extensive skirts and presses the excess fabric to her abdomen where it springs outwards and creates a domelike silhouette. Her hand position is regularly read by modern viewers as a universal acknowledgment of pregnancy, but in the Renaissance this gesture would have been understood instead as a sign of adherence to female decorum. Young Renaissance women were encouraged to keep their hands demurely clasped around their girdles when in public, as this was seen as polite and unobtrusive.

Carved bedpost depicting Saint Margaret atop a dragon (detail), Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, oil on oak panel, 82.2 x 60 cm (National Gallery, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

The issue of pregnancy in the Arnolfini Portrait is a complex one: the figure is not literally pregnant, because painting or sculpting pregnancy violated the period’s artistic customs—yet pregnancy is nevertheless present in the picture. Both pregnancy symbolism and expectation are at play within the painting.

Oranges (detail), Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, oil on oak panel, 82.2 x 60 cm (National Gallery, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Objects alluding to future pregnancy pepper the composition, from the ripened fruit arranged on the windowsill, to the wooden statuette of Saint Margaret, the patron saint of childbirth, who is shown overcoming the dragon of heresy on the bed frame. Though it’s impossible to sever the question concerning pregnancy from this painting, we can answer it by examining both Renaissance pregnancy and dress practices.

Renaissance pregnancy

The highly-gendered Renaissance world produced widely disparate male and female lived experiences. While a man generally married in his third or fourth decade, allowing him ample time to grow his business or estate, women became brides ideally between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. Women, therefore, were expected to and did spend the majority of their married lives with child.

Hands (detail), Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, oil on oak panel, 82.2 x 60 cm (National Gallery, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Arnolfini’s wife is not pregnant in the picture, but period norms assumed she soon would be. Art historian Diane Wolfthal agrees that although the woman is not pictured pregnant, “the panel alludes to the proper goal of sexual relations through the wife’s protruding belly . . . her gesture . . . brings attention to her womb,” and argues that the few period viewers who came into contact with the Arnolfini Portrait would have understood and recognized this signaling. [2]

Raphael, La Donna Gravida (Portrait of a Woman), c. 1505–06, oil on panel, 66 x 52 cm (Palazzo Pitti, Florence)

Although married Renaissance women spent the majority of their premenopausal lives with child, pregnancy itself was rarely represented. Artists working across a myriad of media shied away from depicting pregnancy, most likely because the condition was thought to be indecorous.

During the Renaissance, when a woman entered into her third trimester, she generally remained at home in a ritual called confinement. Further, depicting pregnancy admitted a direct link to human sexuality. Though procreative intercourse between heterosexual married couples was the only church-sanctioned form of sexuality in the Renaissance, to portray a married woman pregnant was generally seen as improper.

Detail, Limbourg Brothers, “September,” Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, c. 1412–16 (Musée Condé, Chantilly, MS 65, folio 9 verso)

Rare exceptions exist, such as Raphael’s inscrutable Donna Gravida, or Portrait of an Unknown Lady attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts II, or the peasant woman toiling away in the fields in the September page of the Limbourg brothers’ Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.

But even paintings depicting the Visitation—a moment in the Gospel of Luke when Mary and Elizabeth meet and both are pregnant (Mary with Christ, and Elizabeth with St. John the Baptist)—the two biblical heroines are rarely depicted as obviously gestational, though again, there are a few exceptions (for example, Rogier van der Weyden’s Visitation).

Francseco Xanto, Cup (for a birthing tray), c. 1530, tin glazed earthenware, 16.5 cm diameter (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Another medium that offers a glimpse into Renaissance pregnancy and childbirth are birth trays, which were popular gifts for new mothers that would include jars and bowls containing soup and sweets.

Renaissance dress and gender norms

While the Arnolfini Portrait foregrounds many domestic objects, dress takes center stage. Both outfits in the portrait are ludicrously expensive and detailed, but the woman’s clothing outshines her husband’s. This excessive disparity in color and yardage is perfectly in line with Renaissance fashion and gender difference. Men’s outfits tended to be tailored from darker fabrics to signal the wearer’s sobriety and lack of vanity. In contrast, Renaissance women’s bodies in both images and reality were potent sites of material display. An exemplary upper-class wife was required to demonstrate her husband’s wealth (through his ability to keep her adorned in the latest fashion trends) as well as the couple’s potential fertility.

Unidentified artist, A Bridal Couple, c. 1470, oil on panel, 77.5 x 51 x 8.1 cm (The Cleveland Museum of Art)

The woman in the Arnolfini Portrait holds her dress in a way that styles her body as seemingly pregnant. This pose is not uncommon in depictions of Renaissance women, especially in the Northern Renaissance context (see, for example, A Bridal Couple in The Cleveland Museum of Art). The odd pose was adopted for practical purposes: full Renaissance skirting forced women to pick up their gowns when they walked. The gesture likewise illuminates the wearer’s moneyed status.

According to costume historian Anne Hollander, the notorious, seemingly pregnant silhouette touted by the woman in The Arnolfini Portrait (and countless other images of women created throughout the early modern period) connoted elegance and luxury on the part of the wearer and her male keeper (for the man it was a swelled midsection). [3] The more dramatic a woman’s curves, the more real estate to show off exquisitely tailored fabrics. The lifting of skirts likewise provided a chance to further showcase wealth by revealing contrasting undergarments (such as the blue undergown worn by the woman in the Arnolfini Portrait).

While the woman’s gown does not display an actual pregnancy, it is possible that the controversial dress is coded with pregnancy and may be read as symbolic of women’s roles in the Renaissance, including motherhood. The woman’s ample costume does not conceal or describe a pregnancy; however, it is roomy enough to easily host a future one without the need for tailoring. Its green hue could also connote fecundity, as the color was widely associated with springtime and therefore fertility and fruitfulness in the period. Additionally, the gown is lined with ermine. Art historian Jacqueline Musacchio has argued that martins and weasels in portraits (either alive or skinned) may be symbolic of pregnancy or the hope for future pregnancy. [4] It is no accident, therefore, that mid-fifteenth century Flemish haute couture (high fashion) suggests pregnancy.

Cloth gathered on the floor (detail), Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, oil on oak panel, 82.2 x 60 cm (National Gallery, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

A new question

Perhaps the question we should be asking when considering the Arnolfini Portrait is not “is the female figure pregnant?” Instead, we can consider why the female figure appears to be pregnant. The persistent illusion asks us to consider Renaissance gender roles, as well as our own beliefs concerning depictions of women in pre-modern art. The woman in the green dress is not meant to be read as actually pregnant, yet—more significantly—she lived and died in a culture that expected near-constant pregnancy from women.

Europe, Africa, and Asia c. 1500 (before the Americas were on the international stage) (underlying map © Google)

Introduction

Many history and art history courses begin in 15th-century Europe (1401–1500). This is because there were significant, global changes during this century, signaling a break with the previous medieval era (also called the Middle Ages, which had lasted roughly one thousand years). The 15th century (1400s) is seen as the start of what is often referred to as the “Early Modern” period (roughly 1400–1800). By labelling this era in this way, historians are using a kind of shorthand to make broad but instructive generalizations. The label is, however, problematic in that it is often used to center Europe pushing other cultures to the periphery of historical focus. Nevertheless, the term remains a useful tool.

Canteen, early 15th century (Ming dynasty, China, Jiangxi province, Jingdezhen), Jingdezhen ware, porcelain with cobalt pigment under colorless glaze, 46.9 x 41.8 x 21.3 cm (Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1958.2)

The end of the 15th century and the 16th century are sometimes called the “age of exploration,” because this period can be seen as the beginning of our modern, interconnected world. We often assume globalization is a 20th- and 21st-century phenomenon, but a close examination of the Early Modern period reveals otherwise. While the term “age of exploration” heroicizes the origins of European colonization and neglects the multidirectionality of global interactions, it can also highlight longstanding and important connections among and between cultures.

As you read, you will see there are overall patterns (trade, cultural interconnectedness, exploitation, conversion) as well as more temporally localized threads. Each of the four short essays that follow focuses on one of the four centuries that comprise the Early Modern period. They are meant to be read together and in order.

Saint Donatian (detail), Jan van Eyck, The Virgin and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele, 1436, oil on panel, 148 x 184 cm (Groeningemuseum, Bruges; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The Renaissance begins

Most historians agree that the Renaissance begins around 1400. Wealth was accumulating in cities across Europe (Florence, Venice, Bruges, Ghent, Dijon, Antwerp, Seville, and Lisbon, among others) generated by manufacturing and by trade both across Europe, and with Asia and Africa. This is also the century that sees the beginnings of a European presence (in the form of military garrisons, some of which would later become centers of colonial control) in Africa and the Americas. In addition, wealthy patrons (like Philip the Good, Isabella d’Este, and Lorenzo de Medici) propelled the Renaissance, commissioning works of art for a variety of reasons. 

The Renaissance can be defined in part as the revival of a way of looking at the world called Humanism, which—at its most basic—placed renewed value on human knowledge, and the experience of this world (as opposed to focusing largely on the heavenly realm). In art for example, there is a return to representing the visible world. In the 15th century, even biblical figures and saints are depicted as more fully human than in the preceding centuries of the medieval era (though there are some notable exceptions).

View of Florence, Italy (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

In Italy (which was not yet a unified nation, but instead was made up of rival city states), we find a new historical self-consciousness that distinguishes itself from what one early Humanist called “the dark ages” (the medieval period), and confidently sees itself as a rebirth—one inspired by ancient Greek and Roman culture. [1] Highly educated and wealthy Italian rulers looked to ancient Greek and Roman literature and art as an exemplary model. The impact of ancient Greek and Roman art can be seen in the architecture of Filippo Brunelleschi, paintings by Masaccio, and sculpture by Donatello, all of whom worked in Florence.

In wealthy Northern European cities like Bruges and Brussels (today in Belgium), the Renaissance developed differently. We find oil paint used to create astoundingly realistic religious images by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, and Rogier van der Weyden.

This illustration comes from a book published by an early German printer from Augsburg, and is illustrated with seventy-three woodcuts. Here we see “Sol” or “Sun,” in Albumasar. Flores astrologiae (Augsburg: Erhard Ratdolt, November 18, 1488), image 21 (Rosenwald Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

The printing press

We know that the flow of information and images is a defining feature of our own time. This begins in mid-15th-century Germany, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the mechanical printing press (an innovation already known in East Asia). The press allowed for the production of multiples of images and texts at a fraction of the cost of hand-written manuscripts and enabled the circulation of ideas and images across long distances and across cultures. Woodcuts became the most effective method of illustrating texts made with movable type. 

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, 532–37, architects: Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The Byzantine Empire falls to the Ottomans

If we look to southeastern Europe and West Asia, we find the once great Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire (it had once controlled much of West Asia, North Africa and southern and eastern Europe) had become significantly diminished. In 1453 the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople (today Istanbul), was conquered by the Ottoman army and Byzantine churches, such as Hagia Sophia, were transformed into mosques. With the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the last remnant of the ancient Roman empire was lost. The Ottoman Empire, which was Muslim, came to dominate this region on the eastern and southern edges of Europe until its collapse in 1922. 

Porcelain bowl with armorial designs and inscription, c. 1600–20 (Ming dynasty, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province) (© The Trustees of the British Museum, London)

Porcelain and lacquer

The wealthy across both West Asia and Europe coveted lustrous, thin-walled, Chinese white porcelain decorated with blue underglaze. It seemed miraculous to take clay and create something so refined. Chinese porcelain was fired at a very high temperature and utilized kaolin—a white clay found in some Chinese rivers. The method and materials proved very difficult to copy (though many tried). Chinese porcelain was made for the court, but also for export. During the Ming dynasty, potters at the famous porcelain-producing kilns of Jingdezhen, China absorbed artistic ideas from imported foreign goods and made blue and white porcelain for export across the Islamic world, and eventually for the European market (and they sometimes make an appearance in European still life paintings). But porcelain was also made in a variety of colors—this stunning red dish was intended for rituals at the Chinese imperial court dedicated to the sun. 

There are also beautiful examples of blue and white porcelain from Korea made during the Joseon dynasty. Buncheong ware (decorated with various techniques, including inlay, stamping, incision, and iron-brown underglaze) was the primary type of Joseon ceramics at the time and shows the clear influence of Chinese blue and white porcelain. 

Negoro workshop, Negoro ware ewer, second half of 16th century (Muromachi period to Momoyama period, Wakayama prefecture, Japan), lacquered wood (Portland Art Museum)

In Japan, we find vessels, like this ewer, made using the labor-intensive process of urushi lacquer. This involved collecting tree sap (which was poisonous), processing it, and applying it in many layers to a wooden surface. The lacquer creates a smooth, hard, glossy surface. And though lacquer is found in much of Southeast Asia and East Asia, Japanese lacquer is a different process, and was so treasured by the Europeans that later, when trade with Europe began, Europeans called works that were lacquered “japanned” (analogous to the way that we use the word “china” to associate ceramics with China).

Ryōanji (Peaceful Dragon Temple), dry rock garden, study and grounds, Kyoto, Japan (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Also in Japan, the importance of nature is apparent in the work of the ink painter and Buddhist monk Sesshu Toyo and in the meditative spaces of Buddhist gardens. At the Zen temple of Ryōanji in Kyoto we find a dry rock garden—a form which developed during the Muromachi period. Ryōanji consists of just fifteen stones of different sizes arranged in groups amid raked pebbles.

Christopher Columbus landing on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1492  (detail), Theodor de Bry, Christopher Columbus arrives in America, 1594, etching and text in letterpress, 18.6 x 19.6 cm (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

The beginnings of colonialism in Africa and the Americas

To appreciate the importance to Europe of trade with Asia, imagine your kitchen cupboard without cinnamon, cloves, pepper, or nutmeg. Trading these spices, and other luxury items like silk, could bring enormous profit. The Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, were anxious to compete with Portugal for the potential riches gained through trade with Africa and Asia. The Portuguese appeared ahead of the game—they rounded the southernmost point of Africa in 1488, and established a sea route to India in 1497. The Portuguese Cantino Planisphere, made in 1502, presents a diagram of the world as available for Europeans to claim and dominate.

Cantino Planisphere, 1502, ink and pigment on vellum, 102 x 218 cm (Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena)

The Italian (from Genoa) Christopher Columbus believed that the globe of the earth was smaller than others estimated, and convinced Ferdinand and Isabella that he could reach Asia by sailing west. So, in the last decade of the century, in 1492, Columbus set sail west in search of a new trade route to Asia, but instead landed first in the Bahamas and Cuba and then Hispaniola (today the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic). The word “Indian” derives from the Indies, and was coined after Christopher Columbus bumped into the Caribbean islands believing, mistakenly, that he had found India.

Santiago Matamoros (or Saint James the Moor Slayer) was the patron saint of the conquest and colonization of the Americas by Spain. He was associated with conquest long before the Spaniards arrived in the Americas, since he was believed to have miraculously helped Spanish Christians during the so-called “Reconquest” of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) from Muslims (which started after 711). Santiago on Horseback, 16th century, polychromed and gilded wood (Museo Franz Mayer, Mexico City)

Aside from a desire for gold and spices, the Spanish monarchs had another motive—a religious one. Since the 8th century, Muslim dynasties controlled much of the Iberian Peninsula (today Spain and Portugal). In 1492, after centuries of warfare (part of an effort commonly known as the Reconquest), Ferdinand and Isabella’s Christian armies defeated the last remaining independent Muslim state in Western Europe. 1492 was also the year that Columbus set sail, and it was the year that Spain expelled or forced the conversion to Christianity of all Jews and Muslims within its borders. The zealous conversion of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and the establishment of colonies there largely mirrored the strategies of the Reconquest.

The often-used phrase that Europe discovered America masks the brutal history of colonial rule that Columbus’s voyages initiated and that resulted in the widespread destruction of Indigenous cities and attempts to eradicate Indigenous cultures (in part through conversion to Christianity), efforts that would continue well into the modern era.

Capital city of the Mexica (detail), Hernán Cortés, “Cortés’ 1524 Map of Tenochtitlan,” in Praeclara Ferdinādi Cortesii de Noua maris Oceani Hyspania narratio […] (Nuremberg, Germany: Friedrich Peypus, 1524; Newberry Library, Chicago)

Three spoons, 16th century (Edo or Owe culture, Benin, Bini-Portuguese style), in the collection of Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany by 1555, ivory, 25, 24.8, and 25.7 cm long (Museo di Anthropologia e Etnologia, Florence)

Meanwhile, the Portuguese established trading colonies along the west coast of Africa. They saw local carvers making exquisite goods in ivory (which they referred to as “white gold”) and recognized their potential as luxury objects to be sold in Europe. Soon ivory spoons made in Africa were part of elite life in places like Lisbon (in Portugal). Early encounters with Europeans were often recorded in African art and ivories from the Kingdom of Benin depict Portuguese soldiers. In Portugal, the Tower of Belém was built to protect the entrance to Lisbon’s port and celebrates the expedition led by Vasco da Gama who established a maritime trade route from Portugal to India. 

Kilwa along the Swahili coast (underlying map © Google)

Once they rounded the Cape of Good Hope (the southernmost tip of Africa), the Portuguese sailed up the east coast of Africa in search of gold and found it at Kilwa, an island in what is now Tanzania. The Swahili civilization occupied coastal East Africa beginning of the 9th century through until the 18th century and Kilwa became rich by controlling the trade in gold exported from Zimbabwe. The island was an important center of Indian Ocean trade, as can be seen in the fragments of Chinese ceramics embedded in the walls of a mosque there. 

Even this very brief overview of the 15th century demonstrates that by the end of the century, the world was a very different place than it had been at the beginning of the century. Muslims and Jews had been expelled from Spain, and the Ottomans were on the borders of Europe. Asia, Africa, and Europe were more interconnected via sea routes that enabled trade, and for Europeans, the Americas now offered vast new territories filled with people and raw materials to convert and exploit.

Saint Wilgefortis, Book of Hours and Psalter, c. 15th century, ink and gold on vellum (The University of Manchester Library, Rylands Collection, Latin MS 20, sheet 78)

Though you may have never heard of Saint Wilgefortis, she was once popular enough in Europe to rival the Virgin Mary. Religious reforms and controversies resulted in the destruction of shrines, paintings, and statues dedicated to her and she was almost forgotten. [1] The surviving artworks depicting her attest to a strong cult, especially in Central Europe in the early modern period. A great deal of Wilgefortis’s appeal lay in her specialty: relieving women of unwanted husbands. Images of Wilgefortis depict a crowned woman with a beard on a cross uncannily reminiscent of imagery of Christ on the cross. Sometimes there is little visual differentiation between Christ and Wilgefortis on the cross save a feminine dress.

A complex figure, Wilgefortis speaks to medieval and early modern understandings of gender beyond a simplistic binary and often undocumented histories of women suffering abuse. [2] Recent interest in Wilgefortis has been buoyed by interest in queer histories. In accordance with current scholarly literature, this essay uses female pronouns for Wilgefortis following medieval and early modern texts while recognizing textual pronouns are but one part of Wilgefortis’s legend. 

Saint Wilgefortis, Book of Hours, c. 1440 (The Morgan Library and Museum, MS W.3, folio 200 verso)

Legend of Wilgefortis

The legend seems to have appeared around the 14th or 15th centuries. With the exception of the facial hair detail, the legend follows standard virgin martyr tropes. Wilgefortis was a princess, the daughter of the pagan king of Portugal. She had converted to Christianity and taken a vow of virginity. She expressed a desire to be married only to Christ himself and remain a virgin bride her whole life. Wilgefortis resisted the marriage her father had arranged with the king of Sicily. Enraged, her father imprisoned his daughter. In some versions of the story, he tortures her as well. Wilgefortis prayed for a physical transformation that would render her too unattractive for marriage. Miraculously she grew a beard and the King of Sicily withdrew from the betrothal agreement. At this point, the King of Portugal decided to crucify his bearded daughter. During her crucifixion, Wilgefortis prayed that those who remembered her martyrdom be delivered from their burdens. Wilgefortis has been considered a patron saint of prisoners, the ill, soldiers, female health issues (including childbirth and uterine cancer), sexual abuse survivors, and women trapped in bad relationships.

Wilgefortis’s role as a saint who frees people from their burdens is expressed in the variety of names by which she is known. In Dutch she is known as “Ontcommer” and English “Uncumber,” monikers that literally name the saint as an “unencumberer.” Some French cults of the saint referred to her as “Débarras,” from the verb “débarrasser,” meaning “to get rid of.” The Tyrolian name Kümmernis likely derives from the German word “Kummer,” meaning “grief” or “sorrow.” Wilgefortis might be a German transliteration of the Latin “virgo fortis,” meaning “strong virgin,” or alternatively from the German “hilge vratz,” meaning “holy face.”

Volto Santo, c. 770–880, polychrome wood and gold, 2.4 m high (Cathedral of San Martino, Lucca; photo: Holly Hayes, CC BY-NC 2.0)

Like Christ

In visual art we typically see Wilgefortis in a standing position affixed to a wooden cross, often wearing a crown. Shoulder-length hair and a beard heighten the comparison to Christ. Her calm demeanor is suggestive of the Christus triumphans type of crucifix, with the iconography of Christ standing upright rather than sagging. In this form, Christ stretches his own arms into the familiar T shape rather than hanging on the nails affixing him to the cross, emphasizing Christ’s triumph instead of his suffering, and his voluntary acceptance of the crucifixion. [3]

An example of the Christus triumphans crucifix can be seen in the famous miracle-working wooden Volto Santo (Holy Face) crucifix housed in the Cathedral of San Martino in Lucca, Italy in which Christ appears alive, standing, crowned, and wearing robes of kingship and priesthood. This figure’s attire already appeared somewhat feminine to late medieval viewers. The additional clothes, ornaments, and shoes added to the sculpture for special feast days furthered the perception that the statue might portray a woman. [4] It’s possible that the cult of Wilgefortis, the crucified bearded princess in a crown, emerged from devotional practices around the Volto Santo (supporting their connection of Volto Santo and Wilgefortis is a legend associated with them both that involves a musician and the gift of a golden shoe). 

Saint Wilgefortis, c. 1750–1800, wood, 254 cm high (Museum of the Diocese Graz-Seckau, Graz; photo: Gugganij, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Wilgefortis’s similarity to Christ in art visually expresses broad medieval and early modern Christian cultural understandings of gender and the divine. The princess saint grows a beard and becomes more Christ-like in advance of her crucifixion that imitates Christ’s own. [5] The beard was not perceived as a transgression of femininity, but rather as confirmation of her holiness. Since medieval and early modern Christian European culture viewed masculinity as superior to femininity, we might expect praise for women saints who imitated Christ by performing masculine actions. The Virgin Mary and some female martyrs were praised for what were perceived to be manly virtues. What might be more surprising are historic ideas concerning Christ’s feminine qualities. 

Medieval Christian writings often attributed feminine qualities to Christ’s body. Mystical interpretations of Christ’s side wound likened it to a vulva and vaginal opening, associating Christ’s life-giving blood with the life-giving blood of childbirth. His body was understood as both male and female: male as the son of God, female as flesh made by the body of his mother Mary. [6] Wilgefortis’s dual masculine and feminine qualities only enhanced her laudable imitation of Christ. 

Hieronymus Bosch, The Crucifixion of Saint Wilgefortis, c. 1497, oil on panel, 104 x 119 cm (Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice)

In the cultural context of European Christian thought, Wilgefortis was not anomalous. The visual arts present her as a serious figure without sensationalizing her possession of a beard for spectacle—no circus “freaks” here. [7] Even Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych depiction—recently recognized as portraying Wilgefortis—presents the saint in markedly feminine attire with long hair and a light beard, keeping the focus on the martyrdom of Wilgefortis rather than playing up her facial hair. In an anonymous 18th-century German painting, Wilgefortis stands on a pedestal with only a horizontal beam suggesting a crucifix behind her. Her beard matching her hair color exists simply on her face. The same straightforward presentation can be found in the earlier images. The 15th-century Morgan illumination depicts Wilgefortis’s angry father in red shaking a scepter at his daughter high on the cross, but the saint herself is presented serenely, bearded, gazing down at her father. Images of Wilgefortis contrast with sexualized images of female saints who were stripped (Saint Catherine in the Belles Heueres) or faced sexualized torture (Saint Agatha whose breasts were removed with pincers).

Wilgefortis now

Wilgefortis was never officially canonized by the Catholic Church. In 1969, following Vatican II, her feast day was removed from the Catholic calendar. Nevertheless, she was an important saint to many people centuries ago—and recently too. LGBTQ+ communities in particular have embraced Wilgefortis as a testament to queer histories and queer holiness. Contemporary artists continue to find Wilgefortis fascinating; for example, queer Chicana artist Alma Lopez included Wilgefortis in a “Queer Santas: Holy Violence” series she painted in the 2010s. [8] A news article about the exhibition asked, “Were some Catholic saints transgender?”

Art historians ask instead, “how did people relate to the figure of Wilgefortis and what can we learn about that through the history of art?” As with all culture, especially cultural figures that have remained relevant over time, there is no ultimate determination that can define what Wilgefortis is or was historically. As art historians, we describe how a symbol, story, or figure functioned in a culture and how people responded with historical practices. Cultural responses change over time as do understandings and beliefs. What can be said with certainty is that Wilgefortis’s gender expression outside of a strict gender binary formed a fundamental aspect of her appeal in the medieval and early modern periods and continues to generate interest in the figure today.

Miracle of the Black Leg (detail), Master of the Rinuccini Chapel (Matteo di Pacino), Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian, c. 1370–75, tempera and gold leaf on panel, 79.4 x 135.6 cm (North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh)

The Miracle of the Black Leg is a medieval Christian legend of a miracle performed by two doctor saints that explicitly mentions race. From the 14th through 16th centuries it appeared frequently in European Catholic art. Stories that people find appealing can tell us a lot about social and cultural values. Because they select specific moments from a story and render details vividly, visual representations of those stories can reveal further unspoken cultural beliefs and assumptions. The Miracle of the Black Leg’s popularity in visual art coincides with the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade, but the story’s origin predates race-based slavery, raising questions about the connections between cultural ideas and historic practices.

Master of the Rinuccini Chapel (Matteo di Pacino), Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian, c. 1370–75, tempera and gold leaf on panel, 79.4 x 135.6 cm (North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh)

The earliest surviving artistic rendition of The Miracle of the Black Leg can be found on a 14th-century altarpiece painted by Matteo di Pacino, also known as the “Master of the Rinuccini Chapel.” The altarpiece features a larger main panel with Saints Cosmas and Damian, twin doctor saints, standing against a gold leaf background facing the viewer as was common in Italian depictions of devotional figures. At the bottom of the altarpiece are two smaller narrative panels making up the predella. Predella panels typically depict stories from the life of the devotional figure in the main panel above. On this altarpiece, we see the Miracle of the Black Leg and a second panel showing the martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian by beheading.

Many Catholic saints achieved martyrdom through beheading; only Cosmas and Damian performed the miracle of interracial surgical transplantation. According to the Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea), the authoritative 13th-century compilation of lives of saints, Cosmas and Damian were born in the 3rd century C.E. in the area of the Roman Empire that is now modern-day Turkey. [1] Instructed in medicine by the Holy Ghost, the two Christian physicians refused payment for their services.

The miracle

The Miracle of the Black Leg was a posthumous miracle—it was performed by Cosmas and Damian in the 6th century C.E. hundreds of years after their deaths. A pious man who worked as a verger caring for a church dedicated to Cosmas and Damian unfortunately suffered from a cancerous leg. One night while the verger slept, Cosmas and Damian came to his room, amputated the verger’s painful leg, and replaced it with the leg of a recently deceased man who had been buried in a nearby cemetery. In the Golden Legend and most visual representations, the deceased man is pictured as Black.  

Miracle of the Black Leg using continuous narrative (detail), Master of the Rinuccini Chapel (Matteo di Pacino), Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian, c. 1370–75, tempera and gold leaf on panel, 79.4 x 135.6 cm (North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh)

Pacino’s panel uses continuous narrative to show the viewer both the placement of the Black leg on the verger and the graveyard where the Black man’s body can be seen lying in the exhumed coffin. The Golden Legend says the verger’s friends were skeptical of the miracle and went to the graveyard where they found that indeed the deceased Moor’s removed leg had been replaced with the verger’s diseased leg. The contrast between the skin colors is amplified by the markedly diseased state of the verger’s leg attached to the unblemished Black man’s body.  

Miracle stories involving bodies made whole are common in Christian medieval hagiographies, but most miracle stories did not involve racial or ethnic designation of the participants the way the Golden Legend specifies in the Miracle of the Black Leg. The Greek version of the Cosmas and Damian miracle does not specify a race, religion, or ethnic group for deceased man whose leg is taken. The Golden Legend text refers to as both a “Moor” and “Ethiopian,” a term used in Europe to broadly refer to anyone of African descent. 

During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Europeans frequently used the terms “African,” “Black,” “Moor,” and “Ethiopian” interchangeably. As Europeans began enslaving Africans in large numbers, they began associating Blackness itself with slavery. [2] The racial and ethnic terms and their meanings vary, but consistently frame Blackness as the Other, a binary idea of the “not us.” Nevertheless, multiple iterations of the Miracle of the Black Leg including the Golden Legend text source, Pacino’s predella panel, and part of an altarpiece by Fra Angelico all predate the transatlantic slave trade and even the Portuguese introduction of West Africans they enslaved into Europe. 

Fra Angelico, Miracle of the Black Leg, part of the San Marco Altarpiece, tempera on wood, 37 x 45 cm (Museum of San Marco, Florence)

In nearly all depictions of the miracle, the transplanted limb has Black skin that contrasts visually with the verger’s skin. The story’s text does not specify the verger’s race; in art he is portrayed as light-skinned. The coloristic contrast, prominent compositionally, emphasizes race as an important element of the legend. 

Blackness in late-medieval Europe

European attitudes towards Black people and Blackness during the late medieval and Renaissance periods varied. Early instances of anti-Blackness include negative depictions of demons, Jews, and Muslims with dark skin. The term “Moor,” which can mean both Muslim or a person with dark skin, further suggests a correlation between dark skin and a person who is not Christian. Conversely, medieval European Christian practice also venerated Black figures including Saint Maurice, the Black magus who visited the infant Christ, and various Black Madonna figures. Ethiopian ambassadors emphasized their common religion of Christianity when practicing diplomacy at European courts. 

An Adoration with Black Magus, part of The Salzburg Missal, c. 1478, ink and gold on parchment, 38 x 28 cm (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, volume 1 Clm 15708 I, folio 63 recto)

Interestingly, the Golden Legend implies that the Black man whose leg was taken by Cosmas and Damian to heal the verger was Christian even if the text refers to him as a “Moor.” According to the text he was buried in the cemetery of San Pietro in Vincoli, a Christian church. Representations that attach the verger’s diseased leg to the Black man’s corpse attends to contemporary Christian concerns that a body needed to be “whole” for the promised resurrection at the Last Judgement. [3]

Isidro Villoldo, Miracle of the Black Leg, c. 1547, polychrome carving on wood, 88 x 80 x 17 cm (Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid; photo: Jl FilpoC, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The structure of the story both in the Golden Legend text and in multiple visual representations appears to use racial differentiation between the healed man and the unwitting donor as justifying logic for the saints’ miraculous action. In other words, his Blackness makes his body available for use. Some renditions of the story even depict the Black man as awake and in pain in the verger’s bedroom (such as Isidro de Villoldo, Miracle of the Black Leg). [4] Contemporary viewers would have read these later representations that eliminate the graveyard and turn the corpse into a “mutilated living African man” as portraying an enslaved man. [5] The taking of a Black man’s limb without consent for its utility unsettlingly parallels future instances of medical experimentation and exploitation of Black persons. [6]  

Fernando del Rincon, Miracles of the Doctor Saints Cosmas and Damian, c. 1510, oil on panel, 188 x 155 cm (Museo del Prado, Madrid)

Ideas of race and racial categories are determined not by biology but by cultural and historical ways of thinking. Thinking about race as a system of organizing people into groups and distributing power—often unequally—helps us understand historical ways in which cultures thought about categories. [7] While late medieval and Renaissance European notions of race differ from 21st-century categories of race, they nevertheless form the history of contemporary thought.

Showing off his skill, Michelangelo carves the popular subject of the Madonna and Child, but with a twist (literally).

Michelangelo, Bruges Madonna, c. 1503–05, marble (Carrara), 130 x 63.5 x 63 cm (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk/Church of Our Lady, Bruges). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

VISITFLANDERS has joined forces with Smarthistory and the Center for Netherlandish Art at the MFA Boston to bring you a series of video conversations with curators on important Flemish paintings by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Peter Paul Rubens, and James Ensor.

Each panel of this reliquary is carefully painted with scenes from Saint Ursula’s pilgrimage.

Hans Memling, Saint Ursula Shrine, c. 1489, oil on panel with gilding, 91.5 x 99 x 41.5 cm (Museum of Saint John’s Hospital, Bruges). Speakers: Dr. Anna Koopstra, curator of early Netherlandish painting, Musea Brugge, and Dr. Beth Harris

VISITFLANDERS has joined forces with Smarthistory and the Center for Netherlandish Art at the MFA Boston to bring you a series of video conversations with curators on important Flemish paintings by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Peter Paul Rubens, and James Ensor.

Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist are honored in Memling’s altarpiece.

Hans Memling, Triptych of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, 1479, oil on panel, central panel: 173.6 x 173.7 cm, wings: 176 x 78.9 cm (Memlingmuseum, Museum Saint John’s Hospital, Bruges). Speakers: Dr. Anna Koopstra, Curator of Early Netherlandish Painting, Musea Brugge and Dr. Steven Zucker

VISITFLANDERS has joined forces with Smarthistory and the Center for Netherlandish Art at the MFA Boston to bring you a series of video conversations with curators on important Flemish paintings by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Peter Paul Rubens, and James Ensor.

Fouquet celebrates the beauty of Mary as the Queen of Heaven.

Jean Fouquet, Madonna Surrounded by Seraphim and Cherubim, Melun Diptych (right panel), c. 1455, oil on oak panel, 95.9 x 88.2 cm (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp). Speakers: Dr. Samuel Mareel, Senior Curator of 15th- and 16th-Century Art, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and Dr. Beth Harris

VISITFLANDERS has joined forces with Smarthistory and the Center for Netherlandish Art at the MFA Boston to bring you a series of video conversations with curators on important Flemish paintings by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Peter Paul Rubens, and James Ensor.

Van der Weyden’s detailed painting invites the viewer to spend time with each of the seven sacraments.

Rogier van der Weyden, The Seven Sacraments, 1440–45, oil on oak panel, 200 x 223 cm (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp). Speakers: Dr. Samuel Mareel, Senior Curator of 15th- and 16th-Century Art, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and Dr. Steven Zucker

VISITFLANDERS has joined forces with Smarthistory and the Center for Netherlandish Art at the MFA Boston to bring you a series of video conversations with curators on important Flemish paintings by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Peter Paul Rubens, and James Ensor.

Van Eyck’s painting is wonderfully complex, from the fine wrinkles of van der Paele’s face to the shiny reflection of Saint George’s armor.

Jan van Eyck, The Virgin and Child with Canon Joris van der Paele, 1436, oil on panel, 148 x 184 cm (Groeningemuseum, Bruges). Speakers: Dr. Anna Koopstra, Curator of Early Netherlandish Painting, Musea Brugge and Dr. Beth Harris

VISITFLANDERS has joined forces with Smarthistory and the Center for Netherlandish Art at the MFA Boston to bring you a series of video conversations with curators on important Flemish paintings by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Peter Paul Rubens, and James Ensor.

Church of the Holy Cross, Pătrăuți Monastery, Moldavia, modern Romania, view from the southwest, 1487 (photo: Alice Isabella Sullivan)

This small church of the Holy Cross at Pătrăuți Monastery, located on the eastern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, was built at a time of great turmoil in Christian history, a few decades after the fall of the city of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. This event brought an end to the Byzantine Empire and redirected its resources and people to neighboring regions, like the principality of Moldavia.  

By the second half of the 15th century, Moldavia emerged as a Christian frontier at the crossroads of Byzantine, Western European, Slavic, and Ottoman traditions. This resulted in adaptations and negotiations in local contexts. Architectural projects, like the church at Pătrăuți, reveal how Western medieval (often referred to as the Latin West) and Byzantine (often referred to as the Greek East) were creatively adapted and transformed in Moldavia in the so-called post-Byzantine period (after 1453).  

The monastic church at Pătrăuți provides a transcendent space where light changed to accentuate facets of the architecture, decoration, and ritual celebration, while drawing attention to the patron—Stephen III of Moldavia. Stephen ruled for close to half a century, and Pătrăuți is the earliest preserved church that demonstrates the new artistic style that he promoted in Moldavia through the building of over forty religious sites, mostly in the last decades of his rule. He turned his attention to religious building projects after dedicating the first three decades on the throne to the building of fortifications to protect his domains.     

Plan, church of the Holy Cross, Pătrăuți Monastery, Moldavia, modern Romania, 1487 (source: Tudor-Cătălin Urcan)

The architecture

The church at Pătrăuți is small and was built out of local stone and rubble. It follows a triconch plan, which consists of a rounded eastern apse and two shallower lateral semicircular apses extending to the north and south. A square pronaos with a small window at the center of each of the north and south walls precedes the main liturgical space of the church. The main entryway is at the center of the west façade, and another small doorway leads from the pronaos into the naos, guiding the physical progression through the spaces. This passage from one room to the next focuses attention on the individual as only one person at a time can pass through each doorway. A shallow dome sits over the space of the pronaos, and a steeple-like dome with tall, rectangular windows pointing in the cardinal directions rises over the central space of the naos.

The church was designed and constructed by masons trained in Central-European workshops (from west of the Carpathian Mountains), however, the layout of the church adapts Byzantine church building traditions—in particular those found in the monasteries on Mount Athos. It was a particularly well-suited plan for Eastern Christian monastic worship as it allowed the monks or nuns to gather in the naos and amplified their singing during the celebration of the liturgy.  

The murals

Like the layout of the church, the partly preserved mural cycles are similar to those found in Byzantine churches. They are brightly colored, cover the walls in their entirety from floor to ceiling, focus attention on Biblical scenes and Christian icons, and carry inscriptions in Greek. This suggests that artists trained in former Byzantine territories worked at the Moldavian court and on the church at Pătrăuți during the second half of the 15th century, being displaced from their homelands after the events of 1453.

Naos murals, view toward the west, church of the Holy Cross, Pătrăuți Monastery, Moldavia, modern Romania, 1487 (photo: Petru Palamar)

The interior murals represent the earliest extant example of Moldavian monumental church painting, whose program was adapted and expanded in other local churches and in the decades that followed. The sanctuary once displayed a monumental image of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child among angels, as found in other Byzantine contexts. Scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin also cover the walls of the naos and pronaos at Pătrăuți, including Christ’s miracles. For example, painted at the top of the west wall of the pronaos and visible upon exiting the church, the mural of the Wedding Feast at Cana. Directly below this image is a distinctive medieval iconography with deep relevance in the Moldavian cultural context—the Procession of the Soldier Saints. The mural conveys a similar message of divine presence. 

Mural of the Procession of the Soldier Saints, west wall of pronaos, church of the Holy Cross, Pătrăuți Monastery, Moldavia, modern Romania, 1487 (photo: Petru Palamar)

The mural of the Procession, painted in a long horizontal register on the west wall of the pronaos, above the main entrance to the church, shows a non-biblical scene with Emperor Constantine and the archangel Michael leading a cavalcade made up of thirteen mounted soldiers rendered in the guise of military saints. They ride toward a large cross in the sky before them, painted in the upper right corner of the composition. The Greek inscription near the cross states—“In this sign [the cross] you shall defeat your enemies”—recalling the account of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, which marked Constantine’s turn to Christianity and subsequent protection of the Christian faith within the Roman Empire. Fighting under the sign of the cross also resonated in the Moldavian context of the late 15th century as the region was repeatedly under threat from neighboring powers, especially the Ottoman Empire, which was steadily advancing into Eastern Europe. The image evokes divine assistance in Constantine’s 4th century campaign, and, by extension, in Stephen’s contemporary struggles against the Ottomans.

Tympanum at the front (west) entrance with saints Constantine and Helena, Pătrăuți Monastery, Moldavia, modern Romania, 1487 (photo: Cezar Suceveanu, CC BY-SA 3.0)

On the exterior of the building, few painted images have survived. The Last Judgment takes up the entirety of the west façade, and an icon of Saints Constantine and Helena occupies the tympanum of the main entrance. Nothing else of the exterior decorations has been preserved.

The light

The architecture and mural cycles at Pătrăuți adapt Byzantine models, but other facets of the liturgical space reveal the inclusion of Western church-building traditions. This is evident in the masonry construction of the building and in the Gothic designs of the portals, window frames, and window tracery. These were a staple feature of Gothic workshops across Western and Central Europe and were routinely used in architectural designs. This building technique reached the Carpathian Mountains through traveling masons and the exchange of architectural drawings among workshops.

Sunlight effects observed in the church at Pătrăuți reveal how the building was designed to integrate astronomical knowledge prevalent in the Latin West. On certain feast days, sunlight has been observed to fall on specific scenes and liturgical furnishings, which it unites in symbolic ways, thus underscoring theological statements within the sacred space of the church. For example, the almost perfect east-west orientation of the axis of the church creates a “light path” around the equinoxes. Twice a year, in September and March/April, for about two weeks, the light entering the church in the afternoon passes through the aligned doors of the pronaos and naos to illuminate the altar. This alignment would have corresponded with the celebration of Vespers, which centered on Christ’s coming as Light into the darkness of the world. 

Moreover, in the early morning on the summer solstice—the longest day of the year—the first ray of sunlight that enters the church illuminates the mural of Prophet Isaiah shown standing in the cylindrical drum of the naos’ dome. Isaiah displays an open scroll with an inscription drawn from Psalm 112(113):3 “From the sun’s rising to its setting, praise the name of the Lord!” As such, the text highlights the connection of Christian beliefs with sunlight. 

Prophet Isaiah illuminated on the Summer Solstice, interior mural, drum of naos dome, Church of the Holy Cross, Pătrăuți Monastery, Moldavia, modern Romania, 1487 (photo: Gabriel-Dinu Herea)

More complex phenomena involve moving sunlight connecting different sections of the building and portions of the mural decoration, underscoring their theological importance during the liturgical celebrations and the devotional concerns of the patron who wanted to be perpetually remembered within the space at Pătrăuți. For example, during the celebration of the main liturgy on specific days, a sunray enters through the apse window and falls directly on the mural of the patron, situated on the opposite wall of the naos from the altar. As the liturgy unfolds, the sunray moves from the wall onto the floor, toward the altar, symbolically involving the patron in the celebration of the Eucharist.

As one of Stephen III’s earliest ecclesiastical projects, the church of the Holy Cross at Pătrăuți Monastery reveals innovation in the initial stages of church architecture in Moldavia in the post-Byzantine period. The church marks the beginning of an impressive series of religious projects in the region—consisting of monastic and parish churches, as well as chapels—that were designed in a new architectural vocabulary that incorporated aspects of Byzantine and Gothic church building and decorating traditions, alongside local forms. Among the extant monuments, Pătrăuți remains the key representative of Stephen’s early churches and an exceptional example of Eastern Christian church architecture in the post-Byzantine period.

Bellini imagines Saint Mark preaching in a collage of different times and places: ancient Alexandria, 16th-century Venice, and the Ottoman Empire.

Gentile Bellini (completed by Giovanni Bellini), Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria, 1504–07, oil on canvas, 347 x 770 cm (Brera Pinacoteca, Milan). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Gentile Bellini (completed by Giovanni Bellini), Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria, 1504–07, oil on canvas, 347 x 770 cm (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Italian Renaissance painting is often described as “realistic,” a reference to its interest in representing the world we see convincingly. This was often achieved through various tools such as the use of one-point perspective to create illusionistic space and the use of modeling to create a an illusion of three-dimensional forms. But though they may seem like a “window onto the world,” Renaissance paintings are often far more complex.

Take for example, Venetian painters Gentile and Giovanni Bellini’s twenty-five foot wide Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria, which appears, at first glance, to be a straightforward and realistic painting that relates an episode of Saint Mark (one of Christ’s apostles) preaching the Christian message in the port city of Alexandria, Egypt. However, the painting’s illusion of simplicity quickly dissolves as the viewer tries to reconcile disparate elements of time and place in the composition.

Saint Mark Preaching with 16th century Venetians behind him (detail), Gentile Bellini (completed by Giovanni Bellini), Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria, 1504–07, oil on canvas, 347 x 770 cm (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

For one thing, in the left foreground we see Saint Mark, shown in 1st-century (biblical era) attire of his historical era, occupying the very same public square as 16th-century Venetians (and other listeners). In addition, architectural elements in the background blend ancient Egyptian features with 16th-century Venetian ones. These dissonances (Alexandria / Venice / biblical era / 16th century) are no accident, rather they reveal a claim that Venice could transcend the limits of its historical time and its own physical borders, and lay claim to both the past and distant places. The message—that Christianity should be spread globally—neatly paralleled Venice’s burgeoning empire and colonization efforts in the Adriatic. A religious narrative was employed in service of political ideology.

Gentile Bellini (completed by Giovanni Bellini), Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria, 1504–07, oil on canvas, 347 x 770 cm (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

We see an expansive vista of a paved city square: on the right, we see a man leading a giraffe on a leash near a camel resting by the sand-colored buildings flanking the plaza (on the left, a dromedary can be seen just above Saint Mark). In the foreground, Saint Mark—in robes of red and blue echoing Christ’s standard color iconography—stands on a stepped dais delivering his oration.

Contemporary (16th century) figures, some in veils and turbans (detail), Gentile Bellini (completed by Giovanni Bellini), Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria, 1504–07, oil on canvas, 347 x 770 cm (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Behind him 16th-century Venetians wearing red and black form neat attentive rows. Other contemporary persons in a variety of attire indicating a range of ethnicities gather in the square; their veils and turbans gesture towards 16th-century Alexandria’s Muslim culture. Behind the figures, closing the square is a large building with a golden façade split into three arched sections, marked by two minarets on either side.

Reproduction of Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria in its original location, the Albergo (boardroom) of the Scuola Grande di San Marco, Venice (photo: Caffe_Paradiso, all rights reserved, used with permission)

The Scuola Grande di San Marco Confraternity

Made as one of seven paintings in a cycle depicting the life of Saint Mark, the large canvas hung in the boardroom of the Scuola Grande di San Marco, Venice’s premiere scuola dedicated to Mark. The painting cycle depicts scenes from the life of the saint, his martyrdom, and two posthumous miracles.

Pietro Lombardo, Mauro Codussi, and Bartolomeo Bon, Scuola Grande di San Marco, Venice, c. 1500 (photo, edited: Wolfgang Moroder, CC BY 2.5)

The extensive cycle in a prominent location tells us that 16th-century Venetians took this artwork seriously and that its making and message were not casual. In early modern Venice, the Scuola Grande di San Marco occupied a role important to both religious practice and statecraft. The confraternity gathered its membership from people who were neither clergy nor monastics (nuns and monks), but from the general population of Venice. Though legally separate from the government, the Scuola Grande di San Marco nevertheless participated regularly in civic rituals such as processions. The confraternity’s dedication to Saint Mark, the city’s patron saint, made this particular scuola indispensable to Venetian identity.

Basilica of San Marco, 11th century and later, Venice (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Venice & Saint Mark

The city of Venice had dedicated itself to Saint Mark ever since the 9th century when two Venetians sailed to Alexandria in Egypt and stole the saint’s holy body. Venice justified the theft by claiming the state’s possession of the relics was predestined and the saint’s own desire (because Saint Mark had chosen Venice before the city even existed historically, Venice’s existence could be declared predestined as well). They brought the saint’s body to Venice where the government built the Basilica San Marco to house the relics. The rarity and historical importance of Saint Mark’s relics turned Venice into a pilgrimage destination, conveniently located in a protected lagoon from which one could sail to the Holy Land.

Lion of Venice, Piazzetta San Marco, Venice, erected in the 12th or 13th centuries (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

State mythology promoted the connection between Saint Mark and Venice until images of Saint Mark became near-symbols of the state itself. Images of Saint Mark (whose symbol is a lion) can be found throughout Venice indicating the saint, his special protection of Venice on government buildings, infrastructure, and in non-governmental spaces such as the Scuola Grande di San Marco painting cycle. When Venice colonized locations on the Italian peninsula and on the Dalamatian coast, the state erected images of Saint Mark as a sign of Venetian rule and Venetian presence. Over time Venetian art developed pictorial strategies to exploit and enhance the connection between Saint Mark and Venice as we see in Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria.

Combining times & places

Interestingly, Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria combines multiple times and places into a unified image that appears as if it were depicting a single moment and place. Such images portraying a mobile and expansive Venice able to join histories and places outside its own historical time and borders are found through Venetian art production. [1]

Gentile and Giovanni Bellini’s painting employs one-point perspective, a mathematical grid system that produces the illusion of pictorial space, to create the impression that what the viewer sees is a single moment in time. That impression of a single moment is quickly disrupted when the viewer notices the temporal disjunction of the 16th-century figures occupying the plaza and the 1st-century Saint Mark, whose robes would have read immediately as “biblical time” to Renaissance viewers. His costume would appear particularly disjunctive.

Left: obelisk; right: Pompey’s Pillar (details), Gentile Bellini (completed by Giovanni Bellini), Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria, 1504–07, oil on canvas, 347 x 770 cm (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The painting also complicates one point perspective’s implied sense of a single place. According to the legend of Saint Mark, we should see the saint in Alexandria, Egypt preaching in front of the Temple of Serapis. Certain details do indicate Africa, for example, the giraffe, camel, and dromedary. The obelisk, brought to the city by Emperor Augustus, and the pillar topped by an orb known as “Pompey’s Pillar” are monuments specific to the city of Alexandria. Venetian sailors and traveling merchants would have been able to see those monuments when approaching the port of Alexandria.

Despite the specificity of those monuments and the sand-colored buildings typical of early modern Egyptian cities, the painting refuses to settle in Alexandria entirely. The square’s inhabitants wear distinctive clothing that can be identified as Renaissance costume book types. The veiled women in white for example appear in Cesare Vecellio’s 16th-century costume book identified as “Woman of Cairo.” The men in striped attire can be found labelled “Indian Christian Man.”

“Woman of Cairo,” and “Christian Indian Man Visiting Cairo,” in Cesare Vecellio, Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo / di Cesare Vecellio, Venice, 1598 (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, folios 424 verso and 426 verso)

The building closing the piazza remains most puzzling of all. The shape of the building calls to mind the shape of the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (which the Ottomans had converted to a mosque in 1453). Venetians had great familiarity with the city due to their close trade ties with the Ottoman Empire, but also from their own sack of the city in 1204 (Venetians looted the city, stealing pieces of architecture and much of the city’s relics and art).

Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, Hagia Sophia, 537 C.E. (minarets added in the 15th and 16th centuries), Constantiniople (now Istanbul) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Minarets rising on either side of the painted golden building at the end of the square suggest an Islamic mosque, but Islam as a religion dates to the 7th century, hundreds of years after Saint Mark’s death. While minarets unmistakably indicate a mosque, the oddly shaped building bears no relation to any known mosque in Egypt or the episode’s historical setting in front of the pagan Temple of Serapis. As many observers have noted, the golden mosaics, round onion domes, and arched portals recall Venice’s Basilica San Marco. Specific details seem plucked from that Venetian church: columns of porphyry (some of which may have been taken from Constantinople) and serpentine flanking portals and two scalloped parapets covered by a dome on either side of the painted basilica’s upper story mimic the stone pulpit that can be found inside Venice’s Basilica San Marco.

Architecture (detail), Gentile Bellini (completed by Giovanni Bellini), Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria, 1504–07, oil on canvas, 347 x 770 cm (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

There is evidence that the confraternity members of the Scuola Grande di San Marco were looking to make a connection between the building in their painting and the Basilica of San Marco. In an earlier painting, Gentile had depicted the Basilica in the background of his painting Procession in Piazza San Marco. Venetian viewers familiar with that painting would have made the visual connection between the buildings. Saint Mark preaches in Alexandria in front of a building that is symbolically both a mosque (representing Venice’s 16th century rival) but simultaneously the Basilica San Marco (yet to be built) during Mark’s lifetime in the 1st century but destined to hold his holy relics. The past predestines the future and the present reaches back into the past to grab its destiny.

An argument bigger than reality

Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria employs the tools of Italian Renaissance realism to portray an idea of Venice beyond the constraints of linear time and physical space. The subversion of the illusion of simple reality prompts thoughtful curiosity from the viewer who then is free to make associations between disjunctive elements. From those connections, prompted by the painting and composed into coherence in clear linear perspective, emerges a deeply Venetian argument about Venetian identity.

Jean, duc de Berry spared no expense for this dazzling reliquary containing a thorn from the Crown of Thorns.

The Holy Thorn Reliquary, 1390–97 (created for Jean, duc de Berry), enameled gold, sapphires, rubies, pearls, rock crystal, thorn, 30.5 x 15 x 7 cm (The British Museum, London). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker