Medieval Academy of America
Notes on the Avignon Pietà
Author(s): Don Denny
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Speculum, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Apr., 1969), pp. 213-233
Published by: Medieval Academy of America
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NOTES ON THE AVIGNON PIETA
BYDON DENNY
THE Avignon Pieta (Fig. 1) is to be distinguished from most earlier Pietas.1 The
theme of the Virgin supporting the body of her dead Son had from its earliest
appearances in mediaeval art and literature been expressed in a highly emotional
manner. Most often the Virgin had been imagined clutching the body of her Son
as if unable to relinquish Him to the tomb, or dreaming that she held Him in her
lap once more as an infant. The tone is frequently violent, shrill, or morbid
whereas the Avignon Pieta exhibits an ordered restraint. At the center of the painting the hands of the Virgin, rather than holding the body of her Son, are pressed
together in prayer; their axial form is repeated in the larger, similar form of her
upper body, also a narrow, upright triangle. The torso of Christ is horizontal, its
direction extending to include the ministering hands of the Magdalene, holding
the jar of ointment, and of John, removing the Crown of Thorns. The arrangement is stable and self-contained, suggesting associations with the liturgy rather
than the theater or novelistic accounts of the Passion such as that of PseudoBonaventura. Less regular forms, especially the bending and shadowed face of
the Virgin and the long, slanting legs and right arm of Christ, modify the character
of the center; their psychic equivalent is a pathos which alters but does not disrupt the prevailing dignity, as when a liturgical ritual is informed by strong personal feeling.
The following notes attempt to provide sources for the Avignon Pieta in the
history of religious thought and imagery.
*
*
*
This picture of the Virgin, controlled, solemn, and prayerful at the death of
her Son, draws upon a persistent strain of mediaeval thought which emphasized
these attitudes of the Virgin during the Passion. Such ideas are in contrast to that
body of thought and feeling, more pervasive in the later Middle Ages, which
emphasized the extreme and unchecked grief of the Virgin. The most important
founder of the former tradition is Saint Ambrose; he contrasts the steadfastness
of the Virgin with the flight of the Apostles and states that after the death of
Christ she had faith in the Resurrection. She looked piously upon the wounds of
her Son for she knew that by these wounds all the future would be redeemed.2
1 Iconographical aspects of the Avignon Pieta have been discussed by J. G. Ford and G. S. Vickers,
"The Relation of Nune Goncalves to the Pieta from Avignon, with a Consideration of the Iconography of the Pieta in France," Art Bulletin, xxi (1939), 5 ff.; and G. Bazin, La pieta d'Avignon
(Geneva, 1941).
See especially, Charles Sterling's studies: "La pieta de Tarascon," La revuedes arts, v (1955), 25 if.,
and notes in Bulletin de la societe nationale des antiquaires de France (1 July, 1959), pp. 213 ff., the latter
attributing the painting to Enguerrand Quarton. Also, C. Sterling and H. Adhemar, Musee nationale
du Louvre,Peintures, tcole frangaise, XIVe, XVe, et XVII siecles (Paris, 1965), p. 13, no. 32, Pls. 86 ff.
The present study was begun at the suggestion of Professor Sterling, whom I wish to thank for his
sympathetic and courteous guidance.
2 De institutione
virginis, Migne, PL, xvi, col. 318; also cols. 1218 and 1431. Similar attitudes are
expounded by Paulinus of Nola, in a letter to St Augustine: PL, xxxiii, cols. 468 f. Augustine concurs
in his reply: PL, xxxiii, col. 644.
214
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
Ambrose is here refuting a belief, advanced by Origen and often repeated by the
eastern Fathers, that Simeon's prophecy of the Virgin's grief during Christ's
Passion cast doubts upon her faith; for how could she suffer such grief if she had
perfect faith in the Resurrection?3 After the fifth century this question was
largely disregarded; and later mediaeval art and poetry record the emotional
agony of the bereaved Virgin, neglecting to account for her understanding of the
necessity of the event or to ascribe to her any faith through foreknowledge. The
of the Virgin during Christ's Passion is, however, repeatedly
cited in the
theological literature. As had Saint Ambrose, the later authors contrast the steadfastness of the Virgin to the weakness of the fleeing Apostles. This thought occurs
in Alexander
The comments,
of Hales,4 Thomas
Aquinas,5 and Bonaventura.6
not concerned
with narrative
or affecting
make no temporal
or
description,
distinctions,
psychological
speaking simply of the Virgin's faith during the time
faith
of the Passion.
In the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries certain authors applied this traditional
belief to a special ecclesiological
issue, citing the Virgin, in whom alone faith
remained after the death of Christ, as proof that the Church may subsist in the
soul of a single individual
if he should find the larger Church corrupt and unacin William of Occam8 and, following William of
This
occurs
thought
ceptable.7
in
of
Pierre d'Ailly,10 and Conrad of GelnhauNicholas
Occam,
Clemange,9
3 Origen: Migne, PG, xmII, col. 1845; Greek text: Die griechischenchristlichen Schriftstellerder ersten
Jahrhunderte,xxxv, 116 ff. Basilius the Great: PG, xxxII, cols. 965f; Cyril of Alexandria: PG, LXXII,
col. 505; Theodotus of Ancyra: PG, LXXVII, col. 1409.
4 Summa
theologica,pars III, q. 69, memb. V, a. 1 (Quaracchi, 1948, IV, pp. 1129 f). In sola Virgine
stetit Ecclesia, cuius fides sola remansit in passione....
5 Comm. in III sent., d. 3,
q. 1, a. 2, qa 2, ad. 1. Aquinas refers to the ancient question of the Virgin's
weak faith: Dubitatio quae sonat infirmitatem fidei, sine peccato esse no potest: nec talis dubitatio
in B. Virgine fuit tempore passionis, sed in ea remansit fides firmissime etiam Apostolis dubitantibus.
6 Comm. in III
sent., d. 3, pars I, a. 2, q. 3 (Opera omnia, Quaracchi, III [1887], p. 78). Unde discipulis non credentibus et dubitantibus, ipsa fuit in qua fides Ecclesiae remanserat solida et inconcussa; et ideo in die sabbati in honorem eius solemnizat omnia Ecclesia.
In a different vein, Ernald of Chartres contrasts the Virgin with the fleeing Apostles because of her
acceptance of the sword of sorrow (Migne, PL, CLXXXIX, col. 1731). In a late mediaeval hymn the
Virgin cries out at the absence of the Apostles (Analecta hymnica medii aevi, xxxI [1898], 170); this
idea is further elaborated in a German lament (A. Schonbach, Uber die Marienklagen (Graz, 1874), p.
22).
7 On the following see Y. M.-J. Congar, "Incidence ecclesiologique d'un theme de devotion mariale,"
Melange de science religieuse, v, (1950), 277 ff.
8
Dialogus, lib. II, cap. 25 (M. Goldast, Monarchiae S. Romani Imperii [Frankfurt, 1614], II, p. 429).
If all the Church adheres to a given definition of heresy it is dogma; but if one or a few of the faithful
refuse to accept the definition non est talis veritas acceptanda, quia in uno solo potest stare tota fides
Ecclesiae, quemadmodum tempore mortis Christi tota fides Ecclesiae in Beata Virgine remanebat, nee
est tempore post tempora Apostolorum fuerint aliqui magis accepti Deo quam fuerunt Apostoli ante
mortem Christi.
9 Cited by G. Bonet-Maury, Les
precurseursde la reformeet de la libertgde conscience dans les pays
latins du XIIP au XVs siecle (Paris, 1904), p. 192.
10In Utrum Petri Ecclesia lege reguletur; published in Jean Gerson, Opera omnia, The Hague, I
(1706) cols. 669 f.
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
215
sen1 - and is reflected in rebuttals by authors supporting the authority of the
Church as a larger body.12It is understandable that this concept retained an appeal for many throughout the time of the western schism and the Conciliar Movement, a period of individual soul-searching and the testing of allegiances. It offered a clear solution to problems of conscience raised by a divided and partly
discredited Church. It was also an ultimate appeal to the purity of the primitive
Church, in which the Virgin becomes the first of the faithful- although such
connotations are not mentioned in the texts.13 The concept was to remain an
issue after the Reformation and during the sixteenth century called forth arguments, denying this belief in Mary as the sole keeper of the faith, by Catholic
writers of Spain and Italy.14The possibility of faith existing in only one individual
was related to an argument which also included the possibility that faith may remain in a small group only15 but, to my knowledge, no writer authorized this
small group by reference to the small group that surrounded Christ at His
Entombment - for, although they administered to the body of Christ, it is not
recorded that they entertained faith in His Resurrection. It was to the Virgin
alone that mediaeval thought had attributed such understanding.
The Avignon Pieta is to be associated with this broad current of thought,
which stresses the faith of the Virgin rather than her grief. We see in the Virgin
of the painting a priestess, the celebrant of a primordial Christian rite. She is
accompanied by Saint John and the Magdalene, but we may believe that faith
subsists in her alone. John and the Magdalene bend gravely over Christ's body,
gaze on it, and attend to its needs - John removing the Crown of Thorns and
the Magdalene prepared for the anointing. Only the Virgin, withdrawn from such
attentions, manifests an understanding of divinity; her sight is directed across her
praying hands, but her eyelids are scarcely parted and the tendency of her
awareness is inward.
*
*
*
A regard for the Virgin's faith during the Passion, long maintained by theology
and given a more pointed meaning by late mediaeval ecclesiology, was also, in
the late period, introduced into narrative accounts of Christ's death. But such
regard was usually reserved for the time after the Entombment, when the body
of the Virgin's Son was no longer present to her as an agonizing stimulus. It is
in the North, among writers of Germany, France, and England, that the faith of
the Virgin finds a place in the literature of the Passion. The famous Meditations
on the Life of Christ of Pseudo-Bonaventura, probably written in Tuscany during
11Epistola concordia,cap. 3 (ed. F. Bliemetzrieder, LiterarischePolemik zu Beginn des grossen abendlindischen Schismas... [Vienna, Leipzig, 1910], pp. 128 f.).
12E.g.: Alphonsus Tostatus, In Evang. Matthaei prefatio, q. 13 and 14 (Comm. in Matt. [Venice,
1615], I, pp. 15 f.). Although the same author admits that faith did remain in the Virgin alone at the
time of the Passion: ibid., II, p. 284.
13The purity of the earliest Church was of interest to the period. Theodore Vrie, in his History of the
Council of Constance (1418), devoted all of Book I to this point. See also A. Flick, The Decline of the
Medieval Church (London, 1930), I, 329, 334.
'4 Sources cited by Congar, op. cit. (note 7), p. 290.
15Pierre d'Ailly, loc. cit. (note 10).
216
Notes on the Avignon PietA
the late thirteenth century, tells us only that "as He was buried, the mother again
blessed and embraced Him, and stayed close to her beloved Son; but, raising her,
they placed a great stone at the portal of the monument."16 The pious act of
blessing the body scarcely interrupts the Virgin's persistent grief, which is a
domincnt theme of the entire description. Written about half a century later, the
Passion story in Ludolph of Saxony's Vita Christi draws heavily on the Meditations, frequently repeating its violent description of the bereaved Virgin. But
Ludolph modifies this flood of feeling: "Nevertheless we must believe that she
made no unreasonable lamentation, for her grief did not reach her higher reason."'7 And at the moment of Entombment
Our Lady, like a gentle and discreetperson,consideringthat she had been committedto
the care of Saint John by her Son, resistedno longer,but signingand blessingthe body,
suffere(i it to be prepared as they wished.l8
In a commentary on the Passion, Jean Gerson describes the immense grief of
the Virgin at the Entombment and on the road back to Jerusalem. It is only when
she was alone in her room that, Gerson supposes, she was seized by the Spirit
and maintained a perfect faith in the Resurrection. Her feeling was deadened
but also liberated by the absence of her Son - an interesting, persuasive psychology. It was because of her knowledge of the Resurrection that she did not
leave her place of contemplation to visit the seIpulchre.19Arnould Greban's
Mystere de la Passion, from the mid-fifteenth century, causes the Virgin to ex16 I.
Ragusa and R. B. Green, trs., Meditations on the Life of Christ; An Illustrated Manuscript of the
FourteenthCentury (Princeton, 1961), p. 344.
17
Ludolph of Saxony, Vita Christi, IV, pars 2, cap. 65, 5 (Paris, 1878, IV, p. 144). The same thought
in Bonaventura (Opera omnia, Quaracchi, III [1887], p. 78) and in Thomas Cajetan's commentary
on Aquinas' Summa theologica,la, I8e, q. 123 (Aquinas, Opera ontnia, Rome, III [1909], p. 20); Ac per
hoc falsum videtur quod passa fuerit spasmum. ..
18
Ludolph, op. cit., IV, pars 2, cap. 66, 1 (p. 147).
19Si
rogent aliqui, quid facere potuerit beata Virgo ab illa hora, ad hloram usque Resurrectionis?
Teneo ipsam fuisse raptam in spiritu, et contemplatione. Nec exivit locum unum, nec quemquanm
allocuta est, nec amplius visitabant sepulcrum; quia certo sciebat ipsum resurrecturum. Si Moyses in
monte, IPaulusin sua conversione, gloriosus Joannes Evangelista in Cena, et deinde in insula Pathmos,
et complures alii rapti fuerunt, ut viderent divina secreta; facile conjici potest et credi, divam VirginernnIon fuisse in terra absque illa gratia, praesertim in illa hora, et eo tempore, in quo consolatio
erat ei magis necessaria, et sensualitas quasi ornninoInortificata erat et absoluta, ob Filii sui absentiarm.Ideo spiritus erat fortior, et magis inflammatus, magisque deliberatus, ut se in altun extolleret,
et consideraret profunda nostrae Redemptionis mysteria, et hujus Passionis. Cogitando etiamnexcellentissimum novum gladium (cujus numquam fuerat simile) Sanctorum Patrum in Limbo existentiumn,et cogitando similiter ad eorum liberationem a carcere Purgatorii. Et quomodo Filii sui divinitas
a spiritul suo daret illic jucundam claritatem, et gaudium perenne felicissimum. Considerabat etiam,
quomiodoanimae eam benedicebant, cum portaret fructum et pretium redemptioiiis earum, praecipue
autem parentis ejus, sicut sanctus Joannes Baptista, sancta Anna, et fidus sponsus Joseph earn
mragnificabant,et exultantes dicebant: Benedicta sit, quae tautum Salvatorem et Redemptorem nobis
attulit, et genuit. Fateor tamen, quod frustra me fatigarern, me, inquam, miserum, ignorantem, et
nulla talium secretorum scientem, recensere velle omnes pulchras, devotas, et sublimes considerationes atque contemplationes quae habere poterat felici illo et admirabili raptu, ad horam usque
et diem, in quo Filius suus surrexit in corpore immortali, impassibili, et glorioso, qui (ut pie creditur)
se ei ostendit earn salutans dicendo: Salve Mater. Expositio in passionem Domini; Gerson, Opera
omnia, The Hague, iI (1728), cols. 1202 f.
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
217
press her faith at an earlier point in the story, immediately after the Entombment, when she asks God that she may soon again be made happy by the sight of
Christ's Resurrection.20The Mirror of Our Lady, an extended commentary on the
Marian liturgy written in England probably in the second quarter of the fifteenth
century, includes an account of the Passion which evokes the physical pain of
Christ and the mental pain of the Virgin in sharp detail. But the Virgin is contrasted with the wife of Phineas (I Samuel iv), who died of grief at the death of
her husband, for the Virgin
kepte her lyfe of the speciallgyfte of almighty god agenste all bodely strengthes. .. the
vyrgyn turnyngeageyneto lyfe kepte holely the rightefaythe aloneunto the resurreccion
of her sonne& meny that wretcheflyerredfromthe faythe she correcte&broughteageyne
to the faythe.
After Christ was buried
The pryckesof sorrowefledfromthe modersharte&delectacionof confortesbegan softely
to be renewedin herfor she knewthat the tribulacionsof hersonnewereall togetherended
& that he shouldearyse the tyhrde day with godhed & manhedto endleseglory... He
that went oute of the close wombeof the vyrgyn when he was bornemightenot be holden
in the clausuresof dethe when he toke the worshypof vyctory that was his resurrecyon.21
The likening of the womb of the Virgin to "the closures of death" becomes a
likening of her womb to Christ's tomb in a Meditation on the Life and Passion of
Christ published in the mid-sixteenth century as a work of Johann Tauler; the
work is not by Tauler and the date of its composition is uncertain, but the description of the Virgin at the Entombment is in the tradition here being described. IHergrief is excessive and unmodified during the Crucifixion and Deposition; however at the side of the tomb, as Christ is placed in it, she addresses a
speech to the molnument, likening it to her womb; its newness is like her chastity
and as Christ issued from her womb without violating her virginity so He will
issue, living and glorious, from the sealed tomb. "You are a solid and immovable
rock; I am equally immovable in my faith and I remain invincible in all virtues."22
This is a rare and probably a late instance in which an author causes the faith of
the Virgin to be manifested at the side of the tomb.23
The narratives evidence an increasing popular interest in the stalwart faith of
the Virgin but yet do not cause her to confront the physical presence of her dead
20 I-elas!
quel departie amere, / quand celle que tu tiens a mere / te laisse de la mort percus / et
rasolu en ton sarcus! / moult envis m'eslonge du lieu; / je requier ton pere, c'est Dieu, / que brief de
toy nouvelle j'oye, / et que brief mon cueur se resjoye / a voir ta resurrection. Arnould Greban,
Mystere de la passion, edd., G. Paris and G. Raynaud (Paris, 1878), pp. 355 f.
21 J. H.
Blunt, The Myroure of oure Ladye, (EETS, ES, xIx [1873]), pp. 250 ff.
22 The
original publication in Latin, from a manuscript in German, by Laurentius Surius (Cologne,
1548). Latin text in Oeuvrescompletesde Jean Tauler (ed., E.-P. Noel), Palis, vii (1912), pp. 199 ff.
Italian literature of the period causes the Virgin to persist in lamentation after the Entombment;
see Bernardino of Siena, Opera omnia (Florence, 1950), ii, 268 f.
23 The Entombment is, in fact, one of the Virgin's Seven Sorrows. Hymns describing the Virgin's
Sorrows usually give full weight to the sorrow of the Entombment; but in at least one instance, a
hymn of the fifteenth century, the last (here fifth) Sorrow provides an affirmative climax: Per has
quinque tristias / ablue maerorem / Atque nos ad caelicum / transfer nunc amorem. Anelecta hymnica
medii aevi, xxxi (1898), 172.
218
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
Son in prayer or composure. Visual art of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is, in a few instances, more thorough in its development of the theme; the
Virgin is shown manifesting faith while her dead Son lies upon her lap. Nor is
this type of Pieta an entirely new form; it appears, rather, to be closely dependent upon earlier traditions of Entombment imagery.
During the earlier Middle Ages, two clearly different types of the Entombment
existed: a Byzantine type, in which Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus thrust
the body of Christ into a cave-like tomb, and a type most common in northern
Europe, in which the two men lower the body into or place it upon a sarcophagus.
The former type is asymmetrical and dynamic, depending upon a lateral movement; the other type is symmetrical and largely static.24 Out of the Byzantine
Entombment evolved the Byzantine Threnos, with the addition of the Virgin
and other mourners, the body of Christ halted before the tomb as an object of
lament.25These Byzantine forms are the principal sources of mediaeval Italian
Entombments and Lamentations. Throughout this development compositions
remain asymmetrical; most often the head of Christ provides a focus of attention
away from the center. It is toward the head of her Son that the Virgin directs her
grief, sometimes shown embracing His head and imparting a final kiss. The scenes
tend to be generously populated, the basic asymmetry forcing the mourners into
irregular groupings which heighten the sense of emotional discord and imbalance.
In northern Europe the Entombment was also expanded during the course of
the High Middle Ages, but more slowly and reservedly. To the fundamental
arrangement - the horizontal body of Christ supported at head and feet by
two attendants- was added a third attendant at the center of the composition,
anointing the body. After the twelfth century the Virgin is added to this pattern
with increasing frequency, shown standing beside the central, anointing figure26
or in place of him, at the center of the image.27Other figures may be addedseldom more than John and the Holy Women - but the arrangements remain
24
For a brief discussion see E. Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting (Cambridge, Mass., 1953),
pp. 23 ff. Also, G. Simon, Die Ikonographie der GrablegungChristi (Rostock, 1926).
25 K.
Weitzmann, "The Origin of the Threnos," in De Artibus Opuscula XL; Essays in Honor of
Erwin Panofsky (ed., M. Meiss), (New York, 1961), i, 476 ff.
26 E.g., a thirteenth-century Breviary:
Leningrad, Public Library, lat. Q.v.I. 78, fol. 60 (L. Friedman, Text and Iconography for Joinville's Credo [Cambridge, Mass., 1958], P1. XIV); fourteenthcentury ivory plaques in the British Museum (Burlington Magazine, LXXXIV [1944], fig. A, p. 50) and
the Victoria and Albert Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Architecture and
Sculpture, Catalogueof Carvingsin Ivory [ed. M. Longhurst], [London, 1929], II, P1. XVI).
27 E.g., fourteenth-century stained glass at Freiburg (F. Geiges, Der mittelalterlicheFensterschmuclc
des FreiburgerMiinsters [Freiburg i.B., 1931], fig. 445) and Wels (F. Kieslinger, GotischeGlasmalereiin
Oesterreichbis 1450 [Zirich, 1928], P1. 51); late-fourteenth-century panel paintings at Netze (Jb.
Preuss. Kunsts., L, [1929], fig. 3, p. 235) and Schotten (Z. Christ. Kunst, xxiv [1911], fig. cols. 81 and
82); and carvings such as those at S. Sebaldus, Nuremburg (K. Martin, Die NiirnbergerSteinplastik
im XIV. Jahrhundert [Berlin, 1927], P1. CII, fig. 279) or at Gronau bei Liibeck (J. Braun, Der christliche Altar in seiner geschichtlichenEntwicklung [Munich, 1924], ii, P1. 273).
For the insertion of the Virgin into dramatic presentations of the Entombment, which apparently
did not take place until the fourteenth century, see W. Pinder, "Die dichterische Wurzel der Pieta,"
Repertoriumfiir Kunstwissenschaft, XLII (1920), 144 ff., esp. 158 ff.
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
219
confined between the two terminal figures supporting Christ and behind the
uninterrupted expanse of the sarcophagus supporting or enframing the horizontal
body. Within this severe framework the participants tend toward staid alignments and show only the most contained manifestations of sorrow. The tone is
that of a solemn and purposeful ritual. The Virgin most frequently stands beside
Christ's body without touching it, her hands clasped together as if in prayer
(Fig. 2).28 There are in some instances minor reciprocal influences between the
Northern and Southern representations29 and the Italian type of Entombment
appears with all its pathetic intensity in the Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux.30 Thereafter the type is frequently repeated in the French manuscripts, its spirit much
in contrast with the Northern type of Entombment, which continues to occur in
German art
French art.31 A clear contrast also appears in fourteenth-century
between the reserved Virgin of the Entombments and the Virgin in the more
typical of the Vesperbilder, who holds the body of her son with an intimate
agony.32 Fourteenth-century German art thus contains a distinction between the
time when the Virgin holds the dead Christ and the slightly later time when He
must be relinquished to the tomb - while Trecento art treats Lamentation and
Entombment in much the same form and spirit.
The Lamentation and Pieta are of course apocryphal motifs. The determining
element in the origin of these motifs is the grief of the Virgin, a theme entirely
foreign to canonical accounts of the Passion. Throughout the fourteenth century,
representations of the Lamentation and the Pieta reflect an affinity with novelistic
emotionalism. On the other hand, the primary source of representations of the
Entombment, the canonical Gospels, describes the event with terse gravity and
28The example is from the famous Bible moralis&eof the mid-thirteenth century: Palis, Bibliotheque Nationale, lat. 11560, fol. 37v (A. Laborde, La Bible moralis&econserveea Oxford, Paris, et
Londres [Paris, 1912], II, P1. 261).
29 In some instances fourteenth-century German Entombments, while preserving the basic composition of the northern type, show the Virgin bending to embrace Christ's head, as in a stained glass
representation in S. Florin, Coblenz (Die Kunstdenkmiler der Rheinprovinz [ed., P. Clemensl, XX, pt.
1, Die Kunstdenkmiilerder Stadt Koblenz (ed., F. Michel [Disseldorf, 1937], fig. 32). A few Italian
Entombments show severe arrangements with indications of symmetry but with the Virgin embracing
Christ: panel paintings of the fourteenth century in Berlin (Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Gemaldegalerie, BeschreibendesVerzeichnis der Gemilde im Kaiser Friedrich Museum (Berlin, 1930), Plates II,
P1. 9, fig. 1116) and in the Accademia, Venice (R. Van Marle, The Developmentof the Italian Schools
of Painting, The Hague, iv [1924], fig. 33).
'0 K. Morand, Jean Pucelle (Oxford, 1962), P1. Xa.
31
E.g., many ivories, including those cited above, note 26; miniature in a Book of Hours (Sotheby
and Co., Catalogue of Fine Western and Oriental Manuscripts.... [Dec. 19, 1955], fig. facing p. 12);
design for a bishop's miter, in which the indigenous and the imported types are combined (P. Lemoisne, GothicPainting in France [Florence, n.d.], P1. 16).
*3A rare type of Vesperbild, of which I know only two examples, shows the Virgin with her hands
clasped in a prayerlike manner: W. Passarge, Das deutscheVesperbild im Miittelalter(Cologne, 1924),
P1. 18; L. Birchler, Die Kunstdenkmiiler des Kantons Schwyz (in Die Kunstdenkmiler der Schweiz)
(Basel, 1930), ii, fig. 371.
I do not enter into the question of those early Vesperbilder in which the Virgin appears to show an
exalted feeling; see E. Reiners-Ernst, Das freudvolle Vesperbild und die Anfinge der Pietavorstellung
(Munich, 1939).
220
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
suggestions of ritual - the new tomb, the linen wrappings, and the ointment.
The Virgin is not present. The addition of the Virgin to the Entombment scene,
probably first accomplished in tenth-century Byzantine art, strongly conditioned
the character of the event and gave rise to the Lamentation as a separate image.33
When, in the thirteenth century, by processes distinct from and different from
Byzantine traditions, the Virgin was added to the Entombment in northern
Europe, her restrained attitude is seen to be dictated by the solemn context in
which she appears.
Toward the end of the fourteenth century this type of Entombment provided
the principal model for a new type of Pieta. The development apparently originated in Franco-Flemish art, in the artistic complex formed at this period by the
Netherlands, Paris, the Duc de Berry workshops, and Dijon. An inclination
toward a modified, more restrained form of Pieta is seen in two closely-related
paintings from around 1400, perhaps executed in Dijon: the "Small Circular
Pieta" in the Louvre (Fig. 3) and a Pieta in the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Brussels.34
These show Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus holding the head and feet of
Christ as He lies on the lap of the Virgin; she, rather than clutching her Son,
raises her hand in a gesture which suggests awe; the gesture may have been developed from the Virgin's prayer-like clasping of her hands in Entombment
imagery. In these two paintings elements of the Entombment (see Figs. 2, 5, 6)
and Pieta are combined in such a way that the restraint and faith proper to the
Virgin at the Entombment are anticipated at an earlier moment, when Christ's
body still lies upon her lap.
This tendency, pietistic and indigenous to Northern religious thought, is carried further in a miniature in the Duc de Berry Book of Hours in the Bibliotheque
Royale, Brussels (Fig. 4),35 in which there remains no patent allusion to the
Entombment. The miniature includes Saint John and the Magdalene with the
Virgin around the body of Christ, a grouping which became current in the late
fourteenth century.36 Saint John and the Magdalene enframe the arrangement,
much as do Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus in the traditional Entomb33 Weitzmann, op. cit. (note 25), esp. pp. 481 if.
34 G. Troescher,
Burgundische Malerei (Berlin, 1966), pp. 61 if. and figs. 25 and 26; also, for the
Louvre painting, Sterling and Adhemar, op. cit. (note 1), p. 4, no. 7, Pls. 18 f.
All inclination toward a more restrained Pieta was probably also seen in a carved Pieta by Claus Sluter,
recorded in a payment of 1390. It is described as "un ymaige de Nostre Dame, laquelle tient embracie
nostre seigneur. . ." (A. Liebreich, Recherchessur Claus Sluter [Brussels, 1936], pp. 170 f.; H. David,
Claus Sluter [Paris, 1951], pp. 133 f.; Ford and Vickers, op. cit. [note 1], p. 9). The lost work may be
reflected in a carving in Frankfurt am Main (ibid., fig. 4), in which the effect is less intimate and
disturbed than in contemporary German Pietas. At least, one may suppose these qualities in a Sluter.
But, as documented, the Virgin embraced her Son, as in the Vesperbilder.The painted Pietas, more dependent on manuscript traditions, are less related to German types.
35Ms 11060-61, p. 195. On the manuscript see M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de
Berry (London and New York, 1967), I, pp. 198 if.
36This is to assume that the second female
figure in the miniature is the Magdalene; she is not
specifically identified. But this would seem to be an early instance of what was to become a standard
personnel. On the "Pieta a quatre personnages" see Sterling in La revue des arts (op. cit., note 1), pp.
28 f.
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
ment composition, and the Virgin, contained as if in prayer, also recalls that
tradition. The image may be compared with a Dutch miniature of the Entombment, from the early years of the fifteenth century (Fig. 5),37 which provides an
example of the continuation of the Northern type of Entombment in a common
form, the Virgin standing at the center, her hands united in prayer. Unlike the
Virgin of the Entombrment miniature, the Virgin of the Pieta interlocks her
fingers, a gesture which transforms the attitude of prayer proper to liturgy into
one of lamrent or of intensely personal prayer.38 This Netherlandish miniature is
from a decade or two after the Duc de Berry miniature, but the Entombment is
to be seen as a continuation of a traditional form (Fig. 2), here with the body of
Christ placed on a receding axis. Such a placement of Christ's body appears in an
Entonmbment approximately contemporary with the Duc de Berry miniature, a
well-known panel painting in the Louvre, probably executed at Dijon (Fig. 6).39
The core of the composition is in the traditional form - the Virgin at the center,
clasping her hands piously - but the motif has been expanded to include many
persons. 'lhe Duc de Berry miniature may be either a reduction of such an
Entombment or a direct imitation of an Entombment miniature of the type in
Figure 5; one prefers to suppose that it is derived from a similarly minimal image.
In the Duc de Berry miniature the body of Christ is placed upon the ground (the
winding sheet beneath it in preparation for the burial) in such a way that there
is no logical provision for the space occupied by the Virgin; this suggests that
the image depends upon one in which the body of Christ lay upon or was lowered
into a sarcophagus.
The Duc de Berry miniature is the earliest image known to me that contains
the compositional essence of the Avignon Pieta: the Virgin joining her hands
above the body of Christ, flanked by John and the Magdalene. During the first
half of the fifteenth century this type of Pieta can be found, very rarely, in
English40 and German4 art and in a North Italian work probably executed by a
German painter (Fig. 7).42 Clearly an antecedent of the Avignon Pieta is a miniature of the Pieta produced in Utrecht around 1440 (Fig. 8).43 Unlike our earlier
37 From a manuscript of Thierry de Delft, La table de lafoi chretienne;British Museum, Add. 22288,
fol. 195 (A. W. Byvanck, La miniature dans les Pays-bas septentrionaux [Paris, 1937], p. 146, fig. 19).
See similar Entombment miniatures from the period around 1400, but with additional figures: Panofsky, op. cit., fig. 178; V. Leroquais, Un livre d'heures de Jean sans Peur (Paris, 1939), P1. V. Here the
Virgin is flanked by John and the Magdalene. These examples are to be compared with fourteenthcentury Entombment miniatures such as that cited in note 30.
38 L. Eisenhofer, Handbuch der katholischenLiturgie (Freiburg i.B., 1932), i, pp. 264 ff.
39Sterling and Adhemar, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 3 f., no. 6, Pls. 15 ff.
40 P.
Nelson, "English Alabasters of the Embattled Type," The ArchaeologicalJournal, Lxxv (1918),
pp. 310 ff., P1. XVI, fig. 2. Joseph of Arimathaea appears in the place of Saint John.
41 A small Rhenish
woodcarving: F. Witte, Die Skulpturen der Sammlung Schniitgenin Koln (Berlin,
1912), pp. 70 f., PI. 38.
42
Probably to be dated in the 1420's. See A. Morassi, Storia della pittura nella Venezia tridentina
(Rome, 1934), p. 406, fig. 257. See also, from the mid-fifteenth century, a fresco in San Pietro in Volti,
Cividale, in which the Virgin prays over her dead Son (G. Marchetti, et. al., Mostra de crocifissi e
pieta medioevaledel Friuli [Udine, n.d.], p. 78, fig. 13).
43 Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (exhibition
Notes on the Avignon Piet/a
examples this image causes the Virgin to maintain her upper body perfectly
erect, a posture emphasized by the firm, simplified contour of her mantle; she
does not clench her hands together, as in earlier Pietas of this kind, but unites
them in a thoroughly prayerful way.44
This type of Pieta is uncommon in the first half of the fifteenth century and
occurs at widely separated places. Yet the few available examples indicate a
minor tradition of the period, one infrequently transmitted. The essential characteristics of this tradition, distinguishing it from other forms of the Pieta, are a
marked symmetry, for which the upright figure of the Virgin provides an axis,
and the united hands of the Virgin, which further emphasize the axiality of her
figure and do much to establish a sense of sorrow driven inward by piety. The
Avignon Pieta, which may now be dated between 1450 and 1457,45 further
organizes and clarifies these qualities. Symmetry is intensified by the separateness
of the three mourners, and the sharply enclosed form of the Virgin is powerfully
contrasted with the echoing curved figures of Saint John and the Magdalene.
*
*
*
In the Avignon Pieta, Saint John, with a movement of great tenderness, removes the Crown of Thorns from the head of Christ. Similar details, in images of
the dead Christ which show the Crown of Thorns held or otherwise handled, occur in late-fourteenth-century art from Paris or allied schools. Such details in
their earlier appearances are, it would seem, related to the cult of the Crown of
Thorns as fostered by the Valois house in remembrance of Saint Louis, who had
procured the relic of the Crown of Thorns, and in recognition of its continuing
existence in Paris. An increased admiration of the relic appears to have been
stimulated by Charles V, who in other respects also exhibited a special veneration for Saint Louis. The so-called Breviary of Charles V - it is, at least, contemporary with his reign - contains a miniature of Saint Louis displaying the
relic of the Crown of Thorns46although the miniature is derived from a model,
of the earlier fourteenth century, in which the relic does not appear.47The relicatalogue), 1949, p. 46, no. 121. Although the manuscript's full-page miniatures can be dated ca
1430, the historiated initials are from about a decade later.
44
The development of this type of Pieta may have been stimulated by continuing production of
Entombments of similar composition. A monumental example is found in the church at Neufchatelen-Bray (Seine-Maritime); the carving, dated 1451 (or 54), places Saint John, the Virgin with her
hands clasped, and the Magdalene, behind Christ in a grouping easily separable from the terminal
figures of Nicodemus and Joseph (H. Zanettacci, Les ateliers picards de sculptures a lafin du moyen age
[Paris, 1954], pp. 27 f., fig. p. 33). In its central arrangement and in its spirit this work is similar to
carved Piet's of the Avignon Pieta type that are common in northern France in the late fifteenth and
early sixteenth century.
46 The Avignon Pieta influenced the Tarascon Pieta, which is apparently the painting referred to as
a new work in an inventory of 1457; see Sterling in La revue des arts, (op. cit., note 1). In the Avignon
Pieta the donor's hat is of a type that can be dated in the 1450's; see Sterling in Bulletin de la societe
des antiquaires de France, (op. cit., note 1), p. 217.
46 Paris,
Bibliotheque Nationale, ms lat. 1052, fol. 468v. (V. Leroquais, Les brevairesmanuscrits des
bibliothequespubliques de France [Paris, 1934], II, p. 55, P1. XLVII.)
47 Lyons, Bibliotheque de la Ville, ms 5122, fol. 290 (Revue archeologique,ii, 1915, p. 55, fig. 18). Of
course images from the earlier fourteenth century which do associate the Crown of Thorns with Saint
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
quary shown in the Breviary is in the form of the Crown of Thorns and is topped
by a royal crown. The likening of the two crowns recurs frequently. The inventory of the treasures of Charles V lists a crown "que le Roy fist faire, ou il y a des
epines de la Saincte Couronne."48Cristine of Pisan, writing shortly after the death
of Charles V in 1380, reported that in his last hours the king ordered the relic of
the Crown of Thorns brought from the Sainte-Chapelle and the royal sacring
crown brought from St Denis and, causing the latter to be placed at his feet and
the former at his head, he addressed a prayer to each. The presence of the royal
crown at this time is officially recorded; the presence of the Crown of Thorns may
be a pious invention, but the story reveals the contemporary interest in the relic
and the tendency to associate it with the crown of France.49
Because of this interest, it is understandable that in the years following 1380
there appear among works produced in some contact with Paris special allusions
to the Crown of Thorns. Of this period is the Louvre's small Entombment panel,
in a Parisian style although it may have been produced at Dijon (Fig. 6); here
one of the Holy Women standing beside the tomb holds a large Crown of Thorns.
In the Descent from the Cross in the Tres Belles Heures of the Duc de Berry one
of the Holy Women reaches up to examine the sharpness of the Crown of Thorns
on Christ's head.50In a later Duc de Berry manuscript, the Belles Heures of ca
1410, the Descent from the Cross includes a Holy Woman standing beside the
Cross prominently displaying the Crown of Thorns.5' Such details attest to the
Louis can be cited: e.g., Revue belged'archeologieet d'histoire de l'art, xv (1945), P1. opp. p. 105; N. de
Wailly, Jean sire de Joinville: Histoire de Saint Louis ..., (Paris, 1874), fig. p. i.
48
J. Labarte, Inventoire de mobilier de Charles V (Paris, 1879), p. xix. Saint Louis seems to have
owned a similar crown; see P. E. Schramm, Der Konig von Frankreich, Weimar (1939), p. 209.
49The passage, from Le livre des fais du sage roi Charles, quoted in E. S. Dewick, The Coronation
Book of Charles V of France (London, 1899), p. xiv. On the authenticity of the account see R. Delacheval, Hii.stoirede Charles V (Paris, 1931), v, pp. 409 f. For other indications of the cult of the
Crown of Thorns at this period see L. Delisle, Recherchessur la librarie de Charles V, Paris (1905), I,
pp. 157, 178, 195. See a letter sent from Paris to Richard II of England in the 1390's, illustrated by an
image of the French and English crowns placed side-by-side and illuminated by rays emanating from
the Crown of Thorns; British Museum, Roy 20B.VI (E. G. Millar, Souvenir de l'exposition de manuscrits franCais a peintures organisee a la Grenville Library (Paris, 1933), P1. XXXIV). Among metal
objects see especially the mounting of an antique bust ("Constantine") which causes the figure to hold
the Crown of Thorns; best illustrated in E. Babelon, Le cabinet des antiques a la Bibliotheque Nationale ..., (Paris, 1887), pp. 115 ff.
Interesting in this connection is Ernst Kantorowicz's remarks on the period's dual concept of the
royal crown, in The King's Two Bodies; A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957), pp.
336 f.; also, pp. 45 ff. on the king as christo mirmees, who in officiofigura et imago Christi et Dei est.
50 Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, nouv. acq. lat. 3093, p. 216; reproduced in Meiss, op. cit. (note 35),
ii, fig. 28.
51J. Rorimer and M. Freeman, The Belles Heures of Jean de France, duc de Berry (New York, n.d.),
P1. 9. A French Book of Hours approximately contemporary with the Belles Heures (Pierpont Morgan
Library, ms 105) contains a Descent from the Cross in which the Crown of Thorns is shown hanging on
an arm of the Cross, obviously having been placed there by the man who is now assisting in the lowering of Christ.
Such details may have Italian sources. See a Florentine panel in the Ashmolean Museum (R. Offner,
A Critical and Iistorical Corpus of Florentine Painting, New York, Section III, Vol. vii (1957), P1.
XIIb); behind the Lamentation group stand bearded figures flanking the Cross and holding the Crown
224
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
preservation and transmission of the Crown of Thorns as a relic. That they appear in manuscripts of the Duc de Berry and in a painting probably associated
with the Burgundian court at Dijon tempts one to imagine that they to some
degree reflect political preoccupations of the time after the death of Charles V, a
period when his brothers, the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy, were contending
over control of the vacated government, over the transmission of the royal crown.
But in later art such associations are unlikely; the motif of handling or removing
the Crown of Thorns was taken up for its narrative and emotive value.
A number of closely interrelated Catalan paintings of the early fifteenth century show a special interest in the Crown of Thorns. In them Christ's body lies
upon the Stone of Unction, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea at His head and
feet, the Virgin and other mourners grouped behind the stone. The design may
have originated in the workshop of Jaime and Pedro Serra, for these paintings are
all attributable to men who were trained under, or followed the traditions of, the
Serras- Luis Borrassa, Jaime Cabrera, Bernardo Martorell, and Juan Matas.52In
this design, Nicodemus, standing at the head of Christ, touches or holds the
Crown of Thorns, which still encircles His head; although it is not made entirely
clear that Nicodemus is in the act of removing the Crown of Thorns this is the
apparent meaning of the gesture. The paintings show the last acts before the
Entombment; the linen is placed beneath Christ's body and the Stone of Unction
alludes to the anointing; the removal of the Crown of Thorns by Nicodemus, a
custodian of the body, is seen as one of the preparations for the Entombment. We
cannot be certain of the source of this detail as it appears in Catalan art - it may
have been an independent invention of the region - but the most reasonable supposition is that the removal of the Crown of Thorns is here derived from similar
details in French art - in this period, around 1400, when Catalan art was increasingly receptive to new Franco-Flemish methods of pictorial story-telling.
of Thornsand the Nails of the Crucifixion.The AshmoleanMuseumhas datedthe workca 1380,but
Offnerindicateda date towardmid-century.Thisformaldisplayof theseInstrumentsof the Passionis
apparentlyderivedfromimagesof the Last Judgment.(Forotherexamplesof Last Judgmentmotifs
transferredto the Pieta underthe Crosssee ibid.,SectionIII, Vol. v, p. 139,n. 4.) In the Ashmolean
paintingthe Instrumentsand the figuresholdingthem are not fully includedin the narrativeaction;
in the LouvreEntombment(Fig. 6) the Crownof Thornsis not exhibitedin a hieraticway but is fully
integratedwith the narrativecontext.Handlingof the Nails, exploitedin associationwith the dead
Christfor patheticeffect,is seen in earlierTrecentoart- forexample,in SimoneMartini'sDescent
fromtheCrossin Antwerp- but onlylater,to my knowledge,is the Crownof Thornsusedin the same
manner.
62 C. R.
Post, A History of Spanish Painting (Cambridge, Mass.), II (1930), pp.864 f. The paintings
of this groupare:a predellapanel,in the Archivesof the Churchof Sta. Maria,Manresa,attributed
Malereiin Spanien[Berlin,1925],P1.56) andto
to JaimeCabreraby GertrudRichert(Mittelalterliche
Bernardo Martorell by S. Sanpere y Miquel (Los cuatrocentistascatalanes [Barcelona, 1906], I, pp. 188
f., P1. opp. p. 188). Fragmentof a panel, in the Museumof CatalanArt, Barcelona,attributedto
BernardoMartorellby Post (op.cit.,pp.370f., fig.215) and Sanperey Miquel(op.cit.,fig. preceding
p. 189) and to Juan Matas by J. GudiolRicart (Ars Hispaniae,ix, pp. 98 f., fig. 68). Panel in the
Cathedralof Gerona,identifiedas by a followerof JaimeCabreraby Post (op.cit.,pp. 364 f., fig.
210).
A predellapanelby Luis BorrassAis closeto the otherpaintingsbut does not includethe handlingof
the Crownof Thorns(J. G. Ricart,Borrassa[Barcelona,1953],figs. 64 ff.).
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
A miniature very close to Fouquet, and possibly by his own hand, in the socalled Hours of Cardinal Charles de Bourbon (Copenhagen, Royal Library, Ins
GKS 1610, fol. 3), shows the dead Christ lying on His mother's lap while Joseph
of Arirnatliaea carefully removes the Crown of Thorns from His head. The action
is described more clearly and more affectively than in the Catalan paintings; although the difference is partly due to the skill of Fouquet, I would also suppose
that the detail here depends on native tradition which is more sympathetically
understoo(dthan it had been in the Catalan paintings. Klaus Perls has dated the
Copenhagen manuscript around 1455,53a date approximately contemporary with
the Avignon Pieta.
The available examples suggest a coherent development, even though they reveal it in a fragmentary way; originally the Crown of Thorns had simply been
held or touched by a participant at the Descent from the Cross, the Lamentation,
or the Entombment; the Crown of Thorns was then more fully involved in narrative, being removed from Christ's head by Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathaea as
part of the preparation for the Entombment; in the Copenhagen miniature
Joseph gently intrudes upon the Pieta to remove the Crown, thereby anticipating
the Entombment within the context of the earlier event; in the Avignon Pieta this
action of Joseph is assumed by Saint John, a figure proper to the Pieta. The progressive changes establish increasingly sensitive allusions to the parting of the
mother from the body of her Son. In the Avignon Pieta the detail of the removal of
the Crown of Thorns, like the scheme of the compositional ensemble, has been
brought forward from the imagery of the Entombment.
*
*
*
Seeing llere the horizontal torso of Christ confronted by the Virgin in prayer
one might believe that Christ's body involves a metaphorical allusion to an
altar.54There is much in the traditional symbolism to support such a belief. Although the Christian altar may be likened to a number of things one of the most
persistent understandings sees in it a symbol of Christ.55When on Thursday
evening the altar is prepared for Good Friday by the removal of all ornaments and
the altar cloths, the denuded altar is seen as a symbol of Christ, naked and deserted by Iis disciples.56The antiphons accompanying the rite speak of the parting of Christ's garments among the soldiers. Also related to the thoughts of Good
Friday is the belief that the altar cloth symbolizes the linen in which Joseph of
Arimathaea wrapped the body of Christ.57The understanding will be especially
poignant on Good Friday evening, at the Hour of None, when two acolytes place
a single cloth over the denuded altar. In the liturgy of Good Friday there is, it
53 K.
Perls, Jean Fouquet (Paris, 1940), p. 20, fig. 49.
thought is advanced in G. Bazin, op. cit., (note 1).
55As in Eusebius, Durandus, Berthold von Regensburg, and others; sources cited in Eisenhofer,
op. cit. (note 38), I, p. 352. See also II, p. 465 on the anointing of the altar at the consecration of a
church, with, at the third anointing, the singing of Psalm 44.
56 As in Alcuin, Honorius of Autun, Durandus, and others; sources cited in G. Saint-Jean, "Sur le
synmbolismearchitectural des eglises," Bulletin monumental, xIII (1847), pp. 321 ff., esp. pp. 348 f.
b7As in Pope Sylvester I, Durandus, and others; sources cited in Eisenhofer, op. cit., I, p. 357.
54 The
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
would seem, an especially rich group of correspondences between the artifacts of
the liturgy and the sacred history which the rituals commemorate. This is suggestive for study of the imagery of the Entombment, in which the nakedness of
the body, the anointing of the body, the wrapping in linen, the placement of the
body on the sarcophagus or on the Stone of Unction (for Christ is the offering on
the altar as well as the altar) have their visual counterparts in recurring ritual.58
As the Avignon Pieta draws upon the tradition of the Entombment for its pictorial form, so also it draws upon the liturgical symbolism of that tradition.59
*
*
*
The liturgy provides the inscription which appears along the border of the
Avignon Pieta, tooled in the gold ground: O VOS OMNES QUI TRANSITIS
PER VIAN(sic) ATTENDITE ET VIDETE SI EST DOLOR SICUT DOLOR
MEUS (O all ye that pass by the way, behold, and see if there be any sorrow like
unto my sorrow.) This inscription, derived from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, I
12, has been supposed to refer to the sorrow of the Virgin. But such an understanding, whereby the Virgin's sorrow is thought to be without equal and a
paramount theme of the painting, does not well accord with the control, inwardness, and faith exhibited by the Virgin in the painting. And a study of this sentence as it occurs in the liturgy and in inscriptions leads one to believe that as it
appears on the Avignon Pieta, it refers to the sorrow of Christ rather than that of
the Virgin.
The principal liturgical use of Lamentations, I 12 is in the Tenebrae service,
which comprises the Matins and Lauds of the last three days of Holy Week but
which is held by anticipation on the preceding evenings, that is, on Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday. The Tenebrae service is that impressive rite in which
candles, placed in a hearse near the altar, are extinguished one by one, the interior
becoming gradually darker until, at the end of the service, the last candle, remaining lighted, is temporarily hidden behind the altar and the interior is for a
time entirely (larkened. Like the denuding of the altar, the Tenebrae service is a
subtractive rite of stark visual effect. On the evening of Good Friday the service
will necessarily recall the removal of Christ from the Cross and His entombment.
In the Tenebrae service, which has come down from the earlier Middle Ages with
little change,60 the Attendite occurs repeatedly. In the late Middle Ages, as in
modern times, it was part of the reading from the first chapter of Lamentations
during the First Nocturn on Wednesday evening; it usually was employed somewhere in the Tenebrae service of Thursday evening; and on Good Friday evening
)8For Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea costumed as deacons in theatrical presentations see
Pinder, loc. cit. (note 27).
59 Another type of symbolism in the Avignon Pieta, deserving of investigation, is indicated by the
fact that the haloes of the Virgin, Saint John, and the Magdalene, contain, respectively, a rose, a
columbine, and a carnation. This was pointed out to me by Robert Koch. For meanings of the columbine and the carnation see Professor Koch's article, "Flower Symbolism in the Portinari Altarpiece,"
Art Bulletin, XLVI, (1964), pp. 70 ff.
60S. 1Baumer,Geschichtedes Breviers (Freiburg i.B., 1895), p. 256; Eisenhofer, op. cit. (note 38), I,
pp. 514 f.; The New Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "Tenebrae."
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Fig. 5. Entombment. London, British Museum, Add.
ms 22288, fol. 195.
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Notes on the Avignon Pieta
it occurred in the Tenebrae service several times, with repeated use in antiphons
and responsories toward the end of the service. Thus, the sentence occurs with increasing frequency during the series of rituals and its last use is near the end of the
Tenebrae service of Good Friday, at a time when only a few candles (or perhaps
only one) remain lighted on the hearse. The wording of the Attenditevaries in each
occurrence in the Breviary but usually in late mediaeval Breviaries, as in modern
Breviaries, it is the last occurrence on Good Friday which has exactly the form
seen on the Avignon Pieta.61
In some late mediaeval Breviaries, as in modern Breviaries, the Attendite is
linked with a sentence derived from Lamentations, i 16 (My eyes are dimmed by
my weeping, because the comforter that should console me is far from me.)62The
linking of Lamentations I 12 to i 16 occurs in the Liber Responsalis, ascribed to
Gregory I, where the reference to desertion in Lamentations, I 16 is related to the
preceding passage, which cites the desertion of Christ by the Apostles.63 The
combination of Lamentations I 12 and I 16 in the Tenebrae service was probably
the source for its appearance in rites accompanying the Deposition of the Host in
the Easter Sepulchre on Maundy Thursday. To my knowledge, its earliest appearance in this rite is in a text published in the early sixteenth century; here the
responsory occurs at a climactic moment, when the Host arrives before the Sepulchre - and the depositing in the Sepulchre will recall the Entombment.64
This long liturgical tradition, in which the Virgin has no part, is apparently the
nucleus from which the Attendite was transmitted to other forms less solemn and
fundamental. In a few instances these words were placed in the mouth of the
Virgin; I know of only three examples, all, significantly, from Italy.65But laments
61
Thorough investigation of this detail would require a specialist in the history of the liturgy. The
modern Breviary places the Attendite in the Third Lesson of the First Nocturn on Wednesday evening; in the responsory at the end of Matins on Thursday evening; and on Good Friday evening in the
responsory of the Fifth Lesson of the Second Nocturn, in the antiphon of the Third Psalm of Lauds,
and in the antiphon of the last Psalm of Lauds. Among the Breviaries of the late Middle Ages that I
have consulted some of the British Breviaries use the Attenditein the same places and in the same form
as does the modern Breviary: Breviarium as usum insignis ecclesie Eboracensis (Publications of the
Surtees Society, LXXI), (Durham, 1880), cols. 395 ff.; The Hereford Breviary (edd., W. H. Frere and
L. E. G. Brown), I (Henry Bradshaw Society, xxvi), (London, 1904), p. 32U. A Breviary produced in
Germany in the fifteenth century (Princeton University Library, Princeton ms 85, fols. 149 f.) uses the
Attendite in the Tenebrae of Good Friday evening in the responsory following the Second Lesson of the
First Nocturn, as the antiphon of the Third Psalm of Lauds (in the form seen in the inscription), and
in the antiphon of the lection preceding the last Psalm of the service. A fifteenth-century Breviary
from Italy (Princeton University Library, Garrett ms 42, fols. 183 f.) uses the Attendite in the responsories of both the Fifth and Sixth Lessons of the First Nocturn on Good Friday evening, and in
the antiphon of the Third Psalm of Lauds (in the form seen in the inscription).
62 In the York and Hereford Breviaries (see preceding note) and in the modern Breviary, in the
responsory at the end of Matins on Thursday evening; in Garrett ms 42 (see preceding note) in the
responsory of the Sixth Lesson of the First Nocturn, on Friday evening.
63 Migne, PL, LXXVIII, col. 767.
64K. Young, The Dramatic Associations of the Easter Sepulchre (Madison, Wisconsin, 1920), p. 58.
65Two in dramatic laments: K. Young, Drama of the Medieval Church (Oxford, 1933), i, pp. 500 and
511. One in a fourteenth-century narrative poem: Scelta di curiosita letterarie (Bologna, CLXI1[1878]),
p. 68.
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
spoken by Christ on the Cross may also contain these words, as in hymns of the
fifteenth century66or a Middle English poem recounting the Passion.67The statement may be securalized to refer to the grief of a lover, as in Dante's Vita nuova
(VII) or in French love poetry.68 Such uses illustrate the wide currency of the
Attendite as a convenient phrase with which to express any great sorrow. But
these uses are a vulgarization of the words in their venerable liturgical meaning,
an expression of the unparalleled suffering of Christ. Thomas Aquinas cites
Lamentations, I 12 as his primary authority in refuting the proposition that any
pain can equal the Passion of Christ.69And an inscription on an altarpiece may be
thought to refer to the liturgical sense.
It is a striking practice that represents Christ as dead while causing Him to
speak through the accompanying inscription. Yet a parallel practice is the repetition of the Attendite in the liturgy on the evening of Good Friday or when the
Host is brought before the Easter Sepulchre. Pictorial art had often accompanied
the dead Christ with an inscription in His voice. Byzantine images of Christ's
body isolated and rigid in death may include an inscription taken from John vi 56
(He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him).70
The Attendite occurs as an inscription accompanying paintings of Christ dead
upon the Cross, as on a fourteenth-century Sienese panel,71or paintings of the
Lamentation, such as a fourteenth-century panel at Parma where, much less than
in the Avignon Pieta, are we likely to suppose that the Virgin is speaking.72 A
66 Analecta hymnica medii aevi, xxxI (1898), 58 f.; xxxvI (1901), 218.
67 The Northern Passion:
Supplement, edd., W. Heuser and F. A. Foster (EETS, CLXXXIII [1930]), p.
126. The thought is applied to Christ on the Cross in another version of the poem: The Northern
Passion, ed. F. A. Foster (EETS., CXLV [1913]), pp. 205 f.
68 Dante, Vita nuova, ed. M. Scherillo (Milan, 1921), p. 82, n. 13. This, the citation of Dante, and
the citation of the fourteenth-century narrative poem (above, note 65) are in M. Meiss, Painting in
Florence and Siena after the Black Death (Princeton, 1951), p. 125.
69Summa theologica, pars III, q. 46, a6.
70G. Millet, Recherchessur l'iconographie de l'Yvangile(Paris, 1960), p. 499, n. 4.
71 Siena, Pinacoteca; Meiss, op. cit., p. 122, fig. 124; here the Attendite is joined to an inscription
unquestionably in Christ's voice. A Crucifixion at Kirbach in Baden also includes the Attendite: J.
Braun, Der christlicheAltar in seine geschichtlichenEntwicklung (Munich, 1924), II, p. 519.
72 Ieiss, op. cit. (note 68), p. 122, fig. 123. The Attendite occurred in an inscription of 1450 on a
Pieta in the Dominican Church in Aix-en-Provence: L. H. Labande, Les primitifsfrancais (Marseilles,
1932), i, p. 194. The inscription may accompany Christ shown as the Man of Sorrows, as on a panel in
the museum of S. Croce, Florence (Meiss, op. cit., pp. 121 f., fig. 121; here the inscription, in Italian,
concludes with "e per voi lo portai"); or an early-fifteenth-century panel, probably of Provencal origin (C. Sterling, Les peintures du moyen-dge:La peinturefrancaise (Paris, 1941), pp. 24 f., P1. 76). The
frequency of the inscription in fourteenth-century Tuscan and fifteenth-century Provengal art is to be
noted.
The Attendite was much used as an inscription in the circle of Andrea della Robbia: Crucifixions at
Fiesole, S. Maria Primerana (A. Marquand, Andrea della Robbia and his Atelier [Princeton, 1922], I,
pp. 175 f.), and at La Verna, Capella delle Stigmate (ibid., I, pp. 95 ff.); Piets - of the Avignon Pieta
type -at S. Marco, Florence (ibid., ii, pp. 249, 251), and, by Giovanni della Robbia, in the Gardener
collection, Boston (idem., Della Robbias in America [Princeton, 1912], pp. 119 f., fig. 48). Marquand
writes of the Boston altarpiece, "The words, which expressed the lamentation of Jerusalem over her
misery, are here ascribed to the Madonna, or to the Madonna, S. Giovanni, and la Maddelena as
representatives of the Christian world." See also an early-sixteenth-century Italian ceramic Piet&- of
Notes on the Avignon PietA
229
Florentine engraving of the Pieta, approximately contemporary with the Avignon
Pieta, bears the inscription: Foderunt manus meas et pedes meos; dinumeraverunt
omnia ossa mea; partita sunt vestimenta mea sibi.73 The engraving is part of a
Passion series and it is instructive to note that of the inscriptions on other engravings of the series, from the Flagellation onward, none other can be understood to speak in the person of Christ. It would seem that in images of the dead
Christ, objects calculated to foster pious meditation, it was thought especially
fitting that Christ should speak as if to the viewer. The practice is of a kind with
the inclusion of addresses to the viewer which accompany, as if spoken by, effigies
of the deceased on late mediaeval tomb decoration.
As mentioned above, in the early mediaeval Liber Responsalis the sorrow expressed in Lamentations I 12 is linked to the sense of desertion expressed in
Lamentations I 16 - as in the Tenebrae service - and these feelings are related
to the desertion of Christ by the Apostles. This association is found also in the
symbolic understanding that came to be applied to the Tenebrae service, whereby
the candles extinguished one by one are a reference to the Apostles' abandonment
of Christ. In contrast to this, the last candle which remains lighted at the end of
the service and which is not extinguished but removed behind the altar to be returned to the altar still burning was seen as a symbol of the steadfast faith of the
Virgin. She alone remained faithful throughout the Passion of Christ, after His
burial, and until Htis Resurrection. This symbolic interpretation of the Tenebrae
service is found in William Durandus's Rationale74and recurs in authors of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.75It is on the evening of Good Friday that the
Attendite occurs toward the end of the Tenebrae service, when a few candles, or
only one, remain lighted at the top of the hearse. Then the sentence, expressing
the sorrow of Christ, is accompanied by a striking visual effect, an appearance
accepted as a symbol of the inextinguishable faith of the Virgin. The inscription
on the Avignon Pieta leads us back to a liturgical expression of the faith of the
Virgin which corresponds to her painted image, upright and at prayer. It is
possible that the landscape in the painting, a singularly expansive and empty
space, provides an allusion to the desertion of the Apostles; it evokes the loneliness of His few remaining adherents.
The faith of the Virgin, enduring after the death of her Son and maintained
until His Resurrection, was considered the reason why Saturday is dedicated to
the Virgin. This belief is found in William Durandus's Rationale,76is widely rethe Avignon Pieta type--which bears the Attendite: Musie de l'Ermitage, Collection d'art Botkine
(Leningrad, 1911), I, P1. 39.
73 From Psalms, XXII 16-18. A. M. Hind, Early Italian Engraving (London, 1948 ff.), I, p. 39, II,
P1. 33.
74 Book VI, c. 72, nos. 25, 26. The candle significat primo fidem quae in sola Virgine remansit, per
quam postea omnes fideles docti et illuminati sunt.....
76Ludolph of Saxony, Vita Christi, IV, pars 2, cap. LIX, 25 (Paris, 1878, IV, p. 30). Juan de
Toraquemada, Summa de Ecclesia, I, cap. 30, ad. 9.
76 Book IV, c. i, n. 32... .quia Domino crucifixo et mortuo, et discipulis fugientibus et de resurrectione desperantibus, in ea sola fides in sabbato illo remansit. He also gives other reasons.
230
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
peated in popular religion of the Middle Ages, especially in France,77 is in Alexander of Hales,78 in Bonaventura,79 and in theologians of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.80All Saturdays reflect Holy Saturday, the principal Saturday
of the liturgical year, when, according to a common view, faith was maintained by
the Virgin alone.
The Saturday devotions in honor of the Virgin were especially well remembered
in Provence and more especially in Avignon. In 1326 representatives from the
ecclesiastical provinces of Aries, Aix, and Embrun met in a council in the Monastery of St Rufus, at Avignon, for a review and reform of clerical practice. In a
long body of statutes issued by the council the first statute was for the establishment of Masses to be celebrated every Saturday in honor of the Virgin; subtraction of ten days from penances was offered as a reward for righteous attendance.81
In 1337 representatives from the same region met again at the Monastery of St
Rufus to reassert the rulings of 1326; again the Saturday Masses in honor of the
Virgin were the first order of the decree.82In 1453 another provincial council was
convoked at Aries by Cardinal Pierre de Foix, archbishop of Aries and papal legate to Avignon. The stated purpose of the council was to restore ecclesiastical
discipline on the basis of the statutes of the century-old councils of St Rufus. The
Saturday Masses in honor of the Virgin were reaffirmed, with the ten-day indulgences established in the earlier councils increased to forty days.83 In 1457
Pierre de Foix, in association with Alain de Coetivy, papal legate to France, convoked a provincial council at Avignon; the bases for its statutes were the councils
of St Rufus and the recent council at Aries.84 The faith of the Virgin during
Christ's Passion is not mentioned in these terse, legalistic decrees, but the general
understanding of the commemorative import of the Saturday Masses will have
been maintained in Avignon by repeated emphasis on these rites. Since Charles
Sterling, using convincing reasons, has dated the Avignon Pieta between 1450 and
1457,85it may be supposed that the altarpiece, with its emphasis on the sustained
faith of the Virgin, is related to a newly-disciplined observance of the Saturday
77See sermons of the thirteenth century: G. Goyau, Saint Louis (Paris, 1928), p. 113; E. Farrel,
La vie quotidienneau temps de S. Louis (Paris, 1947), p. 225; a French poem of the fourteenth century:
L. Gougaud, Devotions et pratiqLesascetiquesdu moyen-age (Paris, 1925), p. 66.
78 Loc. cit.
(note 4).
79 Loc. cit. (note 6).
80 A fourteenth-century (?) homily on St Luke, II 27, sometimes attributed to Albert the Great
(ed. P. de Loe, Bonn, 1916); on the date see P. F. Pelster, in Zeitschriftfiir katholische Theologie,xLII
(1918), 654 if. From the fifteenth century: St Antoninus, Summa theologica,pars IV, tit. XV, c. 41.
81 I. Ut Missa beata Mariae semel in hebdomadasolemniter celebretur.In primis igitur statuimus et
communiter ordinamus; quod Missa de beata Maria additis collectis, Ecclesiae tuae, et Deus a quo
sancta, etc., in die Sabbati, si festum IX. lectionum non impediat, alioquin in alia vacante feria ipsius
hebdomadae, pro pace et tranquillitate et bono statu ecclesiae conservando, ac inimicis ejus ad cor et
ad poenitentiam convertendis, solemniter in singulis ecclesiis celebretur. Et ut ad veniendum fideles
ferventius inducantur, singulis ad dictam Missam venientibus, verre poenitentibus et confessis, dicem
dies de injunctis sibi poenitentiis misericorditer relaxamus. Mansi, Ampl. coll. concil., xxv, col. 743.
82 Ibid., xxv, col. 1089.
83 J. H. Albanes and U. Chevalier, Gallia christiana novissima
(Valence, Ii, 1900), cols. 858, 861.
84Mansi, op. cit., xxxII, cols. 183 ff.
86Above, note 45.
Notes on the Avignon PietA
231
Masses in honor of the Virgin. Although the evidence is incomplete, the councils
of the 1450's provide a plausible historical setting for the picture.8
*
*
*
Emile MAle, describing French Pietas in which the Virgin prays over the body
of her Son, referred to the Virgin as exhibiting a spirit of sacrifice, "conformement
a la pensee de Saint Bonaventure,"87 and Germain Bazin, in his beautiful essay on
the Avignon Pieta, has expanded this interpretation.88 MAle's reference is to
Bonaventura's commentary on the first Book of the Sentences,89 in which, to
summarize, the author distinguishes between sorrow over the Passion of Christ as
maintained by reason, which is contradictory to acceptance of the good of the
event, and sorrow maintained by piety, which is not contradictory to such acceptance, for pious sorrow does not actually will that the event should not have taken
place. The Virgin's sorrow was of the latter type; and while grieving she yet with
strong soul and most constant reason willed that her Son be offered for the salvation of mankind. Bonaventura's comments fully state the pain of the Virgin,
which was equal to that of her Son.90The steadfastness of the Virgin during the
86It is not inappropriate that the rites of Saturday should influence a painting illustrating the events
of Good Friday. The Tenebrae of Good Friday evening is the Matins and Lauds of Saturday performed by anticipation on the previous day. More significantly, the development of the type of Pieta
here under discussion involves an anticipation of attitudes usually reserved for the time during or after
the Entombment. In a larger view, much Christian imagery anticipates ultimate events in earlier,
preparatory events - as when in Old Testament themes are seen prophecies of the New Testament,
when scenes from the infancy of Christ contain allusions to His Passion, or scenes of the Passion contain allusion to the Resurrection or the Last Judgment. Such usages are important to the anagogical
sense of the images.
87 E. Male, L'art
religieux de la fin du moyen dge en France (Paris, 1925), p. 129. In the Englishlanguage condensation of the book (Religious Art [New York, 1949], p. 119) "Saint Bonaventure" has
been changed, inadvertantly, I suppose, to "Saint Bernard."
88
Op. cit. (note 1).
89 Dist. XLVIII, dub. 4
(Operaomnia, Quaracchi,I, [1882], p. 861). Item queriter de hoc quod dicit:
Hoc bonumntantum fuit, ut Apostolus Petrus, qui id fieri nolebat, ab ipse qui occisis est, satan diceretur.
Secundum hoc videtur, quod quicumque dolet et tristatur circa passionem Christi, est redarguendus:
ergo peccavit beatissima Virgo, dum doluit, sicut dicitur Lucae secundo: Tuam ipsius animam pertransibit gladius. Peccaverunt similiter Apostoli. Falsam etiam dicit Apostolus secundae ad Timotheum secundo: Si compatimur, et conregnabimus.
Respondeo: Dicendum, quod dolere de aliquo est dupliciter: aut ita quod dolens voluntate rationis
absolutavelit contrarium eius, de quo dolet: et sic nulli licuit dolere de passione Christi, et Petrus, quia
voluntate rationis contrarium volebat, est redargatus (Matthew, xvi 23). Alio modo dolere de aliquo
est ferri ad contrarium voluntate absoluta; sic bonum est condolere Christo et pie affici circa eum, et
sic afficiuntur viri sancti, qui magnas gratias agunt Deo de passione Christi; sed tamen moventur pie
in consideratione dolorum. Sic etiam piissima beatae Virginis dilictissimo Filio suo patienti, quantum
sustinere paterat, compatiebatur. Nullo tamen modo est dubitandum, quin virilis eius animus et ratio
constantissima vellet etiam Unigenitum tradere pro salute generis humani, ut Mater per omnia conformis esset Patri. Et in hoc miro modo debet laudari et amari, quod placuit ei, ut Unigenitus suus pro
salute generis humani offerretur. Et tantum etiam compassa est, ut, si fieri posset, omnia tormenta
quae Filius pertulit, ipsa multo libentius sustineret. Vere igitur fuit fortis et pia, dulcit pariter et
severa, sibi parca, sed nobis largissima....
90On the Virgin's compassion, a theme largely in contrast to the themes discussed in this essay, see
0. von Simson, "Compassio and Co-redemptioin Roger van der Weyden's Descent from the Cross,"
Art Bulletin, xxxv (1953), 9 ff.
232
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
Passion is also discussed by Bonaventura in De septem donis Spiritus Sancti.91
Here she is seen to exemplify Fortitude, for she consented that her Son be offered
for the salvation of mankind. She is to be praised above Hannah, who offered her
son in service to God (I Samuel I 18), for she offered her Son in sacrifice; or above
Abraham, whose offering was not ultimately requested; she offered all her substance.
These thoughts are part of the larger body of tradition affirming the faith of the
Virgin and they have an appropriateness to study of the Avignon Pieta. But the
tone and many of the implications of Bonaventura's statements are to be distinguished from those of later interpretations of the Virgin's role. The distinction
must be a subtle one - a difference of emphasis rather than substance - but is
pertinent to our responses to the Avignon Pieta, with its complex blending of
trouble and order, discomforting realism and calm schematization, controlled
lament and saddened purposefulness.92
In both of the passages from Bonaventura the immensity of the Virgin's loss
and grief is considered the measure of her virtue; the discussion is touched by a
Gothic pathos. Bonaventura indicates a certain tension between the Virgin's
grief and her will; she offers her terrible sacrifice in response to the Will of God.
Unlike Bonaventura, some late mediaeval narratives of the Passion, such as have
been cited above, resolve the tension between grief and will by differentiating between the Virgin's pious grief beside the Cross and her emergent faith after or
even as early as the Entombment; then her spirit may open itself to the most
serene possibilities. These narratives are of a popular kind and have, in part, a
didactic purpose. (In the Mirror of OurLady many that wretchedly erred from the
faith were at that time corrected and brought again to the faith by the Virgin.)
These accounts of the Passion close with a description of the Virgin's unclouded
faith, in a manner that will inspire and spiritually educate the individual. Of a
different vein but with important similarities is the Occamite belief, repeated in
ecclesiological debate during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that the
Church may be sustained by one person alone, as it had been by the Virgin at the
time of the Passion. For this thought also isolates the faith of the Virgin, unmodified by grief, as a guide for the individual. In the time after the High Middle
Ages there developed an increasing interest in the Virgin as an exemplar for
personal action and feeling; there appears the possibility of an Imitation of the
Virgin.93The interest may take many forms but it tends toward attitudes which
91 Coll.
IV, n. 17 (Opera omnia, v, 486 f.). And see above, note 6.
tragic aspect of the painting is heightened by the present dark colors, the result of its poor
condition; the original colors are apparently brighter. See Sterling in Bulletin de la societe nationale des
antiquaires de France (op. cit., note 1), pp. 214 f.
93 This possibility appears in the book which brings the phrase to mind, The Imitation of Christ (IV,
2 and 17), here in reference to the Virgin Annunciate: the writer asks that he may receive Christ in the
Blessed Sacrament with the affection, reverence, and purity with which the Virgin Annunciate received Him. Henry Suso had projected a similar thought upon the Virgin of Christ's Passion: "I now
beg you to place on the lap of my soul your tender child as he appeared in death, so that what you
have enjoyed physically I may enjoy spiritually. . ." The Examplar, tr., Sister M. Ann Edward (Dubuque, Iowa, 1962), ii, 78. Much the same idea is in Ludolph of Saxony's Vita Christi, IV, pars 2, cap.
92 The
Notes on the Avignon Pieta
233
are simplified, purified, and exaggerated. Such especially is true within the kinds
of writing here at issue: popular didactic narrative and ecclesiological - essentially political - argument. Both are very characteristic of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. When these writings refer to the faith of the Virgin - and it is
in them that the matter is most often touched upon - they exhibit her faith
unconditionally. This spirit, or method, little allows for the type of Virgin imagined by Bonaventura, her sense of high duty tragically wrought in suffering.
That the individual may imitate, or identify himself with, the Virgin is implied
within the Avignon Pieta by the figure of the donor. He is a cleric94and presumably had much responsibility for the religious content of the painting. A robust
person, his strong face recorded in a portrait of remarkable immediacy, he is included directly with the holy persons in a manner quite progressive at this date;
nor is he accompanied by a patron saint.95The man is likened to the Virgin by his
praying hands and upright mien; the figure of the cleric responds to the figure of
the Virgin, who may be seen as a primary celebrant of Christian rite.
Considering the donor, attempting to divine his attitudes from his image, one
is led toward the conclusion that the altarpiece was intended to picture in the
Virgin a faith less tortured than that described by Bonaventura, less manifested
by yielding and giving than by affirmative sacramental activity. Such emphases
are also in the late mediaeval texts assembled above. The Avignon Pieta is at a
much higher aesthetic level than any of those writings, with greater profundity
and intricacy in its expression. But the texts provide a useful group of thoughts
related to the image, being of its period; they foster a more precise awareness of
the painting's religious meaning.
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
LVX, 4 (Paris, 1878, IV, pp. 143 f.). In general, see a compilation of the supposed writings of Thomas
a Kempis, The Imitation of Mary, ed., A. de Cigola (Westminster, Maryland, 1948); a similar compilation: De imitatione Mariae (Rome, 1955).
94More specifically, a canon; see Sterling in Bulletin de la socite nationale des antiquaires de France
(op. cit., note 1), 216 f.
96 Compare the conception of the donor in a related work, The Altarpiece of Boulbon: Ring, op. cit.
(note 39), Pls. 107 and 108, 111 and 112.