Sexuallity of Christ - Steinberg PDF

The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion
Source: October, Vol. 25 (Summer, 1983), pp. iv+1-198+204-222

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The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art
and in Modern Oblivion
The firstnecessity is to admit a long-suppressed matter of fact: that

Renaissance art, both northand south of the Alps, produced a large body of
devotional imagery in which the genitalia of the Christ Child, or of the dead
Christ, receive such demonstrativeemphasis that one must recognize an osten-
tatiogenitaliumcomparable to the canonic ostentatiovulnerum,the showingforthof
the wounds. In many hundreds of pious, religiousworks, frombefore 1400 to
past the mid-16th century,the ostensive unveiling of the Child's sex, or the
touching,protectingor presentationof it, is the main action (Figs. 1, 2). And
the emphasis recurs in images of the dead Christ, or of the mystical Man of
Sorrows (Fig. 3). All of which has been tactfullyoverlooked forhalf a millen-
nium. Hence my firstquestion--whether the outgoing 20th century is late
enough to concede that the subject exists. I*
My second objective is to propose plausible theological grounds for the
genital referencein the works under review- such as are illustratedin Figs.
4-6. Sooner or later someone is bound to notice what the Madonna's lefthand
in these paintingsis doing; to preventit is not in our power. The question is in
what spirit--whether in ribaldry or in reverence, franklyor nervously--the
discoveryis to be made, and made public. II
My thirdconcern is didactic. At the riskof belaboring what is obvious, I
must address myselfto the many who stillhabitually mistakepictorialsymbols
in Renaissance art for descriptive naturalism. To take one example: At the
sightof an infantChrist touchingthe Virgin's chin, theywill admire the charm
of a gestureso childlike,playful,affectionate.They are not wrong, but I think
* Indicationsof sources are given in the footnotes.Full referencesfor abbreviated

bibliographic citationsappearon pp. 204-06. The ListofIllustrations
(pp. 207-17) providesfull
captionsforthe worksreproduced.Roman numeralsin the marginsreferto correspondingly
numberedExcursusesin theback pages. To theseI have relegatedcollateralmatter,including
additionalillustrations,expandedquotationsand relatedsourcematerial,as wellas polemicsand
digressionsI couldnotresist.Some ofthelongerExcursusesstrikemenowas unseasonableinter-
ruptions.I supposetheyare bestread as an epilogue.
Fig. 1. Illumination fromthe Hours of Philip the Good,
Presentation
in theTemple,1454-55.

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Fig. 2. Andrea del Sarto, TallardMadonna, Fig. 3. Andreadel Sarto,drawingfora
c. 1515. Pieth,c. 1520.
Fig. 4. Bartolommeodi Giovanni,Madonna

andChild,c. 1490.

of Christ
The Sexuality 3
Fig. 6. AnnibaleCarracciShop, MadonnaandChildwithSaints,1608-09,detail.
theyare satisfiedwithtoo little.For the seeming artlessnessof what I shall call

the chin-chuck disguises a ritual form of impressive antiquity. It is first
encounteredin New Kingdom Egyptas a tokenofaffectionor eroticpersuasion
(Fig. 124). In Archaic Greek paintingthe gestureis given to wooers, and it oc-
curs more than once in the Iliad to denote supplication (Figs. 125, 126).1 In
Late Antique art, the caress of the chin is allegorized to express the union of
Cupid and Psyche, the god of Love espousing the human soul (Fig. 7). And the
gestureproliferatesin medieval art into representationsboth of profanelovers
and of the Madonna and Child (Figs. 8, 9, 127). Thus no Christian artist,
medieval or Renaissance, would have taken this long-fixedconvention for
anythingbut a sign of eroticcommunion, eithercarnal or spiritual.By assign-
ing it to the ChristChild, the artistwas designatingMary's son as the Heavenly
Bridegroomwho, having chosen her forhis mother,was choosing her forhis
eternalconsortin heaven. The chin-chuck,then,betokensthe InfantSpouse (a III
1. Iliad,I, 501-02; VIII, 370-71; X, 454-55.

of theCuccini
Fig. 5. Veronese, Presentation
Familyto theMadonna, 1571, detail.

Fig. 7. Hellenisticbronzestatuette,
Cupid Fig. 8. Romanesque, Herodand Salome,cloister
and Psyche. capitalfromSt. Etienne,Toulouse, c. 1140.
phrase I take fromSt. Augustine2)- whetherthe action appears naturalized on

earth, or enskied (Figs. 10-12).
In decoding such ostensiblegenre motifsas the chin-chuck,our charge is
to remain undeceived by theirverisimilitude.If the depicted gesturewas made
to look common, imputable to any mother's child, the intent was not to
diminish but, on the contrary,to confirmthe mysteryof the Incarnation.
Lifelikenessposed no threat, because these Renaissance artistsregarded the
godhead in the person of Jesus as too self-evidentto be dimmed by his
manhood. What theydid not anticipatewas the retroactiveeffectthatfourcen-
turies of deepening secularism would have on the perceptionof Renaissance
art. They did not foresee that the process of demythologizingChristianity
would succeed in profaningour vision of their sacred art; so that now, most
modern viewers are content to stop at the demythicized image - a human
image drawn to all appearances fromthe natural world, far afield fromthe
mysteriesof the Creed. Could it be that Renaissance artistry,strivingfor
2. St. Augustinespeaksof"His appearanceas an InfantSpouse, fromhis bridalchamber,

thatis, fromthewombof a virgin";Augustine,SermonIX, 2 (Ben. 191); Sermons,p. 109. See
also SermonX, 3, pp. 115-16,forthethemeoftheInfantSpouse, theVirgin'swombas bride
chamber,and theIncarnationoftheWord"bya marriagewhichit is impossibleto define."

Fig. 9. Simone Martini, Madonna and Child, Fig. 10. Marco Zoppo, Madonna and Child,
c. 1321-25. c. 1470.
Fig. 11. Barent van Orley, Madonna and Fig. 12. South Netherlandish,Madonnaand
ChildwithAngels,c. 1513, detail. Child,c. 1500.

6 OCTOBER
truthfulrepresentation,became too competentforits own good? Rapt in the

wonderofGod's assumed human nature,Renaissance artistswill have produced
work whose winning naturalism was rendered in retrospectself-defeating.
Wherever, in humanizing their Christ, they dared the most, we now see
nothingout of the ordinary; as though the infantChrist or the adult's corpse
were mere pretextsforexhibitingcommon humanity.
Accordingly, at the sight of a dead Christ touching his groin (Figs. 3,
109ff.),we are told not to wonder because dying men oftendo this- as if the
alleged frequencyof the posture in male human corpsesjustifiedits allocation
to Christ on sacred monuments.3 Similarly, a picture such as Veronese's
sacraconversazione(Fig. 80) - fouramazed saints gatheredabout a blithesleeper
- elicitsthe explanation that"it'swhat baby boys do." And the outrage of Hans
Baldung Grien's Holy Familywoodcut (Fig. 13) is shruggedoffon the grounds
that"it'swhat grandmothersdo." Perhaps; but how comes it thatthe only baby
in Western art so entertainedis the Christ?
The Baldung Grien woodcut shows the Christ Child subjected to genital
manipulation. How should this curiositybe perceived? Shall we hurrypast it
with stifledtitters,or condemn it as scandalous? No matterwhat the response,
one feelsthat St. Anne's gesture,fondlingor testingher grandchild'spenis, is a
libertywithoutparallel in Christian art. Yet the action is staged in solemnity,
and as the central motifof a work that does not seem scurrilousin intention.
One remains at a loss for alternatives,wanting an appropriate context. The
thing demands explanation, or at least some explaining away.
Explaining away has been tried. Until the 1981 Baldung Grien exhibition
in Washington and New Haven, it was the recourse of the foremostBaldung
scholar Carl Koch. Koch interpretedSt. Anne's gesture in the light of the
artist'sknown interestin folk superstition- witness Baldung's fascinationby
witches. But, he continued, Baldung displays "even deeper insightinto arcane
popular customs believed to possess magic powers. Thus, under pretext of
representingthe pious companionship of the Holy Family, he dares make the
miracle-workingspell pronounced over a child the subject of a woodcut com-
position."4
This is all we were told. The nature of thissupposed spell, whetherfecun-
dative or apotropaic, was not divulged. But Koch's purpose was unmistakable:
to forestallany suspicion of impudence on Baldung's part. We were urged in-
stead to applaud the artist'sinquiryinto secretpeasant beliefs,his anticipation
of modern anthropologicalattitudes.In his woodcut, the grandam's gesture,so
3. Forthemotifofthedead Christtouchinghisgroin,and itssubsequentimitation in recum-

benttombeffigies, see pp. 96-104 below,and ExcursusesXXXVII and XXXVIII.
4. exh. cat., Karlsruhe,
Carl Koch in StaatlicheKunsthalleKarlsruhe,Hans BaldungGrien,
1959,pp. 17 and (summary)241.

Fig. 13. Hans Baldung Grien, Holy Family,1511.

8 OCTOBER
far from being prurient or frivolous,was to be understood as a record of

Baldung's fieldworkamong the folk.Meanwhile, the woodcut's overtChristian
subject was reduced to the role of a cover. Apparently,the gestureportrayed
would have been too indelicate to stage in a peasant setting,visited on some
IV nameless child; but with the Christ Child anythinggoes.
An alternativemode of evasion argues the case in reverse: St. Anne's con-
duct, we hear, is not an arcanum discovered in folk superstition,but a silly
genre motif- no furtherexplanation required. We are asked to recall that the
practice of admiring and handling a male infant'sgenitals was formerlycom-
mon in many cultures,so thatBaldung would have representedno more than a
routineoccasion in a typicalhousehold. Philippe Aries actually cites Baldung's
woodcut to document what he calls the once "widespread tradition"of playing
V with a child's privyparts.
What is involved here is a misunderstandingof a critical truth: that
naturalisticmotifsin religiousRenaissance art are never adequately accounted
forby theirprevalence in lifesituations.Ordinary experienceis no templatefor
automatic transferto art. There are many thingsbabies do- crawling on all
fours,forinstance, beforetheystartwalking- which no artist,however deeply
committedto realism, ever thoughtof imputingto the ChristChild. For the in-
fantChrist, in Renaissance as in medieval art, is like no other child, whether
he sits up to give audience, or rehearsesthe Crucifixion;whetherhe hands the
keys of the kingdom to Peter, or snatches a makeshiftcross fromhis playmate
St. John. He engages in actions, such as eating grapes, or perusing a book,
fromwhich common babies desist. And long before normal toddlers learn to
put round pegs in round holes, he deftlyslips a ring on St. Catherine's finger.
In short, the depicted Christ, even in babyhood, is at all times the Incarna-
tion- veryman, veryGod. Therefore,when a Renaissance artistquickens an
Infancyscene with naturalisticdetail, he is not recordingthis or that observa-
tion, but revealing in the thing observed a newfound compatibilitywith his
subject.
This rule must apply as well to the palpation of the Child's privyparts.
The question is not whether such practice was common, but how, whether
common or not, it serves to set Mary's son apart fromthe run of the sons of
Eve. Thus we still have to ask what Baldung thoughthe was doing when he
offeredthe Infant'spenis to the grandmother'stouch.
I answer, provisionally,that the presentationcenterson an ostensiveact,
a palpable proof- proving nothing less than what the Creed itself puts at
the center: God's descent into manhood. And because grandmotherAnne
guarantees Christ'shuman lineage, it is she who is tasked withthe proving(cf.
Fig. 16). Observe thatwhile the Child's lower body concedes its humanity,the
arms reach for the Virgin, the hand of the Infant Spouse grasping her chin.
Meanwhile, a contemplativeJoseph looks on. Book laid aside, he watches the
VI revelationdirect, the firstman to behold it with understanding.

The Sexualityof Christ 9
There is somethinghere thatwe are expected to take forgranted- here as

in all religious Renaissance art: that the divinityin the incarnate Word needs
no demonstration.For an infantChrist in Renaissance images differsfromthe
earlier Byzantine and medieval Christ Child not only in degree of naturalism,
but in theological emphasis. In the imageryof earlier Christianity,the claims
forChrist'sabsolute godhood, and forhis paritywiththe AlmightyFather, had
to be constantlyreaffirmedagainst unbelief--firstagainstJewish recalcitrance VII
and pagan skepticism,then against the Arian heresy, finallyagainst Islam.
Hence the majestyofthe infantChrist and the hieraticposture; and even in the
Byzantine type known as the Glykophilousa, the "Madonna of Sweet Love,"
the Child's ceremonial robe down to the feet. In Otto Demus' words: "The
Byzantine image . .. always remains an 'image,' a Holy Icon, withoutany ad-
mixture of earthly realism."5 But for a Western artist nurtured in Catholic
orthodoxy- forhim the objective was not so much to proclaim the divinityof
the babe as to declare the humanationof God.6 And thisdeclarationbecomes the
set theme of every Renaissance Nativity, Adoration, Holy Family, or Ma-
donna and Child. VIII
I have learned much fromJohn O'Malley's recentbook, PraiseandBlamein

RenaissanceRome- a masterlystudy that deals for the firsttime with the ser-
mons delivered at the papal court between the years 1450 and 1521. O'Malley
quotes this admonition to preachers from a late 15th-centuryauthor (Bran-
dolini): "Whereas in earlier times men had to search forthe truthand dispute
about it, in the Christianera men are to enjoy it."' The preacheris not to waste
words persuading believers to belief. His officeis to stirmen to gratitudeand
delight. The sermons, accordingly,dwell on the boon conferredby the Incar-
nation; to which the Christian's proper response is admiration and praise.
Now, "what man praises most especially in God are his worksand deeds."
Of these, the firstwas the act of Creation; but his second great "deed" was his
becoming fleshand dwelling on earth. And the sermons affirmthat God's first
accomplishmentwas surpassed in the second, since the formerhad proved cor-
ruptible throughman's sin, but the latter,which redeems fromcorruption,is
good forever.8
5. Otto Demus, "The Methods of the Byzantine Artist," The Mint, no. 2 (1948), p. 69.
6. The English word "humanation," obsolete since it was ousted in the 17thcenturyby "incar-
nation," deserves a place in the active vocabulary; it has at least some of the forceof the German
Menschwerdung.
7. O'Malley, Praiseand Blame, p. 70, n. 97, gives the original Latin; on the needlessness of
persuading believers to belief, see also his p. 76.
8. Ibid., pp. 138-39.

10 OCTOBER
"The theologyof the Western Church," writes O'Malley, "has generally

tended to pinpoint the redemptiveact in Christ's death on the cross, or in the
conjunctionof his suffering,death, and resurrection."'The more surprisingto
hear the Renaissance preachers emphasizing the preeminence of the Incarna-
tion. "That emphasis," O'Malley continues, "wants to view all the subsequent
events of Christ's life as articulations of what was already inchoately ac-
complished in the initial moment of man's restoration,which was the incarna-
tion in the Virgin's womb. . . . Whatever injury man and the universe had
sufferedin the Fall was healed . . . when the Word assumed flesh."
Shall this insightstop at the work of the preachers? It seems to me - and
O'Malley concurs--that the "incarnational theology" which he finds in the
Renaissance sermonsis immanentin earlierand contemporaneousRenaissance
art. So much of this art is a celebration; so much of it proclaims over and over
that godhood has vested itselfin the infirmityof the flesh,so as to raise that
flesh to the prerogativesof immortality.It celebrates the restoral which the
divine power brought offby coming to share man's humanity.
And thissupreme featofGod, superioreven to the primordialact of Crea-
IX tion, is perpetuallymanifestin the Incarnation, that is to say, here and now in
this armful of babyflesh.10The wonder of it, and its constant reaffirma-
tion- this mysteryis the stuffof Renaissance art: the humanation of God; the
more "superwonderful"(St. Bonaventure's word) the more tangible you can
make it.
Thus is the realism of Renaissance painting justified in the faith. The
renderingof the incarnate Christ ever more unmistakablyfleshand blood is a
religiousenterprisebecause it testifiesto God's greatestachievement. And this
must be the motive that induces a Renaissance artistto include, in his presen-
tation of the Christ Child, even such momentsas would normallybe excluded
by considerationsof modesty- such as the exhibitionor manipulation of the
boy's genitalia (Figs. 1, 5, 14). Returningonce more to the action in Baldung's
woodcut (Fig. 13): ifthis sort of conduct was routine in Renaissance families,
no representationof it would be made, except only in the imageryof the Christ
Child, since no otherchildborn ofwoman needed to have itsordinaryhumanity
brought home and celebrated. Whence it follows that the central action in
9. Ibid. The followingfromSt. Bonaventure may serve as a standard traditionalformulation:

"Man has been freedfromdeath and fromthe cause of death by the most efficaciousmeans: the
meritof the death of Christ" (Breviloquium, IV, 9, p. 173). The relative rankingof the Resurrec-
tion above the miracle of the Incarnation in Eastern theologyis explicitin these words of Photius,
the 9th-centuryPatriarch of Constantinople: "Wondrous was the manger at Bethlehem which
received my Lord . . . as He had just emerged from a virgin's womb. . . . Yet a far greater
miracle does the tomb exhibit; . . . in the latteris accomplished the end and the purpose of God's
advent . . ." (Homily X, 7, pp. 209-10). Clearly, the issue here is not one of essential creed. It is
not a question of doctrine, but of choice of rhetoricalemphasis.
10. In the words of St. Bernard, "God himselfis in thisbabe, reconcilingthe world to himself"
(Song ofSongs,Sermon II, 8, p. 14).

Fig. 14. BartolommeoMontagna,Holy
Family,c. 1500.
Baldung's printcould be at the same time triteand unique; reflectiveof vulgar

practice and special to Christ. We apprehend the event because it is com-
monplace; and condone its depictionbecause it touches Christ. And the same
principleholds forthe self-touchingpostureof the corpse followingthe descent
fromthe cross: the artistswho introducedthe motifunderstood it as human;
theydepicted the gesturebecause its performancewas God's.
The image, then, is both natural and mysterial,each term enabling the
other. But this reciprocalfranchiseis peculiar to the Catholic West, where the
growthof a Christwardnaturalismin painting is traceable fromthe mid-13th
century.Of course, the West held no monopoly on the affirmation of Christ's
humanity. Every right-thinking Christian, whether Latin or Greek, artistor
otherwise, confessed that the pivotal moment in the historyof the race was
God's alliance with the human condition. But in celebratingthe union of God
and man in the Incarnation, Western artistsbegan displacing the emphasis,
shiftingfromthe majestyof unapproachable godhead to a being known,loved,
and imitable."1Where the maker of a Byzantine cult image enthronedthe in-
carnate Word as an imperial Christ, satisfiedthat the manhood of him was
sufficientlyevident in his filiationfromMary, the art of the West sought to
11. "That he mightbe known and loved and imitated"is the formulaproposed by St. Bonaven-
ture; quoted in Excursus VII.

Fig. 15. FrancescoBotticini,
Madonnaand
ChildwithAngels,c. 1490.
realize that same manhood as the common fleshof humanity. Realism, the
more penetratingthe better,was consecrated a formof worship.
Yet it remains to ask how a directdemonstrationof the incarnate God's
human nature justifies a select sexual accent. Christ's manhood, yes, by all
means, but why these particular means? Why should there exist even one
Christian painting, such as Botticini'sNativitytondo in Florence (Fig. 15),
where angels vent theirjoy at God's human birthby bestrewinghis pudenda
with flowers?Two thousand years earlier, Heraclitus had said: "If it were not
Dionysus for whom they march in procession and chant the hymn to the
phallus, theiraction would be most shameless."12What then is it in the Chris-
tian mysteryof the Incarnation that could move its Renaissance celebrantsto
such venial "shamelessness"?The question leads to threetheologicalconsidera-
tions that bear ineluctablyon Christ's sex.
12. Hermann Diels, Die Fragmente fragment15.
der Vorsokratiker,

The Sexuality
of Christ 13
The eternal, by definition,experiences neitherdeath nor generation. If

the godhead incarnatesitselfto suffera human fate,it takes on the conditionof
being both deathbound and sexed. The mortalityit assumes is correlativewith
sexuality,since it is by procreationthatthe race, thoughconsignedto death in-
dividually, endures collectivelyto fulfillthe redemptiveplan.13 Therefore,to
professthat God once embodied himselfin a human nature is to confessthat
the eternal, thereand then, became mortal and sexual. Thus understood, the
evidence of Christ's sexual member serves as the pledge of God's humanation
(Fig. 16).
13. For the conjunction of mortalityand fecundityas the definingtermsof the human condi-
tion, see, forexample, St. Gregory as quoted by Bede: "Although God deprived man of immor-
talityforhis sin, he did not destroythe human race on that account, but of his mercifulgoodness
leftman his abilityto continue the race" (Bede, A HistoryoftheEnglishChurchand People,I, 27, 7).
Fig. 16. Cavaliered'Arpino,MadonnaandChild

withSt. John,St. Anneand theMagdalen, 1592-93.

Fig. 17. AmbrogioLorenzetti,Madonnadel
Latte,c. 1325.
Other modalities of this pledge come to mind, notably the Christ Child's
dependence on nourishment; for the iconic type of the nursing Madonna
did not enter the repertoryof Christian art because painters saw mothers
breastfeedtheirchildren,and not merelyto displaythe Madonna's humility,as
suggestedby Millard Meiss, but to attestonce again the truthof the Incarna-
tion. This is whythe Virgin gives suck even in formalsessions, as when she sits
to St. Luke forher portrait.This is why the nurslingis so oftendepicted turn-
X ing his face to alert our attention(Figs. 17, 18); or, more incongruously,with
his mouthengaged and eyes forward,stridingtowardus (Fig. 141); or even sub
moon-cradledabove the clouds, stillowninghis erstwhileneed
specieaeternitatis,
(Fig. 143). The image of the Maria lactans,popular since the mid-14thcentury,
assured the believerthatthe God rootingat Mary's breast had become man in-
deed; and that she who sustained the God-man in his infirmityhad gained

of Christ
The Sexuality 15
Fig. 18. Masolino,MadonnaandChild,

c. 1423-24.
infinitecredit in heaven. We do not suppose that every painter of a nursing

Madonna meditatedthe underlyingtheology- the meaning of the subject was
plain: Christ has to eat. His takingfood, initiallyas an infantand lastlyagain
at Emmaus, tenderedthe livingproofthatthe substance assumed by the Trini-
ty's Second Person, whetheraborning or raised fromdeath, was human flesh
subject to hunger.
As forthe sexual component in the manhood of Christ, it was normally
left unspoken, suppressed originally by the ethos of Christian asceticism,
ultimatelyby decorum. In theologicalwritingsthe matterhardlyappears, ex-
cept, as we shall see, in connectionwith the Circumcision. The admission of
Christ's sex occurs commonly only by indirectionor implication. Thus the
humanitytaken on by the Word in Mary's womb was said to be - in the locu-
tion currentfromSt. Augustine to the 17thcentury- "completein all the parts XI

16 OCTOBER
of a man."14From the preacheror theologian,no furtheranatomic specification

was needed.
But forthe makers of images the case stood otherwise. We have to con-
sider that Renaissance artists,committedfor the firsttime since the birth of
Christianity to naturalistic modes of representation, were the only group
withinChristendomwhose metierrequired them to plot every inch of Christ's
body. They asked intimatequestions that do not well translateinto words, at
least not without disrespect; whether, for instance, Christ clipped his nails
short,or let them grow past the fingertips.The irreverenttrivialityof such in-
quisitions verges on blasphemy. But the Renaissance artistwho lacked strong
convictionon this sortof topic was unfitto fashionthe hands of Christ- or his
loins. For even ifthe body were partlydraped, a decision had to be made how
much to cover; whetherto play the drapery down, or send it flutteringlike a
banner; and whetherthe loincloth employed, opaque or diaphanous, was to
reveal or conceal. Only they, the painters and sculptors, kept all of Christ's
body in theirmind's eye. And some among themembraced even his sex in their
XII thought- not fromlicentiousness,but in witnessof one "born true God in the
entireand perfectnature oftrueman, completein his own properties,complete
in ours."15
My second consideration pertains to the Christ of the Ministry. When
they visualized Jesus adult and living, artistsdid not, as a rule, referto his
sex- except perhaps in the manner chosen at certain times to render Christ's
XIII nudityat the Baptism. For the rest,the sexual referencetends to polarize at the
mysteriesof Incarnation and Passion; that is to say, it occurs eitherin Infancy
scenes or in representationsof Christdead or risen. Here the oeuvre of Andrea
del Sarto is paradigmatic. Twice does it summon us to see Christ place his
hand in his groin-once as a laughing child, and again, with disturbing
likeness, in a drawing fora Pieta'(Figs. 2, 3). The crucifiedGod is one withthe
frolickinginfant;end and beginning agree.
Between these poles lies the earthlycareer ofJesus of Nazareth. And that
he, the Christ of the Ministry,was ever-virginno sound believer may doubt.
14. "Made up ofall themembers... ,"writesSt. Augustine(CityofGod,XXII, 18). For Leo

theGreatand theCouncil ofChalcedon,see n. 15 below. Originally,suchexpressionshad no
whensuchreference
genitalconnotation;but theycame to serveeuphemistically was intended,
as when the RenaissancepreacherCardulus, referringto the circumcisedmember,speaksof
membris
Christ's body as "omnibus expressum" fol. 89).
(Oratio de circumcisione,
excluded"- notevenwhatmodestywouldsuppress.The
The "all"cameto mean"nothing
used as a noun(examplecitedin Webster's
equivalentmoderneuphemismis theword"altogether"
ThirdInternational:swimming in the altogether).
15. Totus in suis, totusin nostris;from the Tome of Pope Leo the Great (449; see Bettenson,
Documents, ofthe natureofChristpromulgated
p. 70). See also thedefinition at theCouncilof
Chalcedon:"at once completein Godheadand completein manhood.. . ofone substancewith
theFatheras regardshisGodhead . . . ofone substancewithus as regardshismanhood;likeus
in all respects,apartfromsin"(ibid., p. 72).

"A man entirelyvirginal,"says Tertullian. St. Methodius (3rd century)dubs

him Arch-virginand bridegroom,whose success in preservingthe flesh"incor-
rupt in virginity"is to be viewed as the chiefaccomplishmentof the Incarna-
tion. St. Jerome calls Christ"our virginLord,"- "a virginborn ofa virgin";and
explains that "Christ and Mary . . . consecrated the pattern of virginityfor
both sexes." Photius (9th century) urges "those not yet married [to] offer XIV
virginity;fornoughtis so sweet and pleasing to the Ever-Virgin."The doctrine
draws scripturalsupport fromthe passage in Matthew (19:12), where Christ
commends those who have made themselves "eunuchs for the sake of the
kingdom of heaven."
Needless to say, thispreceptwas not meant to be taken literally;it was not
to be misconstruedas a plea for physical disability or mutilation. Virginity,
afterall, constitutesa victoryover concupiscence only where susceptibilityto
its power is at least possible. Chastityconsistsnot in impotentabstinence, but
in potency under check. In Christological terms:just as Christ's resurrection XV
overcame the death of a mortalbody, so did his chastitytriumphover the flesh
of sin. It was this fleshChrist assumed in becoming man, and to declare him
freeof its burden, to relievehim of its temptations,is to decarnifythe Incarna-
tion itself.16 It followsthat Christ'sexemplaryvirtue and the celebrationof his
perpetual virginityagain presuppose sexuality as a sinequa non.
My thirdconsiderationconcernsChrist in the characterof Redeemer. His
manhood differsfromthat of all humankind in one crucial respect,which once
again involves the pudenda: he was without sin--not only without sins com-
mitted, but exempt from the genetically transmittedstain of Original Sin.
Therefore, applied to Christ's body, the word "pudenda" (Italian: le vergogne;
French: partieshonteuses; German: Schamteile--"shameful parts") is a misnomer.
For the word derives fromthe Latin pudere,to feel or cause shame. But shame
entered the world as the wages of sin. Before their transgression,Adam and
Eve, thoughnaked, were unembarrassed; and were abashed in consequence of
their lapse. But is it not the whole merit of Christ, the New Adam, to have
regained forman his prelapsarian condition? How then could he who restores
human nature to sinlessness be shamed by the sexual factorin his humanity?
And is not this reason enough to render Christ's sexual member, even like the
stigmata, an object of ostentatio?17
16. Hebrews4:15 speaksof Christas "one temptedin all thingslike as we are, [yet]without
sin."St. Augustinemakesthethreetemptations resistedbyChristthetypesofall humantempta-
tion:lustof theflesh,lustof theeyes,and prideof life.
17. Christ'snecessaryexemptionfromgenitalshamefollowsfromthetheologicaldefinition of
shameas thepenaltyofOriginalSin. As theGermanRenaissancetheologianConrad Braunex-
plainedittohisgeneration:"Blamelessnudity[sanenuditas]. . . is thatwhichAdam and Eve had
beforesin . . . norweretheyconfoundedby thatnudity.Therewas in themno motionofbody
deservingofshame,noughtto be hidden,sincenothingin whattheyfeltneededrestraining. But
after sin, whateverin the disobedienceof their memberscaused shame (whereat they

18 OCTOBER
Modesty, to be sure, recommendscovered loins; and the ensuing conflict

provides the tension, the high risk,against which our artistsmust operate. But
iftheylistened to what the doctrineproclaimed; ifeven one of them disdained
to leave its truthmerelyworded, wanting it plain to see in paint or marble; if
such a one soughtto behold Christ in a faultlessmanhood fromwhich guiltwas
withdrawn, that is to say, as a nakedness immune to shame; if one such
Renaissance artistheld his idiom answerable to fundamentalChristologyso as
to rethink the doctrine in the concretion of his own art; then, surely,
conflict- if not withinhimselfthen with society- was unavoidable. He would
be caught between the demands of decorum, lest the sight of nobly drawn
genitalia furtherinflamethe prurience of human nature, and the command,
deeply internalized, to honor that special nature whose primal guiltlessness
would be disgraced by a "garmentof misery."18
We are faced with the evidence that serious Renaissance artistsobeyed
imperatives deeper than modesty- as Michelangelo did in 1514, when he
undertooka commission to carve a Risen Christfora Roman church (Fig. 19).
The utter nakedness of the statue, complete in all the parts of a man, was
thoughtby many to be reprehensible.It is hardly surprisingthat every 16th-
centurycopy- whetherdrawing,woodcut, engraving,bronze replica, or adap-
tation in marble-- representsthe figureas aproned (Figs. 20, 21);19 even now
the original statue in Sta. Maria sopra Minerva stands disfiguredby a brazen
breechclout. But the intended nudity of Michelangelo's figurewas neither a
licentious conceit, nor a thoughtless truckling to antique precedent. If
Michelangelo denuded his Risen Christ,he must have sensed a rightnessin his
decision more compelling than inhibitionsof modesty; must have seen that a
loinclothwould convictthese genitalia ofbeing "pudenda," therebydenyingthe
blushed .. . ), to the disobedience of sin alone was this imputed. So that man, disobedient to
God, wouldfeelhisdisobediencein hisverymembers" .... . . . adversus
(De imaginibus in
Iconoclastas,
D. Conradi Brunioperatrianunc primum aedita,Mainz, 1548,p. 51; also in Paola Barocchi,ed., Trat-
tatid'arte
delcinquecento,II, Bari, 1961,p. 601, n. 1). The teachingis, ofcourse,Augustinian."We
are ashamed,"wroteSt. Augustine,"ofthatverythingwhichmadethoseprimitive humanbeings
[Adam and Eve] ashamed,whentheycoveredtheirloins.That is thepenaltyofsin; thatis the
plagueand markofsin; thatis thetemptation and veryfuelofsin; thatis thelaw in ourmembers
warringagainstthelaw ofourmind;thatis therebellionagainstourownselves,proceeding from
our very selves, whichby a most righteousretribution is renderedus by our disobedient
members.It is thiswhichmakesus ashamed,andjustlyashamed"(OnMarriage andConcupiscence,
II, 22, p. 291).
But in theincarnateWord-"whom sin could notdefilenordeathretain"(St. Leo, Tome;
Bettenson,Documents, p. 70)--fleshdid not war againstspirit;no bodilymemberwas "disobe-
dient."In thewordsofPope HonoriusI, writing in 634 tothePatriarchofConstantinople (Denz-
inger,Sources, p. 99): "ournature,notour guiltwas assumedby theGodhead."Ergo,no shame.
18. GregoryofNyssa'stermforthefigleavesadoptedbyourFirstParents;see ExcursusXIII.
19. The knowncopiesofMichelangelo's RisenChrist, exceptingonlyourFig. 20 and a drawing
byGuido Reni at Windsor,are reproducedin Charlesde Tolnay,Michelangelo: TheMediciChapel,
Princeton,1948,figs.236-42.

of Christ
The Sexuality 19
Fig. 19. Michelangelo, Risen Christ,1514-20.

20 OCTOBER
Fig. 20. Anonymouswoodcutafter Fig. 21. Jacob Mathamafter

Michelangelo's Risen Christ,1588. 1590s.
Michelangelo'sRisenChrist,
XVI very work of redemption which promised to free human nature from its
Adamic contagion of shame.20
That Michelangelo conceived his figureof Christ all'anticais evident; the
common charge thathe did so to the detrimentof itsChristiancontentdoes not
cut deep enough. We must, I think,credit Michelangelo with the knowledge
that Christian teaching makes bodily shame no part of man's pristinenature,
but attributesit to the corruptionbrought on by sin. And would not such
Christianknowledgedirecthim to the idealityof antique sculpture?Where but
in ancient art would he have found the patternof naked perfectionuntouched
by shame, nude bodies untroubled by modesty? Their unabashed freedom
conveyed a possibilitywhich Christian teaching reserved only forChrist and
forthose who would resurrectin Christ's likeness: the possibilityof a human
nature withouthuman guilt.
Yet the nakedness of Michelangelo's marble differssignificantlyin one
respect fromthe nudity of antique statues: those ancients continued nude as
20. The resurrected,bothmaleand female,shallnotbe ashamedin heaven.This is self-evident

to ThomasAquinas (as it is to Augustine;see ExcursusXI). St. Thomaswrites:"Thoughthere
ofsex therewillbe no shamein seeingone another,sincetherewillbe no lustto in-
be difference
vitethemtoshameful deedswhichare thecause ofshame"(Summa Suppl. q. 81, art.3).
theologiae,

of Christ
The Sexuality 21
theyhad been immemorially;Michelangelo's monumental Christ stood newly

denuded. The formerare innocent,prelapsarian in the sense thattheyprecede
Christian shame; the latter overbears shame in the person of Christ resur-
rected. I shall be told, perhaps, that the word "prelapsarian" applied to pre-
Christian paganism is theologicallypreposterous; and so it is. But it reflectsa
cherishedpersuasion of Renaissance humanists. We finda strikingexpression
of theirbelief in the Hieroglyphica
of Pierio Valeriano. Settingout to discuss the
ancient symbolismof the human pudenda, Valeriano excuses his subject with
the followingexordium: "Antiquity, being less vicious, philosophized more
plainly and franklyabout each and every thing; nor was there at that time
anythingin the human body which was considered disgraceful[turpis]eitherby
sightor name. However, with the development of bad customs, many things
had to be declared foul both in deed and in speech. ."21
Note that Valeriano's periodization consigned the... "development of bad
customs" to post-antiquity-just as Vasari ascribed the degeneracy of art to
the Christian age. The preceding phase was designated "less vicious" (minus
vitiosa), thereforerightlyunencumbered by shame. Christians of a more
theological bent would have attributedpagan shamelessness to moral idiocy,
postlapsarian ignorance. But neither Valeriano nor Michelangelo saw ig-
norance shine in the worksof the ancients; nor evidence ofOriginal Sin. This is
why Michelangelo in his most Christian moments could look to antiquityfor
the uniformof the blessed. Whatever paganism informedhis Risen Christwas
thereas the formof a Christianhope - the eschatological promise of sinlessness
concretelyembodied.
I am inclined to read the same promise in a startlinginventionof the 15th
centurythat has never yet been described, though it recurs oftenenough: the
motifof the infantChrist, in childlikeinnocence, earnestlyor in play, pulling
his dress aside to expose his sex. It was surely the honest charm of the action
that earned it a welcome in both Flanders and Florence, and endeared it to
artists as diverse as Roger van der Weyden and Antonio Rossellino (Figs.
22, 23). The same spiriteddemonstration:a droll littleboy chuckling,liftinghis
bib, invitesus to see - the morosestof iconographersmightwish to protectsuch
a friskfromthe pall of theology.22Yet the subject is Christ. And in making the
Child's self-displaythe crux of a devotional image, the deep-thinkingRoger
was assuredly meditatinghis subject and thinkingChrist. Nor can I believe
even the elegant Rossellino unmindfulof his protagonist'scharacter. He too
21. Valeriano,Hieroglyphica,XXXIV, pp. 245-46- a workfirstpublishedin 1556,but more

thanhalfa centuryin themaking.
22. The sculptorofthemasterly terracotta
groupin London(Fig. 23) is identified
as Antonio
Rossellinoin Pope-Hennessy,"The Virginwiththe Laughing Child." The authordoes not
remarkon the Child's self-exposure
and attributesits laughterto the"unreflecting"
temperof
childhood.

Fig. 22. Roger van der Weyden, Madonna
and Child,c. 1460.
Fig. 23. Antonio Rossellino, Virginwiththe

LaughingChild,c. 1465-75.

meant Mary's Child forno less than the Incarnation. What these artistsrelished
in the motif was, I submit, its reconcilement of sexual exposure with in-
nocence. For as the firsteffectof Paradise lost was the punishing shame of the
pudenda, so the acceptable sign of restoralis the uncoveringofthe New Adam,
in token of Eden regained.
These, then, are my threeinitialconsiderations.The firstremindsus that

the humanation of God entails, along with mortality,his assumption of sex-
uality. Here, since the verityof the Incarnation is celebrated, the sex of the
newborn is a demonstrativesign.
In the second consideration, touching Christ's adult ministry,sexuality
matters in its abeyance. Jesus as exemplar and teacher prevails over con-
cupiscence to consecrate the Christian ideal of chastity.We have no call to be
thinkingof private parts.
But we do again on the third turn. Delivered fromsin and shame, the
freedomof Christ'ssexual memberbespeaks thataboriginal innocence which in
Adam was lost. We may say that Michelangelo's naked Christs- on the cross,
dead, or risen- are, like the naked Christ Child, not shameful, but literally
and profoundly"shame-less."
The candor of Michelangelo's naked Redeemer consummates a develop-

ment traceable throughtwo and a half centuriesof devotional art. I reproduce
a sampling of representativeinstances. But I should feel defeated were these
works taken as illustrationsof texts,or of theological arguments. On the con-
trary: the pictures set forthwhat perhaps had never been uttered. They are
themselves primary texts, and the truisms I have recited were extrapolated
fromthem as theirprecondition.To put it another way: it is not that the pic-
tures and sculptures parallel any preformedsexual Christology,but that this
wants to be formulatedto render the works accessible in theirwholeness, with
their deep content intact. Were it not for the imagery of Fra Filippo Lippi,
Bellini, and Michelangelo, of Roger van der Weyden and Schongauer, of
Andrea del Sarto and Veronese, my theological considerationscould not and
need not have been entertained.Without the austerityof these works,without
theirgrave beauty and religiousconviction,no theologyinvolvingChrist'ssex-
ual member can exist without scandal.
Scandal is surely silenced by the authorityof the many 15th-century
paintings whose action centers on the Madonna's exposure of the Child's sex.
The theme can be traced to the mid-1300s (Fig. 24), an outgrowthmore likely
of popular devotion than of dogmatic theology. Yet the effectachieved is con-

24 OCTOBER
sistentlyceremonious. Gentile da Fabriano's Berlin altarpiece of about 1415

(Fig. 25) enthronesa Virgin whose gaze rests on the viewer as she holds the
boy's mantle aside to exhibithis loins. Nothing of pleasantryhere; her action is
meant as a revelation.
The exposure motifrecurs in scores of otherwise familiar Renaissance
paintings. In the Filippo Lippi in Baltimore (Fig. 26), a wistful Madonna
fingersthe Infant'ssash- a veil of a fabricso sheer that the symboliccharacter
of the action becomes unmistakable. In Zanobi Machiavelli's panel (Fig. 173),
the godhood of the Infant Spouse, expressed in the bounty of his embrace, is
complementedby the bared lower body.23In several altarpieces by Antoniazzo
Romano (Figs. 27, 41), the sacramental exposure of the Child's sex underlies a
gestureof blessing. The subject throughoutis simplythe Incarnation, the mar-
riage of godhead with human nature.
Most remarkable, given the hieratic solemnityof the occasion, is the
studied genitalexhibitionin a masterworkof the Quattrocento- Francesco del
Cossa's Pala deiMercanti,dated 1474 (Fig. 174). Throning between the patron
saintsof Bologna, the Virgin retractsthe littleboy's shiftand spreads his thighs:
she has born God complete in all the parts of a man.24
Everyone knows that by 1400 the Christ Child in Western painting has
shed Byzantine garb to appear more or less naked. We approve the undress in
certainnarrativesituations,such as the bathingof the newbornby midwives.25
What ought to surpriseus is the Child's nakedness at affairsof state- as when,
in the manuscriptof a funeraloration fora defunctMilanese duke, the accom-
panying illuminationshows the departed at heaven's court genuflectingbefore
the Madonna and Child (Fig. 28); and even on this high state occasion, Sep-
tember 3, 1402, the infantKing of Kings crowningthe new arrival wears his
birthday'sattire. Here and throughmost of the Quattrocento, the permissive-
ness of the Child's dress is proportionedto the formalityof the moment- the
pomp culminates in undress. Like a prince on parade, God wears the armor
wherein his victoryhad been won.
23. The Zanobi Machiavellipanel is herereproducedin theversionat theYale University Art

Galleryfroma photograph "cleaning"in 1957-58.Thereis anotherver-
takenbeforeitsruthless
sion in thePallaviciniCollection,Rome (reprod.in Berenson,ItalianPictures, II, fig.
Florentine,
810). The iconography in bothpictures-and in theNew Haven picturebeforerestoration and
after-- is constant.
24. No availableblack-and-white photographis sharpenoughto do justiceto therevelation.
25. The motifof thenewbornChristbathedby midwives,derivedfromapocryphalInfancy
gospels,is EarlyChristian;itbecamea stapleofByzantineNativityimagery;see Schiller,Iconog-
raphy, I, pp. 64-65.

Fig. 24. Vitale da Bologna, Madonna and Fig. 25. Gentile da Fabriano, Madonna and
Child,c. 1345. Child withSaints,c. 1415, detail.
Fig. 26. Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child, Fig. 27. Antoniazzo Romano, Madonna and
c. 1445. Child withSaints, 1488, detail.

Christ
Fig. 28. Michelinoda Besozzo, illumination, DukeGiangaleazzo
Crowning in Heaven,1403.
Visconti
And yet, the progressivedenuding of the infantChrist in proto-Renais-

sance art is commonlyascribed only to a general interestin the nude figure,an
interestsaid to be spurredby the model role of antiquityand by a new enthusi-
XVII asm for the natural world. Are not such explanations evasions, escapes into
generalities?Their effect,if not theirpurpose, is to relieve the investigatorof
his embarrassed perceptionof scandal on sacred ground. It is as thoughthese
showingswere receivable only as provocationsto be resistedby diffusingatten-
tion; forto see themChrist-centeredmightadmit an averted side of religion,a
disturbingconnection of godhead with sexuality. Better seek safetyin natu-
ralism, an approved goal and all-purpose instrumentof explanation by which
any twinge of anxiety is put to rest. The viewer will gladly learn that if in-
numerable Renaissance altarpieces show the Infant radically divested and so
exhibited,no tedious symbolismneed be assumed. Afterall, many artists,like
parents,like dotingkin, must have beheld a nude child withunbuttonedaffec-
tion, delightingin its cheerfulphysique withoutsecond thoughts.And besides,
in those far-offdays it was the general custom to have the littleones run around
naked. These and similar dodges are what one hears. But to repeat: natu-

ralism, addressed to the Christ, could be indulged only if it was compatible

with the subject, or better still, furtheredthe subject. No Renaissance artist
was so addicted to skin as to ignore whom he stripped.
The pictures tell us to reverse the priorities. Their chronologydemon-
stratesthatthe conspicuous display of the privates,instead of resultinginciden-
tallyfromthe Child's total nudity,is more likelythe motive thatpromotedthis
nudity.And the initialimpulse musthave derived fromthatpervasive medieval
metaphor which localized Christ's divine nature symbolically in his upper
body, his manhood beneath the girdle. The body assumed by the godhead was
a hierarchicsystem,like the macrocosm itself. XVIII
The notion goes back to the Church Fathers, to St. Augustine and to St.
Cyril ofJerusalem(315-86), who declares that"thehead means the Godhead of
Christ, the feet his manhood. .. ." In the 10th century,when Pope Leo VI
described a mosaic of Byzantine type on the vault of a Roman church, he ex-
plained that "the half-lengthfigure,by excluding the lower part of the body,
laid emphasis on the divine or highernature of Christ. .. ."26Similar Byzan-
tinizingbust portraitsmust have been on the mind of the 13th-centuryBishop
William Durandus when he wrotein his once famous book: "The Greeks make
use of images, it is said, painting them only fromthe navel upwards, and not
below it, in order to remove all occasion forfoolishthoughts."27Note that the
bishop's justificationof the portraiten busteis speculative and ascribed to the
Byzantine Greeks by hearsay. But as his book passed through no less than
forty-four printed editions between 1459 and 1500, his opinions became near
canonic. Thus it is no surprise to findthe above passage solemnlyquoted by
another censorious writeron ecclesiastical art--in 1570, at the height of the
Counter-Reformation:aftera lapse of threehundred years, Durandus isjoined
by the sternJohannes Molanus in associating the representationof the lower
body in sacred figureswith impropriety.28
26. CyrilofJerusalem,Catechesis, XII, 1, Pat. Gr.,33, col. 726. For thequotationfromLeo

VI, see R. H. Jenkinsand CyrilMango, "The Date and Significance of theTenth Homilyof
Photius,"Dumbarton OaksPapers,9-10 (1956), p. 132. Furtherrelevantsourcesare citedin Excur-
sus XVIII.
27. WilliamDurandus,Rationale divinorum I, 3, 2: "Graecietiamutunturimaginibus
officiorum,
pingentesillas,utdicitur,solumab umbilicosupra,et non inferius, ut omnisstultaecogitationis
occasio tollatur." "The half-lengthportrait icon . .. the devotional image par excellence"-vari-
ously called the thoracicula, a pectoresuperius,or imagoab umbilicosupra- is eloquently dis-
effigies
cussed(butwithoutfurther
reference
to"foolish in Ringbom,IcontoNarrative,
thoughts") pp. 39ff.
28. Molanus, De historiass. imaginarum
etpicturarum,
II, 42, p. 120. Cf. Cardinal Federigo Bor-
romeo'sDe pictura
sacra,VI (Milan, 1625): "The Greeksthemselves, beingrespectful ofdecency
and modesty. .. whenpaintingthe mostholyVirgin,displayedthehigherpartof thedivine
body,therestbeingwrappedby a covering"("Graeciipsiservientes honestati,et modestiae. . .
cum SanctissimamVirginempingerent,superioremtantummododivinicorporispartemos-
tendebant,reliquategumentoinvolvebantur"; ed. C. Castiglione,Sora, 1932, p. 10).

28 OCTOBER
Now Molanus, as spokesman forthe Counter-Reformation,was inveigh-

ing against certain trends he deplored in the art of his time; in his text, the
Durandus quotation follows upon a rebuke of artists who depict the infant
Christ naked. "Surely," he writes,"iftheywould but consult ancient pictures,
theywould clearlysee in them the childJesus decentlyand honorablydepicted
[decenterethonestedepictum], and would perceivethattheyhad themselvesgreatly
degenerated from the innocence of their ancestors." I suspect that Durandus,
threecenturiesearlier, had writtenfromsimilar scruples, forifhe too warned
against showingthe lower body, this is preciselywhat artistsin his day, the lat-
ter half of the 13th century,were beginning to do.
From about 1260 onward, Italian paintings of the Madonna and Child
draw attentionto Christ'slower limbs. In Tuscany, Coppo di Marcovaldo and
Guido da Siena raise the Child's Byzantine robes to flash the legs (Figs. 29,
158, 159). And bare-leg motifsthenceforthpersistin Italian painting forfifty
years- yieldingonly to an increased dosage of nudity.What could have caused
such protractedtrifling?Does it need explanation? It apparentlymoved Bishop
Durandus to demur on grounds of decorum, much as latter-daychurchmen
have been moved to denounce rising hemlines. But in exposing the Christ
Child's bare knees, long beforegenual anatomy was understood, painterssuch
as Coppo and Guido were neitheremulating antique models nor stooping to
wantonness. Though the bishop-like all proper prelates fearfulof novelty-
misprised their mood, the painters were, in fact, seeking to balance the two
natures of Christ by shiftingthe iconic emphasis to his manhood; locating the
latter,as ancientsymbolismdirected,in theinferiorpartsofa body preconceived
as a hierarchicalsystem.
By about 1310, we see fourmotifsevolvingconcurrently.Firstof these is a
gradual move toward total nudity. As early as the mid-14thcentury- notably
in French and Bohemian painting (Figs. 30, 31)- Christ can appear wholly
nude. Thereafter,the Child's nakedness is a legitimateoption, both northand
south of the Alps.
Second: the replacementof the Child's statelyrobes by a diaphanous veil
or transparentchemise (Figs. 32, 33, 35, 36, 161).
Third: the accent on the Child's groin by a directional siting of the
Madonna's hand. The motifseems to develop in the circle of Giotto (Fig. 33).
In Taddeo Gaddi's polyptychof 1355 (Fig. 34), the Child's garment comes
apart at the groin, its disordergraced by maternal consent. Outrightexposure
is not yetfeltto be necessary; the preventionof it by the mother'ssolicitudepro-
XIX vides focus enough (Fig. 35).
Fourth: an improvised loincloth formedby a fringeof the Virgin's veil
(Figs. 36, 160, 162). This is not an emergencymeasure forpropriety'ssake, but
a forward referenceto the Passion. At the Nativity, we read in a popular
medieval text (the Meditations of the Pseudo-Bonaventure), the Virgin, before
layingthe Child in the manger,"wrapped Him in the veil fromher head." Then

The Sexuality
of Christ 29
Fig. 30. Bohemian illumination,Adorationof

theMagi, c. 1360-70.
Fig. 29. Coppo di Marcovaldo, Madonna del

1261.
Bordone,
Fig. 31. Bohemian, Madonna and Childwith

IV andSaints,1371, detail.
Charles
Emperor

Fig. 32. Maso di Banco, Madonna and
ChildEnthroned,c. 1350, detail.
Fig. 33. Giotto Shop, Madonna and

ChildEnthroned, c. 1320.

Fig. 35. Andreadi Bartolo,Madonnaand
Child withFourteen
Saints,c. 1405-10.
Fig. 34. Taddeo Gaddi. Madonna and Child

Enthroned, 1355.
Fig. 36. Nardo di Cione, Madonna and Child

withFour Saints,c. 1355.

32 OCTOBER
again, at the Crucifixion,"saddened and shamed beyond measure when she

sees Him entirelynude, [when] theydid not leave Him even his loincloth,she
hurriesand approaches the Son, embraces Him, and girds Him with the veil
fromher head."29Mary's griefat the naked humiliationof her condemned son
marks a poignant momentin the most famous of 15th-centuryFrench Passion
plays.30 And the anguish of the shamed motherenters the dramatizations in-
vented by painters. Though theyknew it to be Mary's role to acquiesce in the
Passion, theymade the nakedness of her Son the single afflictionagainst which
she takes action. Her interventionis implied, antecedently, in a Crucifixion
panel at the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, by the so-called Barna da Siena,
where she, alone among her attendantwomen, lacks the sheerkerchief- whose
lace-edged border we recognize in the loinclothworn by the Crucified. Else-
where her interventionis rendered explicit: she appears draping Christ'sloins
on a page of the Holkham Bible; in a 14th-centuryCatalan altarpiece; in the
upper rightcornerof a late 15th-century Westphalian panel (Figs. 37, 38 left,
39).31 The conclusion seems inescapable that the mother'stransparentveil fes-
tooning the Child in 14th-centuryicons is more than an ineffectualmodesty
token. The veil serves as omen; it aggrieves the Child's nudity by premoni-
tion.32Beyond the prolepticallusion to Christ"despoiled ofhis garments,"it in-
timatesa joining of firstand last momentsin the spiritofJob - "Naked came I
from my mother's womb and naked shall I return"(Job 1:21). Nakedness
becomes the badge of the human condition which the Incarnation espoused.
29. Pseudo-Bonaventure, Meditations,pp. 33, 333.

30. ArnoulGreban,Le Mystkre de la Passion,lines24650-24683.The dialoguebetweenJesus
and MarymarkstheprogressofthePassionto come. In thecrescendoofgriefs, hisabasementto
totalnudityon thecrosscomesat a pointneartheclimax."[NotreDame] - Mourezdonecomme
meurentles barrons![Jesus]-Je mourraientredeux larrons.[NotreDame]- Que ce soitsous
terre,dans le silence![Jesus]- Ce sera hautsurla croix.[NotreDame] --Vous serezau moins
habille?[Jesus]-Je seraiattachetoutnu. [NotreDame] - Attendezd'avoiratteintla vieillesse!
[Jesus]-En la forcede ma jeunesse."
31. In our Fig. 37, thelegendabove theVirgin'sraisedarm reads: "Comentla mereihesus
volupatson courechef entourses membres" ("How themotherofJesuswrapsherkerchief about
his limbs");see W. O. Hassall, TheHolkham Book,London, 1954,pl. XVI. In two
BiblePicture
earlierfolios,theNailingtotheCross(fol.31v) and anotherCrucifixion (fol.32), theChristis com-
pletelynude and withoutgenitalia(Hassall, pls. XIV, XV). For theCatalan Crucifixion (Fig. 38
left),see Meiss, French pp. 125-26,who associatesthepanel withtheMeditations
Painting, text.
Note thatthe Crucifixion imagesin theCatalan polyptych forma narrativesequence.As in the
HolkhamBible,theChristcarrying thecrosswearsa longrobe;in thefollowing panel,nailedto
thecross,he appears- unlikethedrapedthieves--starknaked,whiletheVirginat thefootofthe
crossholdsherkerchief in readiness,herleftindexpointingitsdestination.In theensuingcoupde
lancepanel, Christ'sloinsare draped.
32. In Mantegna'sSan Zeno Altarpiecein Verona,theVirgin'sveilfallsfromherhead topass
diaphanousacrosstheChild'snakedloins.Forsimilarinstancesofprolepsisinvolving theVirgin's
veil, see Figs. 26, 36, 160, 162, 195.

Fig. 39. Westphalian, Disrobingof Christ,
c. 1490, detail.
Fig. 37. English illuminationfromthe

Holkham Hall Bible, Crucifixion,c. 1325-30.
Fig. 38. Master of St. Mark (Catalan),

panels, 1355-60.
Crucifixion

Fig. 40. Jacopo Bellini,MadonnaofHumility
withDonor,c. 1441.
Fig. 41. AntoniazzoRomano,Madonnaand

ChildwithDonor,1474-79.
The timingof these developments,beginningaround 1260, suggeststhat

they came in responseto the spread of Franciscan pietywithitsstresson Christ's
human nature, its vow of povertyin imitationof Christ, and its slogan "naked
to followthe naked Christ"(nudussequinudumChristum).For all theirinnocence
of anatomy, the pictureswe are consideringreach out to Christ'snakedness as
to a still-distantgoal. Their uncovered legs, their see-throughgarmentsand
assure us thatwhat we are witnessingin Italian paintingof
gesturesof ostentatio
the later Dugento, and in European art of the 14thcentury,has as yet nothing
to do with any resurgentinterestin antique statues; nor with the kind of nat-
uralism that would assimilate the apparel of Mary's Child to the dishabille of
the children next door. To say it once more: it was not the aestheticsof the
nude figurethat gave us the nudity of the Child Christ and, as a dubious
bonus, the exposure of his privyparts. It appears ratherthat this nuditywas

Fig. 42. Cosimo Rosselli,MadonnaandChildwithSt. AnneandFourSaints,1471.
urged by symbolicconsiderations,and thatmany artistscame to regardthe In-

carnate's sex as a necessaryexhibit. Hence, by the 15thcentury,the frequent
avoidance of simple nudity all'antica in favor of a dramatized nakedness
choreographed as an active withdrawal of garments. Such dramatization of
nudity in high art is profoundlyunclassical. Only an impulse arising from
withinChristianstricturescan account forthosenumerous 15th-century paint-
ings in which the Madonna unveils the Child or decks its loins with attention-
gatheringceremony (Figs. 24-26, 40-43, 173). And only a strong religious
convictioncould have broughtforththose many images in which the unveiling
takes formas a self-revelation(Figs. 22, 23, 44-46, 49, 170). Surely the men
who painted these pictures, inventingever-new variations on the exposure
motif,knew what theywere about - thoughI can findno referenceto the mat-
ter in contemporaneouswriting,nor in the oblivion of subsequent literature.

Fig. 43. FilippinoLippi, Mystic
Marriage
of
1501, detail.
St. Catherine,
Fig. 44. Burgundian,Madonnaand

Child,c. 1490.
Fig. 45. Benedettoda Maiano,

MadonnaandChild,c. 1480-90.

Fig. 46. Domenico Ghirlandaio (?), Madonna and Child.

Fig. 47. Hans BaldungGrien,Nativity,
1523.
Fig. 48. Hans BaldungGrien, VenusandCupid,1525.
By the 16th century, the motifbecomes more insistent. In a Piero di

Cosimo altarpiece, a splendidly unabashed boy brandishes the Madonna's
scarf as a resource that might have done somethingfor modesty, had he so
wished (Fig. 171). Hans Baldung's paintingof 1523 (Fig. 47) shows the radiant
Child of the Nativityintenton performinga self-exposurenot unlike the more
practiced self-revelationwhich the painter elsewhere attributesto the goddess
of love (Fig. 48). Again and again we see the knowingboy parading his naked-
ness. Indeed, the young God-man is made to flaunthis sex by means nor-
mally associated with femaleenticement.In theirexquisite teasing of swags of
gossamer about the hips, only the eroticized figuresof Venus, Lucretia, or
Fortuna rival the infantChrist; as though their showings and his involved a
XX comparable manifestationof fatefulloins.

The Sexuality
of Christ 39
Or considerJan van Hemessen's Madonna and Childat the Prado, dated

1543 (Fig. 49): the Virgin sitslow on the ground in the traditionalposture of a
Madonna humilitatis, demure in her mysticcharacter as the bride of her Son.
The boy's glance ofmaturemasculine admirationculminatesin the ritualtouch
of her chin, so that all his upper body bespeaks the warmthof the Heavenly
Bridegroom. Yet the Virgin, as the motherof the "God born in the flesh"(St.
Augustine), proves that fleshwith the fingersof her lefthand. And her right
spreads his limbs as the Child withdrawshis covering in sign of his assumed
manhood.
Fig. 49. Jan van Hemessen,Madonnaand Child,1543.

40 OCTOBER
To the themesof the Child unveiled by the mother,and of the Child self-
exposed, we need to add the importantthemeofcooperation- conspicuous in a
group ofMadonnasascribed to Verrocchioor his school. In thepictureat Frank-
furt(Fig. 50), the naked Christ stands statue-likeon a quilted pillow, raising
his hand in benediction. His podium appears to be the sill of a high loggia or
window, a hazardous perch fora littleboy. Yet it is not his safetythatconcerns
the Madonna so much as the delicate buntingabout his hips: it depends from
her righthand and fromhis left- and the managementofit is thepicture'scen-
tral event, gravelyenacted, like the holding up of a clothof honor. Again, in a
panel of c. 1470 at the MetropolitanMuseum (Fig. 51), the Virgin, advancing
both hands, fingersthe fine-spunfabric,of which the blessing Christ sustains
one end. And in a terracottareliefat the Bargello, thelefthands ofboth mother
and Child hold the flapsaway fromhis loins. The indwellingthoughtis not to
be thoughtaway. In all theseworks,the taskingofthe Child's double gesture-
precociouslyblessing and urginghis nakedness- servesto discriminatethe two
natures whose union in Christ hypostasizesthe Incarnation.
It is not possible to do justice to the prodigalityof these showings- in the
North no less than in Italy. The means used are few, but theywere meant to
fascinateby theirfunctionalambiguity:the shirtor swaddling in disarray; the
Fig. 50. Verrocchio,MadonnaandChild, Fig. 51. VerrocchioShop, Madonnaand

c. 1470. Child,c. 1470.

Above left:Fig. 52. Rogervan der Weyden,
Madonna and Child,c. 1460.
Above right:Fig. 53. GiovanniBellini,
Madonna and Child,c. 1470.
Fig. 54. Bramantino, Madonna and Childwith

Saints,c. 1518, detail.
flinchingloincloth,the distractedmantle, negligentand permissive;the fabrics

fussed so as not to hinder the showing; and - in some of the world's noblest
paintings-the calculated near-miss(Figs. 52-54, 144, 177-82). XXI
Do theybecome less religious,less Christian, when theirgenital focus is
recognized? To us, the intent of these paintings is assured by their formal
austerityand moralcertitude.Their goal is pre-fixed,theiraim steady:tirelessly,

42 OCTOBER
they confess the mysteryof the dual nature of Christ, and the leasing of his
humanityto mortalsuffering.This is why so oftenin these 15th-century icons,
the disclosureof the Child's sex participatesin a mysticor tragicvision thatfor-
bids the least inkling of playfulness. Such is the MontefeltroAltarpiece by
Piero della Francesca; or Cosimo Rosselli's grand altarpiece in East Berlin,
dated 1471 (Fig. 42); or the never sufficiently known work of Bramantino
(Figs. 54, 141). And such is Schongauer's engraving of the Christ Child as
SalvatorMundi (Fig. 55). What led this master-along with Mantegna and
others of the 15th and early 16th centuries-to conceive the world's ruler in
solitude under the formof the Child? Only the dwelling on the sufficiency of
God's humanation, only the "incarnationaltheology"characteristicof Renais-
sance thought,could have assigned the governmentof the world and its re-
demption to the Infantwho had yet to achieve the Passion and Resurrection.
Schongauer's engraving is of small scale, but designed to be well con-
sidered. Its patent symbols are a cruciformnimbus, the orb of empire in one
hand, a saving benediction administeredby the other; and a flutteringman-
tle-a ceremonial pallium that nearly covers the groin-makes a punctual
detour to disclose that the Child is sexed. Not a whim, not a sportiveflourish,
but a demonstrationof Christ'shuman nature. In Schongauer's vision, the ex-
posed member counts forno less than the array of salvificattributes.33
Fig. 55. Schongauer, ChristChildas Salvator

Mundi, c. 1480.
33. Schongauer'smotifof the priestly robe partedforstudiedexposureis notuncommonin

Northern art;see also Fig. 56; theCampinshopMadonnaandChildwithSaintsin theWashington
NationalGallery;and threepaintingsby Hans Holbein the Elder, two in privatecollections
(NorbertLieb and AlfredStange,HansHolbeinderAltere, Berlin,1960,figs.1 and 32), and the
altarpieceof 1499,nowin Augsburg,StaatlicheGemrnildegalerie(ibid., fig.37). The nudeInfant
holdingtheorbofuniversalempireoccursin severalengravings bytheMasterE.S., notablythe
Madonna(Lehrs 81) and theMadonnaEnthroned
Einsiedeln withEightAngels(Lehrs 76). For the
partedcloak,cf.his Christ ChildwithNew Year'sGreeting
(Lehrs 50).

Fig. 56. Alsatian,MadonnaandChildwithSt.
Anne,15thcentury.
Glance next at the VirginAdoringtheSleepingChildof 1483 by Francesco

Bonsignori,a close followerof Mantegna (Fig. 57). The Infant'sshiftrides up
to the midriff,but the gloom of the picturediscourages smiling. Nothinghere
that is wayward or casual. Nor is it in unconcern for her baby's health that
Bonsignori'sMadonna leaves it lyingbare-bottomedon a cold stone. For the
slab beneath the Child's body is of that same marble which supports
Mantegna's Dead Christ(Fig. 58), to wit, the Stone of Unction- according to
legend, a red stone streakedwith white by the Virgin's indelible tears. While XXII
the nimbed head of the Child restsagainst an uprightedcushion, his sacrificial
manhood, symbolizedin his lower body, invitesthe Passion. And over his ex-
posed genitalia, the Madonna's hands loom like a canopy, a ciborium. It is as
though the very structureof such images of forebodingintimated a tragic,
anatomically localized vulnerability.34
34. The "ciboriumeffect" maybe yetanothersymbolicformula.The earliestexampleknown

to me is a composition by Rogervan derWeydenwhich,significantly, includestheChild'sself-
exposure(Fig. 22). A laterNorthItalianinstanceis an altarpieceby LorenzoLotto,the Virgin
Enthroned withSaints,c. 1540-46,Ancona,Sta. Maria dellaPiazza: hereagainthe"canopy"ofthe
Virgin'shandsoverthegenitalsof theChild formsthecoreofthecompositional structure.

Fig. 57. Francesco Bonsignori, VirginAdoring
theSleepingChild, 1483.
Fig. 58. Mantegna, Dead Christ,before 1506.

Post-Renaissance Christians, fromthe latter 16th centuryonward, were

to see somethingshockingin all of this; and thoughcustodians of art oftenfelt
daunted by the prestigeand the commodityvalue of major old masters,offend-
ing parts were painted out whereverfeasible. As modernChristianitydistanced
itselffromits mythicroots; as the person ofJesus was refinedinto all doctrine
and message, the kerygmaof a ChristianitywithoutChrist;35as the contentof
the old holy pictureswas divertedto pious folklore- theirwhole gloryvested in
the supposedly civilizingeffectof theirart- the exposure of genitalia, no mat-
terwhose, became merelyimpudent. No longer was it conceivable that Chris-
tianityhad once, during thatRenaissance interlude,passed througha phase of
exceptional daring, when the full implicationsof Incarnational faithwere put
forthin icons thatrecoilednot even fromtheGod-man's assumptionof sexuality.
Normative Christian culture- excepting only this Renaissance inter-
lude-disallows direct referenceto the sexual member. In religious art as in
standard discourse the thingis unmentionableand undepictable. "For the sake
of propriety,"wrote St. Jerome, "the organs of generation are called by other
names"; and nearly twelve centuries later, the humanist educator Luis Vives
(1492-1540) pronounced the male member "improperbecause of lecheryand
dishonor."36Therefore,ifit must be referredto, let it be by periphrasis,euphe-
mism, or substitution.The object itselfis taboo, incompatible with common
decency, to say nothingof reverence.In thisrespectChristianculturelies at the
furthestremove fromcultureswhose ritual imagerynot only acknowledged the
phallus, but empowered it to symbolize something beyond itself;as is done
wherever phalli function as amulets; as was done in the ancient Mediter-
ranean, when phalli were placed on tombs, or borne in procession; as was still
done in the Bacchic mysteriesof Hellenistic and Roman times in which, as
M.P. Nilsson has shown, the phallus as "principal symbol"stood for"the life-
giving power. . . promising immortality.""37 There exists perhaps no more
poignantproof of Renaissance openness to ancient mysterysymbolismthan the
35. The projectofa Christianity withoutChristis discussedin RudolfBultmann's Kerygma and

Myth,p. 23: "It mightwellappearas thoughtheeventofChristwerea relicofmythology which
stillawaitselimination.This is a seriousproblem,and ifChristianfaithis to recoverits self-
assuranceitmustbe grappledwith.For itcan recoveritscertainty onlyifitis preparedto think
throughto thebitterend thepossibility of itsown impossibilityor superfluity.
It mightwellap-
pear possibleto have a Christianunderstanding ofBeingwithoutChrist,as thoughwhatwe had
in theNew Testamentwas thefirst discoveryand themoreor lessclearexpression, in theguiseof
mythology, of an understanding of Being. .. .
36. EpistleXXII, 11; St. Jerome,Letters, pp. 143-44; and Vives,Dialogues
(1571), quotedin
Aries,Centuries p. 109.
ofChildhood,
37. MartinP. Nilsson,"The DionysiacMysteriesoftheHellenisticAge,"ActaInstituti Athen-
iensisRegniSueciae,Lund, 1957, pp. 44-45. That 16th-century scholarswerefullyaware ofthe
subjectis provedin Montaigne'sEssays,III, 5 (1588), in theparagraphbeginning"In mostparts
of theworldthatpartof thebodywas deified... ."

46 OCTOBER
willingnessof profound Christian artiststo place this interdictedfleshat the

center of theirconfessionof faith.
But what constitutesthe connection? Is the ostentatio
genitaliumin Renais-
sance images of the Christ Child in any sense cognate with the phallic cults of
antiquity? Of the voluminous literaturedealing with the subject of "penile
display,"verylittle,ifany, bears directlyon the presentinquiry.38To students
of cultures, or of individual psychology,the phenomena of genital exhibition
are familiareitheras symbolicmodes of aggression,or as formsof fertility wor-
ship. Neither one nor the other operates in the images under discussion-
unless by inversionof traditionalconnotations.
In traditional symbolism,the male organ tends to signifypower. Latin
writerstreated the mentula"as exciting fear, admiration and pride. It was a
symbol of power which mightpresenta threatto an enemy.""39 The mid-12th-
century poet Bernardus Silvestris empowered it further.In his marginally
Christian but enormously influentialallegory, De mundiuniversitate, the penis
battles Lachesis and renews the threadscut by the Fates.40 The poem recounts
the creation of the world and reaches its climax in the formationof man, con-
cluding in praise of the sexual organs: "Unconquered, the nuptial weapons
fightwith death, they restorenature and perpetuate the race." To which the
Christian- at least beforethe doctrineof Original Sin was reformulatedby the
Council ofTrent- mightrespond: Yes, theyperpetuatetherace, those vaunted
organs; but as disobedientmembers,warringagainst the spirit.And since they
labor in lust,41sin also is by them perpetuated, and with it, the guerdon of
sin- the dying of each. But the organ of the God-man does better. By dint of
continence,throughthe willed chastityofthe Ever-virgin,it obviates the neces-
sity for procreation since, in the victoryover sin, death, the result of sin, is
abolished. In such orthodox formulation,the penis of Christ, puissant in
abstinence, would surpass in power the phalli of Adam or Dionysus. And it is
perhaps in this sense that the old connotation of the phallus as anti-death
weapon is both adapted to the Christ contextand radically converted.
But such conversion is precisely characteristicof Christological sym-
bolism, and we may claim that Christ's genitals contrast with the Bacchic
38. On thesubjectofpeniledisplay(includingphallicornaments wornas lateas the 19thcen-

tury from to
Naples Japan), see Daniel Rancour-Laferriere, "Some SemioticAspectsof the
Human Penis,"Quaderni 24 (September-December
di studisemiotico, 1979),pp. 37-82, withample
literature.
citationof further
39. J. N. Adams, TheLatinSexualVocabulary, New York, 1982,p. 77.
40. See thechapterdevotedtoBernardusSilvestris' De mundi in Economou,TheGod-
universitate
dessNatura,esp. pp. 71 and 158.
41. Thus Pope InnocentIII (1198-1216),OntheMisery oftheHumanCondition: "Everyoneknows
thatintercourse,evenbetweenmarriedpersons,is neverperformed withouttheitchoftheflesh,
theheatofpassion,and thestenchoflust.Whencetheseed conceivedis fouled,smirched,cor-
rupted,and thesoul infusedintoit inherits theguiltofsin .. ." (trans.D. Howard,New York,
1969,p. 8).

of Christ
The Sexuality 47
phallus as the mysticLamb contrastswith any fiercerheraldic beast; as the

crown ofthornscontrastswithconventionalkinglyregalia; the armaChristiwith
the paraphernalia of a knightlyescutcheon; or as the sign of the cross contrasts
with the Roman eagle. From Roman militarismChristianitydid take the
device of the standard, or trophy of victory. But where the Roman sign
elevated a bird of prey, the Christian trophyholds up the scaffoldon which a
man condemned underwentcrucifixion.In this instance, the conversionis all-
apparent fromthe change in symbolic form. The difficulty in recognizing a
comparable conversion in the instance of penile display arises from the
similarityof the sign, so that the novel meaning must be sought in the context
alone. But that contextis part of the common creed. The sexual member ex-
hibited by the Christ Child, so far fromassertingaggressivevirility,concedes
Fig. 59. Joos van Cleve, HolyFamily,c. 1515-20.

Fig. 60. JacobJordaens,HolyFamily,c. 1620-25.
instead God's assumption of human weakness; it is an affirmationnot of

superior prowess but of condescension to kinship,a sign of the Creator's self-
abasement to his creature's condition. And instead of symbolizing,like the
phallus of Dionysus, the generativepowers of nature, Christ'ssexual organ-
pruned by circumcisionin sign of corruptednature'scorrection42 - is offeredto
immolation. The erstwhilesymbol of the life force yields not seed, but re-
deeming blood-in the words attributedby the poet Crashaw to the Christ
Child in his Circumcision- "the firstfruitsof my growingdeath." We perceive
a similarbond to the Passion in a paintingbyJoos van Cleve, where the coral
cross of a rosaryscreens and jewels the privyparts (Figs. 59, 60).43
42. For the legitimacy of the word "pruning" in the present context, see Excursus XXIV.
The word also occurs in Calvin's discussion of circumcision,Institutes
oftheChristianReligion,IV,
xiv, 21.
43. The cutlemonat theChild'sfootinJoos'picturemay- likethewormwood laid to thedug
ofJuliet'snurse(RomeoandJuliet,I, 3)- alludeto theChild'simminent
weaningas to a griefto
come. The prominentknifesuggests furtheraggression.

Fig. 61. Piero di Cosimo,Madonnaand Child
withSt. Margaret St.John,c. 1520.
andtheInfant
What the Christianart of the Renaissance took frompagan antiquitywas

the license to plumb its own mythic-depths.To the penis of the Christ Child,
the images we are discussing assign a crucial, positive role in the redemption,
not only as the proof of Christ's humanation, but as the earnest of his self-
sacrifice.The member exposed-or touched by the mysticlamb (Fig. 61)-
stands for God's life as man and for his man's death, perhaps even for his
Resurrection. And this plural functionpoints inevitably to the theology of
Christ's Circumcision, which supplies all we need in the way of supporting
texts.44
44. I adduce and discuss these texts in the followingfifteenpages. The inevitable
repetitivenessof theirrhetoricwill perhapsbe foundwearisome,especiallywhere I quote
Renaissancesermonson the Circumcisionin consistently similararguments.But it mustbe
remembered that,in thediscussionofdoctrine,
right-thinkingChristians
madea virtueofrepeti-
tion.Sincethetruefaithhad longbeenestablished forever,theirhorrorwas ratherofinnovation
and novelty.The preacher'sfunction,then,was to reiteratewhatorthodoxy had alwayspro-
claimed-like theenamoredsonneteer, "spendingagain whatis alreadyspent,"and "stilltelling
whatis told."Butyou mayask,ifthosepreachershad reasonforrepeatingeach othereach New
Year's day, whyvictimizeus? I answer:to demonstrate thattheirarguments werenotflights of
originalfancybutprecisely thekindofmatterthatmustbe repeated-likean oathofallegiance.
Furthermore, thehomiletictraditionconcerningtheCircumcision ofChristhas notbeen
previouslystudiedforitsrelevanceto generalChristological
imagery.The textscitedin theensu-
ingpagesare a merestart.And I hopethatresearchers betterqualifiedthanmyself willbeginto
explorethefieldwithgreaterthoroughness.

50 OCTOBER
On the eighth day followingthe Nativity, the Child was circumcised

under the Old Law and given the name Jesus. So we read in St. Luke (2:21).
And we read in St. Paul that baptism, superseding the sacrament of the Old
Dispensation, was to be understood as a spiritualcircumcisionin Christ (Col.
2:11-12). This much is Scripture.
We have recordthatthe Church Feast ofthe Circumcisionand Naming of
Christ was fixedfor the firstday ofJanuary fromthe mid-6thcenturyat the
latest. By this time, most of the major themes in the theological interpretation
of the event have crystallized. Firstly,St. Paul's typological parallel remains
axiomatic; circumcisionand baptism differin outward form,but theyagree in
effect.The sacrament of the New Testament, as of the Old, is a sign- the
sphragis,or seal, ofa covenant between God and his chosen. In St. Cyril'sword-
ing, the Christian faithful"like Abraham, receive the spiritualsphragis,being
circumcised in baptism by the Holy Spirit."45
The second main themeis due to St. Augustine. Where the Greek Fathers
continued to interpretOld Testament circumcision essentially as a token of
initiationinto Abraham's covenant with the Lord, St. Augustine declared it to
have been an instrumentof grace forthe remissionof Original Sin. "Instituted
amongst the people of God . . . [circumcision]availed to signifythe cleansing,
even in infantsof the original sin . . . just as baptism . . . fromthe time of its
institutionbegan to be of avail for the renewal of man."46 It was this ruling
which thenceforthprevailed in the West.
A thirdconstant in Patristicwritingsis the Circumcision of Christ con-
ceived as continuous with his work of redemption. Since the debt incurredby
the sin of Adam cannot be met by Adam's insolvent progeny-and since
Christ'sblood pays the ransom- his Circumcision becomes, as it were, a first
installment,a down payment on behalf of mankind. It is because Christ was
circumcised that the Christian no longer needs circumcision. In the words of
St. Ambrose: "Since the price has been paid forall afterChrist . . . suffered,
there is no longer need forthe blood of each individual to be shed by circum-
cision."47In Mantegna's great pictureof the Circumcision (Fig. 62), the earliest
monumentaltreatmentof the subject and the most profoundin conception,the
solicitous gesture of the motherat right,avertingher littleboy's face to spare
45. For thispassage fromSt. CyrilofJerusalemand a discussionofthesphragis (seal) ofcir-

cumcision,see Danielou, TheBibleandtheLiturgy, disputedjust how
pp. 63-69. Latertheologians
the two sacramentsof circumcision and baptismshouldbe distinguished in termsof effective
grace,but theirarguments,fromSt. Augustineto Calvin, do notaffectour subject.
46. OnMarriage II, 24, p. 292.
andConcupiscence,
47. St. Ambrose,Letters, p. 93.
c. 1470.
Fig. 62. Mantegna, Circumcision,

FP?
77.,
ZF,
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c i---:-iii-i_-i-i
N: W
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52 OCTOBER
him a painfulsight,may also have thistheologicalimport- as ifto say, "Not for

you."48
There is a fourthpoint. By conceiving Christ'sCircumcision as a type of
the Passion, the Fathers made it a volitionalact. Never did it occur to a Chris-
tian writer(or painter) to thinkof that operation as imposed on an unwitting
child. Christ'ssubmissionto circumcisionwas understoodas a voluntarygiftof
his blood, prefiguringand initiatingthe sacrificeof the Passion.
And one final point. Patristicliteratureassociates the timingof the Cir-
cumcision on the eighthday withResurrection.Here the argumentrestson the
kind of mysticalnumerologywe no longer take seriously,but it did formerly
engage some great minds. The reasoning runs somewhat as follows. Seven is
the number of completion and fullness, for the world was created in seven
days, and is due to pass throughseven ages. But ifseven is perfect,then seven-
plus-one is pluperfect. Eight, therefore,stands for renewal, regeneration-
whence the architecturaltraditionof eight-sidedbaptistries.And Christ rose
fromthe dead on the day superseding the Sabbath, on the eighth day; just
as the world's seven ages will be followed in the eighth age by the General
Resurrection.These notionsattach themselvesalmost fromthebeginningto all
XXIII theologicalmeditationon Christ'sCircumcision. From St. JustinMartyrin the
2nd centuryto St. Thomas Aquinas, it is the sense of the mysterythat the
Circumcision on the eighthday prefiguresChrist's Resurrection,and thereby,
implicitly,the resurrectionof all.
At the close of the Patristicera, the Venerable Bede (673-735) composed
a classic homily"On the Feast Day of the Lord's Circumcision." His premise is,
of course, solidlyAugustinian. "You ought to know," he writes,"thatcircum-
cision under the law wroughtthe same healing against the wound of original
sin as does baptism in this time of revealed grace, except that under circum-
cision theywere not able to enterthe gate of the heavenlykingdom. .. ."49 But
Bede proceeds to draw an importantconclusion. So long as circumcisionwas
chieflya token of initiationinto Abraham's covenant, Christ had need of it to
qualify as a true son of Abraham. (Hence the lunette decoration above
Mantegna's scene of the Circumcision, Fig. 62.) But insofar as circumcision
cancels Original Sin, from which Christ is exempt, he needed it not. A logical
48. Mantegna'spictureoftheCircumcision occupiesa prominent place in a doctoraldissertation

nowin progressat theUniversity ofPennsylvania.WrittenbyJackGreenstein, thestudyoffers a
longoverduerevelationof Mantegna'stheologicalgenius.
49. Bede, In diefestocircumcisionis col. 54. The doctrinewas to be formulated
domini, explicitly
fivecenturieslaterby InnocentIII: "Althoughoriginalsin was remitted by themystery ofcir-
cumcision,and thedangerofdamnationwas avoided,nevertheless therewas no arrivingat the
kingdomofheaven,whichup to thedeathofChristwas barredto all. Butthrough thesacrament
ofbaptismtheguiltofone maderedbythebloodofChristis remitted, and one also arrivestothe
kingdomof heaven,whosegate theblood of Christhas mercifully openedforhis faithful"; see
Denzinger,Sources,p. 160, no. 410.

consequence never to be forgotten:the Son of God, says Bede, "submittedto

circumcisionas decreed by the law. . . . He who was withoutany stain of pol-
lution . . . did not reject the remedy by which the fleshof sin is made clean."
Why, then, did he submit? Firstly,says Bede, "that he mightcommend to us
the necessary virtue of obedience by an outstanding example. . . . Likewise
also he submittedhimselfto the watersof baptism, by which he wished the peo-
ple to be washed clean of the filthof sin . . . undergoing it himself,not from
necessity,but . .. to set an example. . . . Purification,both by the law and by
the gospel, none of which he stood in need of, the Lord did not despise and did
not hesitate to undergo."50It is this doctrine of the Circumcision as a painful
ordeal, not due yet obedientlysuffered,that will enable St. Bonaventure, cen-
turies later, to designate as Christ's Passion his entirelifeeven fromits begin-
ning.
Bede himselfends on the familiareschatological note- the circumcision
as the typeof thatultimatecleansing "fromall stain of mortality."We look for-
ward, he says, to
our true and complete circumcision,when, on the day ofjudgment,
all souls having put offthe corruptionof the flesh . . . we will enter
the forecourtof the heavenly kingdom to behold foreverthe face of
the Creator. This is prefiguredby the circumcisionof the littleones
in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. . . . The time of this most
longed-forentrance . . . is that eighth day on which the circumci-
sion is celebrated. [Moreover] the daily practice of virtues . . . is
our daily circumcision,thatis, the continuous cleansing ofthe heart,
which never fails to celebrate the sacrament of the eighth day .
so-called because it exemplified the day of the Lord's Resurrec- . .
tion. . 51
Thus, by the end of the 7th century,and long before its emergence as a
common subject of art, the Circumcision of Jesus in Christian thought has
become manifold- initiatory,exemplary, sacrificial,eschatological. Nor can
we grasp its psychologicalcomplexitywithoutbearing in mind what Origen in
the early 3rd centuryhad called "thedisgrace which is feltby most people to at-
tach to circumcision."52Origen here expressed an attitudeheld not only by an-
cient pagans, but traditionallyendemic in Christendom- Erasmus includes
circumcisionamong the Jewish customs on which "we cry shame."53Perhaps
this explains why Christian artistsdid not representthe physical effectof cir- XXIV
cumcision when the subject was a revered figure, David or Christ. They
50. Bede, In diefestocircumcisionis

domini,cols. 54A, 55A.
51. Ibid., cols. 56B, 56D, 57D.
52. Origen, On FirstPrinciples,IV, 3, 3, p. 293.
53. Erasmus,"Dulce belluminexpertis,"
in Adages,trans.M.M. Phillips,Cambridge,Mass.,
1964,pp. 335-36.

54 OCTOBER
resisted the mark of it as an imperfection:and as we read in the fourteenth

Epistle of St. Jerome, "when anything is made less, it cannot be called
perfect."54
It is on thisnote that St. Bernard (12th century)begins his firstSermon on
the Circumcision.
Already diminished by assuming our flesh, Christ furtherlessens
himselfby receivingthe circumcision.God's Son had abased himself
one degree beneath the angels in taking on human nature, and this
day, by accepting the remedy for our corruption, he descends a
thousand times lower still.
In an impassioned apostrophe, designed to confirmthe conclusion already
reached four centuriesearlier by Bede, Bernard demands:
How could circumcision have been needful to thee, who hadst
neithercommittedsin, nor contractedits stains? . .. Is the physic,
then, forhim who ails not? Is it the physician in lieu of the patient
who requires the medicine?
He speculates:
He might,withoutdifficulty, have preservedhis fleshin its integrity,
he who had issued without doing injury froma virginal womb. It
would not have been hard forthe Child to repel fromhis body the
wound of the circumcision,since even in death, he easily kept it free
fromcorruption.55
This and much else in the sermon is Bernardine rhetoric. But in what
follows,Bernard makes an originalcontributionof far-reachingconsequence to
our subject-indeed, to the bne subject worthiestof a Christian Doctor's voca-
tion: the discoverywithin Scriptureof ever-new proofthat God became man.
Bernard discerns, apparently for the firsttime, a necessary relation between
the two events celebrated on January 1; and perceives that their correlation
preciselyreflectsthe union of godhead with human nature. Citing St. Luke's
account that the Child, on the day of its circumcision,received the name or-
dained by the angel ofthe Annunciation- the name Yeshua interpretedas "sal-
vation"- Bernard exclaims:
Great and marvelous mystery!The Child is circumcised and is
called Jesus. What connectionis therebetween thesetwothings. ..
But in this you may recognize him who comes to be mediator be-
tween God and man. . . . The circumcision is proof of the true
54. Jerome, Letters,p. 65.

55. Oeuvresde St. Bernard,pp. 375-76.

humanity he has assumed, while the name given to him . . re-

veals . . . his majesty. He is circumcisedas a true son of Abraham,
he is called Jesus as a true Son of God.56
"Proof of his true humanity." In Bernard's vision of the redemptive
scheme, the Circumcision has become crucial. It bears the incarnate God's
answer to humanity'sprayer- as we learn by consideringthisotherBernardine
text, wherein is described mankind's desolation before the advent of Christ.
There lived in those days, says the preacher, good men of faith. But though
they had the assurances of the Prophets, they languished and "longed for the
more powerfulassurance that only [Christ's] human presence could convey."
Bernard representsthem as pleading: "If the mediator is to be acceptable to
both parties . . . then let him who is God's Son become man, let him become
the Son of Man. . . . When I come to recognize that he is trulymine, then I
shall feel secure in welcoming the Son of God as mediator. Not even a shadow
of mistrustcan then exist, forafterall he is . . . my own flesh."
The "shadow of mistrust,"the vestigeof unbeliefthatcould have thwarted
the boon of the Incarnation itself,liftsat the God-man's bleeding in his Cir-
cumcision. Those firstoozings guarantee Christ's humanity; they are his cre-
dentials as acceptable champion- proof incontrovertiblethat the Incarnation
was real.57
We must add a few words from St. Thomas Aquinas. His departures
from St. Augustine, and from his contemporarySt. Bonaventure, need not
concern us, but he does, as usual, set out the entire tradition- dropping
nothingand adding much. Moreover, Renaissance Rome honored him beyond
any other medieval figure,and his expositions became quasi-canonic at the
papal curia long before theywere declared normative for the Church.58
Discussing the Old Testament rite of the circumcision,Thomas adduces
threereasons forthe choice of the member circumcised,and two forthe choice
of the day:
There are three reasons whichjustifythe circumcisionof the organ
of generation. First, because it was a sign of that faith by which
56. Ibid., p. 376.

57. The above quotationis takenfromSt. Bernard'ssecondsermonon theSong ofSongs(II,
6, p. 12). We shallhearitsargumentrestatedwithever-mounting enthusiasm bylaterpreachers
(see pp. 62-63).
58. Heiko A. Obermanhas shownhow farfromuniversalwas theacceptanceofSt. Thomas'
authoritywithin"the pregnantpluralityof fourteenth-century thought";and how broadly
"Aquinasfailedto appeal to philosophersand theologians
wellintothefifteenth
century"("Four-
teenth-century Religious Thought: A PrematureProfile,"Speculum, 53 [1978], pp. 80-93).
O'Malley does notdisputethesefindings, buthisconcernis withthepapal Rome oftheRenais-
sance. And he has uncoveredsurprising evidencethatthevenerationofSt. Thomas,thehonor-
ing of his doctrineon a levelwiththeteachingof theChurchFathers,was a Renaissancecult,
establishedin mid-15th-century Rome (O'Malley, "The Feast ofThomas Aquinas").

56 OCTOBER
Abraham believed thatthe Christwould be born ofhis seed. Second,

because it was a remedyfororiginalsin which is transmittedthrough
the act of generation.Third, because it was ordered to the diminish-
ing of fleshlyconcupiscence which thrivesprincipallyin those organs
because of the intensityof venereal pleasure.59
As for the choice of the day, there are, says Thomas, "two reasons for
fixingthe eighthday forcircumcision."The literal reason is "the delicate con-
dition of the infantbeforethe eighthday" and its increasing sturdinessthere-
after,which arouses a correspondingincrease in parental love, and with it a
growingreluctanceto subject it to so griman ordeal. But the figurativereason
forthe choice of the day points, he says, to "the followingmystery:that in the
eighthperiod of time, the time of the resurrection,on the eighthday, spiritual
circumcisionwill be accomplished by Christ. .. ."60
Finally, when Thomas sets forththe reasons "why Christ should have
been circumcised,"he findsnot one, two, or three reasons, but seven:
First, to show the realityof his human fleshagainst the Manichee
who taught that he had a body which was merely appearance;
against Apollinarius who said that the body of Christ was con-
substantialwithhis divinity;and against Valentinus who taughtthat
Christ broughthis body fromheaven. Second, to show approval of
circumcisionwhich God of old had instituted.Third, to prove that
he was of the stock of Abraham who received the command about
circumcisionas a sign of the faithwhich he had in Christ. Fourth, to
deprive theJews of a pretextfornot receivinghim had he been un-
circumcised. Fifth,to commend the virtueof obedience to us by his
example; and so he was circumcised on the eighthday as was pre-
scribed in the Law. Sixth, that he who had come in the likeness of
sinfulfleshshould not spurn the customaryremedyby which sinful
flesh had been cleansed. Seventh, to take the burden of the Law
upon himself,so as to liberate others fromthat burden. .6
...
St. Thomas interpretsthe Circumcision of Christ as a redemptiveact; wherein
he followsBede followingAmbrose. And he followsSt. Bernard in pronounc-
ing it the firstproofof Christ's true human nature.
One potentialobjection to the foregoingreview must be dealt withbefore

we proceed: how relevant is all this abstruse theologyto the work of Renais-
59. Summatheologiae, III, q. 70, art. 3, resp. 1.
60. Ibid., resp. 3.
61. Ibid., q. 37, art. 1, responsio.

sance artists?Are we to believe that theysat up nightsreading Bede, Bernard,

and Thomas Aquinas?
There are two answers. First, that most of these theologicalnotions were
not then as rare as modern oblivion has made them; theywere the stuffof the
sermonsto which all Christendomwas exposed, artistsincluded. The theology XXV
of the Church Fathers and Doctors resounded continually from the pulpits.
Secondly, the gist of the above arguments was broadcast in two steady best
sellersof the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. I have in mind, to begin with,
the Meditations on theLifeofChristby the Pseudo-Bonaventure- a workof naive
sentimentalpiety, composed shortlybefore 1300 and aimed at the common
reader. Chapter VIII treats as followsof Christ's Circumcision.
Today our Lord Jesus Christ began to shed His consecrated blood
forus. From the very first,He who had not sinned began to suffer
pain forus, and forour sins He bore torment.Feel compassion for
Him . . . for perhaps He wept today. .... Today His precious
blood flowed.His fleshwas cut with a stone knife. . .. Must one not
pity Him? . . . The child Jesus cries today because of the pain He
feltin his softand delicate flesh,forHe had real and susceptibleflesh
like all other humans. .. .62
Observe that the Child's divinityis not argued - a titlesuch as "our Lord"
asserts it sufficiently.
What must be insisted on is the tendernessof the God-
man's flesh, vulnerable and hurting. The argument that the Circumcision
authenticatesthe Incarnation is being conveyed to the plebs.
The otherbest seller to which I referredis the GoldenLegend,compiled in
the late 13th century by the Dominican Archbishop of Genoa, Jacopo da
Voragine. For nearly threehundred years, the Legendaaureaserved as the stan-
dard compilation of the lives of the saints, and as a source book for every
Renaissance painting with a hagiological theme. The structureof the work
followsthe liturgicalyear, and the entryforJanuary 1 informsus that Christ
allowed himselfto be circumcised "to show that he had assumed true human
flesh; so as to destroythe errorof them who would say that he had taken on a
phantasmal and not a true body. To confutetheirerror,he wished to be cir-
cumcised and emit blood, for[in the phrasing of William Caxton's translation
of 1483] a body phantastic shall shed no blood."63
62. Pseudo-Bonaventure, Meditations, pp. 43-44.

63. Voragine,Golden Legend, p. 34. I takethisoccasionto remarkthatthereadiestavailable
Englishversionofthework- TheGolden Legend ofJacobusde Voragine,
translatedand adaptedfrom
theLatinby GrangerRyan and HelmutRipperger,ArnoPress,New York, 1969- is quiteuse-
less to any seriousreaderwitha historicalsense. The translators' claim in the Forewordthat
"deletionsare few,and changesin thetextstillfewer," is notborneoutbycomparingtheirdigest
withtheoriginal.(Voragine'seight-page chapteron theCircumcision ofChristdwindlesin their
editionto a page and a half.)Textualchangesare as frequent as theyare gratuitous.
(Voragine

58 OCTOBER
Thus once again, in this most popular Renaissance reading, the genuine-
ness of the Incarnation is put to proofin the sexual member. More than that:
the wounding of it initiatesthe salvation of humankind,forthe archbishopsays
further:"On thisday he began to shed his blood forus . . . and thiswas thebe-
ginningof our redemption."Then, aftercitingthreesubsequent effusionsofthe
precious blood (at the Agony in the Garden, the Flagellation, and the Nailing
to the Cross), Voragine comes to the fifthand last shedding-"when his side
was opened [with a lance] and this was the sacrament of our redemption,for
then out of his side issued blood and water"64- the blood and water which, in
Augustine'swording,"we know to be the sacramentsfromwhich the Church is
built up." In Voragine's formulation,the firstand last wounds received are not
yet placed in immediate apposition, but they appear as the terminalpoints of
an ordained cycle. Linking beginningand end, the knife'scut to the gash of the
lance, we trace a passage on the body of Christ fromman to God; the sexual
memberbroaching the mortalPassion, the breast yieldingthe giftof grace. Put
into words, the anatomical consequence of Voragine's formula comes as a
shock- that Christ's redemptivePassion, which culminates on the cross in the
blood of the sacred heart, begins in the blood of the penis.
We are educated to shrinkfromsuch thinking.But it is Christian think-
ing-implicit in doctrine, explicit wherever in Renaissance art Christian
teaching is brought face to face with its own metaphoricity.The coupling of
Christ's last and firstwounds--a verbal figureto bridge a lifespan of three
decades-becomes topical in 15th- and 16th-centuryPassion pictures that
guide the trickleof gore fromthe breast back to the groin: a blood hyphenbe-
XXVI tween commencementand consummation(Figs. 63-65, 96, 98, 184-87).65 On
this integrityof the Passion enduringunder the multiplicityof its incidents,the
painterslingermuch as St. Bonaventure had done, and as two English poets of
the 17th centurywere to do. Both Milton and Crashaw throwthe trajectoryof
Christ'sPassion fromCircumcision to Crucifixion,fromthe knifedmember to
the speared heart. I quote from Milton's sonnet, "Upon the Circumcision,"
1634:
has Christassumeveram carnemhumanam,and thereis no reason,unlesstheoriginalis feltto be

too too solid,to translate"truehumanflesh"as "humanform.")Nor are we heartenedby these
confessions at theend of the Foreword:"Most of the omissionshave been long and highlyin-
volved theologicalpassages, whichwe feltratherencumberedthan enhancedthe book as a
whole.... Occasionally, too, we have eliminatedpassages in which repetitionswere
multiplied. .. or wherethestoriestoldwouldhave offended ratherthaninspiredthereaderof
today."
64. Voragine,Golden Legend,p. 34.
65. In a sermonpreachedin 1493in thepapal chapel,thepreacherCardulus(see p. 64 below)
interprets Christ'spenultimatewordson the cross-"Consummatum est"("it is finished")-as
referringto thecessationofcircumcision. in thepresentcontext,butperhapsno more
Interesting
thaningeniousrhetoric adaptedto theoccasion,sincethesermonwas deliveredon theFeast of
theCircumcision.
Fig. 64. Henri Bellechose, RetableofSaint
Denis, 1416.

Fig. 63. Jean Malouel, Pieta, c. 1400.

c. 1400.
Fig. 65. Dijon School,Entombment,
S.. he, that dwelt above

High-thronedin secretbliss, forus fraildust
emptied his glory,even to nakedness;
And seals obedience firstwith wounding smart

This day; but oh! ere long,
Huge pangs and strong
Will pierce more near his heart.
Crashaw's sonnetof the same year- "Our B. Lord in his Circumcisionto

his Father"- begins:
To thee these firstfruitsof my growingdeath
(For what else is my life?) lo I bequeath.
It ends:
These Cradle-tormentshave theirtowardness.
These purple buds of blooming death may bee,
Erst the full statureof a fatall tree.
And till my riper woes to age are come,
This knifemay be the speares Praeludium.

Like Renaissance paintingsof the broodingChristChild, Crashaw's poem

foreshortensduration. The newborn savior, nesting omnipotence in the con-
ditionofvulnerability,surrendersto his firststigmathe life-givingorgan. Eight
days old, the manfulGod lives in the instantaneityof beginningand end, hosts
a yet distantdeath and overleaps the time lapse while submittingto time'sregi-
ment. This is more than a case of divine prescience. As in the prolepses of
Renaissance painting, as in the "incarnational theology" of the preachers,
Christ'sdeath is conceived as whollyinfoldedin his miracle birth. Not thatthe
Passion and Resurrectionare denied theirnecessity,but theyare regarded-I
am quoting O'Malley - as "articulationsof what was already inchoately ac-
complished" in the Incarnation.66And this must be why we find Renaissance
preachers contemplatingthe redemptivework of God's infantbody much as
Renaissance painters did, that is to say, with the same dismissal of
squeamishness, the same enthusiasm, the same sense of fulfillment.
The evidence is spread wide in the sermonspreached duringthe 15thcen-
tury the Circumcision of Christ. Their essential message is stillthe message
on
of the Church Fathers and Doctors. The arguments of Augustine, Ambrose,
Bede, Bernard, Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Jacopo da Voragine are voiced
again, sometimes in renovated latinity,but unfailinglyto affirmtraditional
teaching. New in these orations is theirfestivetone, theirchoice of emphasis,
theircongratulatoryzeal and unabashed exultation.
What shall be said ofthisCircumcision, "whichpertainsto the salvation of
mankind and your immortality,"demands a Ciceronian humanist (who died in
1431, and whose undated oration was composed fordeliveryby a Franciscan
friar)."What shall be said about thisfirstholy sheddingof blood . . . thismost
precious blood which today our Lord spills for us for the firsttime. ... He
wished to be circumcisedthat he mightextinguishthe flamesof our detestable
lusts. . . ." By the voluntarygiftof his blood, we are told, Christ has prevailed
over the devil. And the oration congratulateshim as a victor,whose triumphis
compared withthe militarytriumphsof ancient Rome. In the Feast of the Cir-
cumcision, "we celebrate the day in which our victorbringsback to us the first
trophiesof the victoryover our perpetual foe."67
Even more pertinentto our subject are the sermonspreached at the Vati-
can on the Feast of the Circumcision. Declaiming at Solemn Mass beforethe
pope-coram Papa intermissarumsolemnia - the preachers revel in the
exegetic
tradition,and rejoice in directingtheireloquence to Christ's sexual member.
Of the 164 sermons O'Malley has studied, some in manuscript,othersin
incunabula, ten were preached on January 1, and the message theybear is con-
66. O'Malley, Praiseand Blame,p. 138. The familiarprolepses in Renaissance scenes of the In-
fancy- theirstarkallusions to the Passion and Resurrection- are surelythe pictorial equivalent
of the incarnational soteriologyof the preachers.
67. See the summary of Gasperino Barzizza's unpublished oration in O'Malley, Praise and
Blame, p. 84.

62 OCTOBER
sistent: the Circumcision of Christ, wherein the Incarnation is verified,the

Passion launched, and the Resurrection presaged, is the pledge and com-
mencement of human salvation-"the symbol of Christ's Passion and its
beginning."68Thus in a published sermon delivered c. 1460 by Giovanni
Antonio Campano:
Today he began to open forus the door and to make accessible the
entryto life. At the moment the boy was circumcised,the weapons
forour salvation appeared forthe firsttime in the blood of that in-
fant.
Bernardino Carvajal, preaching in 1484 beforeSixtus IV, wants the feastcele-
brated "as though the Lord were circumcisedtoday, so that we may have the
primordialbeginning of his Passion confirmedin us."
So again in Antonio Lollio's oration of 1485:
Today is opened formankind the book of the Circumcision, the first
volume of the most bitterPassion. Here issues the firstblood of our
redemption.
Today we begin to be saved, Holy Father, forwe have Jesus
who today has chosen to spill his blood forthe sake of man whom He
created. ... For until this most holy day, which is not unjustlyset
at the head of the year, we were all exiles. . . . Let us enter through
the gate which circumcisionhas opened forus, and which today lies
open even wider throughbaptism. . . . Let us venerate this most
sacred day of the circumcision,whichwe can call the gate thatopens
XXVII the way to Paradise.
And Battista Casali, preaching beforeJulius II in 1508:
Rightlythe Church decreed the celebration of this day of lifewhich
is the forecourtof our redemptionand a sure compact of salvation
between Christ and mortals.
The Circumcision extolled in these sermonsis more than a gateway, fore-
court, or even "firstvolume." It is the sine qua nonof mankind's redemption.
Campano (c. 1460) declares that:
It would not have been enough forChrist to be born forus had he
not begun to shed that divine blood in which our salvation reposes.
68. Quotations from the six circumcision sermons adduced on pp. 62-64 are taken from:
fols. 1, 2, 5v; Campano, De circumcisione,
Lollio, Oratiocircumcisionis, fols. 85v, 87; Carvajal, Oratio
fols. 8, 8v; Casali, Oratioin circumcisione,
in die circumcisionis, in O'Malley, "Casali," p. 280; de
Bagnariis, Oratiode nomineIesu, fol. 1; and Cardulus, Oratiode circumcisione, fol. 88v.

This notion of the insufficiencyof the Incarnation alone - which we encoun-

tered earlier in St. Bernard- recurs again in the oration of Antonio Lollio.
Nor would it have sufficedforChrist to be born forwretchedmor-
tals, if(aftereight days were fulfilled)he had not undertaken,while
still a boy, to spill his blood by being circumcised.
The logic is sound; since the Incarnation draws its effectivenessfromrespon-
sive faith,it would have forfeitedthat effectiveness,had it been open to legiti-
mate doubt: 69withoutproofof blood, the fleshassumed by the godhead might
have been thoughtmerely simulated, phantom, deceptive. Such indeed were
the pestiferousdoctrines advanced more than a thousand years earlier by
Docetists and Gnostics, those who held Christ's assumed body to have been
spiritual, not carnal, so that he only appeared to be suffering.
Against these long-buriedheresies our preachers dischargethe fullspleen
of their rhetoric. Each conjures up ancient errors which, by one ruse or
another, denied Christ his veritable humanity. Campano points triumphantly
to Christ'sCircumcision to confound the aberrationsof Apelles (2nd century),
Valentinus (2nd century), Manichaeus (3rd century), Apollinarius (4th cen-
tury),etc. - names long ago execrated, heresies utterlycrushed and disproved,
theirvery memorypreservedonly in the diatribes of the champions of victori-
ous orthodoxy. The early apologists (such as Clement, Tertullian, and St.
Irenaeus) had roundly refutedthem; Aquinas in his encyclopedic way had
recorded them; now our Renaissance orators exorcize them for rhetorical
effect.It is remarkableto hear preachers of the late Quattrocento raise up the
old heresiarchs so as to overwhelm them again and again by the power of
Christ's Circumcision. Thus Bernardino Carvajal (1484, before Sixtus IV):
By circumcisionhe showed himselfto be trulyincarnate in human
flesh. Whereat Manichaeus, Apollinarius, and Valentinus poured
forthheresies, Manichaeus ascribing to Christ a fantastic body,
Apollinarius a divine, Valentinus a celestial; which clearly excludes
the natural pain in the circumcised fleshof the Lord. But surely, if
blood was flowing,there was pain, aggravated in the infantflesh.
Truly thereforethe human fleshof Christ has been most fullydem-
onstrated by his circumcision.
Lollio's sermon of the followingyear opens in pugnacious apostrophe of
these same hapless heretics:
69. See the passage from St. Bernard, quoted above, p. 55, where it is argued that God's
descent to companionship with mankind, though foretoldby the Prophets and ferventlylonged
for,would not have availed unless man was convinced that the body assumed in the Incarnation
was true human substance.

64 OCTOBER
Today we declare war on thee, Manichaeus! . . . Prayerfuland

strippedforcontestwe enterthedecisivepalestra,eager to wrestle
withApellesand Manichaeus,confident,withGod'shelpofwinning
richspoilsand thetriumphofvictory.
Outraged at the slandersthatwould have made Christ'sagonies vain, the

preacherexclaims:
O Basilideans,who denythatJesussuffered . .. lookupon thecir-
cumcisedboy,hardlycomeintothelight.. .. O Apellites,who say
thatJesuswas an illusoryman,hearthevoiceofthecryingboy,and
believe now that he sufferedan inflictedwound. O iniquitous
Sedechians, look. . . on Jesus the firstbornof Mary, who is
renderedbloody today .... Look upon the boy of eight days
broughtheretodayto be circumcised.O Valentinians,O Alexan-
drians,O Manichaeans . . . and all youhereticsand proclaimers of
falsedoctrine- spewout now theold dudgeon[fermentum] . . . and
considertheclemencyoftheboyJesuswho,in need ofmilkand the
nurse,afflictedhis mostholyand pure fleshwiththe pain of cir-
cumcision.
The above was evidentlyaccounteda tourdeforce;Poliziano dubbed
Lollio'ssermon"a goldenoration."In itsverveand theatricalgeniusand the
eleganceofitsLatin, it musthave seemedfairlyexceptional.No wonderthat
morehumdrumperformances, coveringthesame groundyearafteryear,en-
couraged what O'Malley calls an "almostineradicable"inclinationto talkdur-
ing the sermons. In the year following Lollio, the if
cardinals, theylistened,
wouldhaveheardfromde Bagnariisthat"theincarnateWord . . . suffered cir-
cumcisionin orderto . . . shattertheerrorsofdiversefuturehereticswhomhe
foresaw";and that"Christunderwent circumcisionin orderto demonstrate the
truthofhis humanflesh."
Not all of the sermonsdeliveredon January1 came to be printed;and
thoughall had to be written out and submittedforpriorclearance,notall have
survived.But thenextCircumcisionsermon,preachedafter1493beforeAlex-
ander VI by FranciscusCardulus, tellsus once more thatthe hereticsare
routedby theeventofthisday, since"thehumanfleshofChristhas been most
fullydemonstrated by his circumcision."And thepreacherproceeds:
He did notoffer hisbodyto be woundedin orderthatthesubstance
ofhis truefleshbe deniedby theimpietyofheretics.. . . It is good
to overturn the profitlessopinions of incorrigiblemen ... [Fol-
lowed again by a rosterof loathed Gnostic names].
And finally,on a note which Renaissance art makes familiar:

Who would doubt thathe had a real body derived fromhis mother-
a body thathad all itsmembers[omnibus membris Who .
expressum].
could maintain that to be simulated which is fondled [attrectatur],
taken in the hand, receives a wound, feels pain?70
Not twentyyears separate these protestationsfromthe fond grandmother
of Baldung's woodcut (Fig. 13), or fromthe self-touchingChild of Andrea del
Sarto (Fig. 2). In the pictures as in the sermons, the argumentforthe authen-
ticityof Christ's manhood (his godhood needing no argument unless before
infidels)draws its invincible strengthfromthe Child's sexual member.
We have imagerybetterknown and more discreetthan the audacities of

Baldung and Andrea del Sarto to assure us that incarnational symbolism in
Renaissance paintinghovered about the Child's groin. I have in mind the com-
mon renderingof the Adoration of the Magi. These picturesproject a Chris-
tologyof which the rhetoricof the pulpit is but an echo. Their centralsubject is
the marvelous proofofferedto the Three Kings: God, come to dwell humanly
among men, exposes his frailestmember- whetherto the knife,the touch, or
the steadfastgaze of the faithful-in order to dispel mistrustof his Incarnation
forever.
The Child's nakedness in Renaissance representationsof the Epiphany is
so commonplace that we tend to leave it unquestioned. But it is at least rea-
sonable to wonder why a loving motherwould expose her newborn'sskinto the
nipping air so soon afterChristmas; or why the incarnate God should be un-
clothed while receivingthe homage of the kingsof the earth. St. Augustine had
not yetvisualized it thatway. "He, weak in his infantlimbs, wrapped in infant's
swaddling clothes, was adored by the Magi," he wrote.71And medieval artists
quite properlykept the Child covered. It was the art of the 14th centurythat
began to reverse the tradition(Fig. 31); and by the 15th century,the Child's
nudity at the levee had become de rigueur.
The thoroughnessof the change is borne in on us when we realize open-
eyed what Ghirlandaio is showing in his famous tondo of the Adoration (dated
1487) in the Uffizi(Fig. 66). At the heart ofa populous scene, the eldest Magus
kneels beforethe Madonna and Child. The Virgin's righthand retainsone in-
fant knee, her other hand liftinghis flimsycover. And the old King reaches
reverentlyto touch withtwo sanctifiedfingersthe loinclothwhich the boy holds
aside in deliberate showing. The pictorial action, the portentous event, the
70. Cardulus,Oratiodecircumcisione,
fol.89. Cf. fol.86v--Christunderwentcircumcision
"to
show himselfto mortals in the flesh"(ut se mortalibus
incarnemonstraret).
71. St. Augustine,SermonXIX, 1 (Ben. 200); Sermons,
p. 160.

oftheMagi, 1487, detail.
Fig. 66. DomenicoGhirlandaio,Adoration
epiphany, is the exposure to the worshipperof the Child's groin. This, accord-
ing to Ghirlandaio, is what theWise Men traveledto see. The revelationto the
Magi, who knew beforehandthat a God had been born, is the demonstration
ad oculosthathe was born "completein all the parts of a man." And ifwe recall
thatthe subject of the picture,the Feast of the Epiphany, fallssix days afterthe
Feast of the Circumcision, we may suspect a revelation, too, of the Child's
promptconsentto self-sacrifice - in Lollio's words (1485) "whilestillin a tender
state, wishing to dissolve our sin with his blood."72
72. fol.2.
Lollio, Oratiocircumcisionis,

of Christ
The Sexuality 67
Of course, Ghirlandaio is not alone in understandingthe meaning of the

Infant'sexposure at the Epiphany. The Northernersunderstandit no less than XXVIII
Ghirlandaio's compatriots(Figs. 67, 68, 189-91; 69, 70, 188). And once we
also have grasped it, we begin to see what before was prohibited- the clear
focusof the adorer's glance. Though the motifof the King's steady gaze on the
Child's genitaliais remarkablycommon, it remained unseen because it was im-
properto notice and could not be conceptualized withoutshame. Yet theobject
of the old King's regard is daylightclear in such worksas Mantegna's Adoration
oftheMagi (Fig. 70; cf. the painting fromwhich the engravingderives), or in
Bruegel'sAdoration in London (Fig. 71). This latterdeserves special attention,
since the great showing is here rendered momentous by being tracked on a
commandingdiagonal. The action startingfromlower leftinvolvesthe Magus'
stare, the Child's crotchand smile, the Virgin's bounteous bosom, the respect-
ful hat of St. Joseph, and the whispered confidenceat his ear. If the effectis
part comic, so much the better. This is, after all, a happy occasion; the
humanation of God, none happier since the creation of light.
ofthe
Fig. 68. Jan van Scorel,Adoration
Magi, c. 1530-35.
oftheMagi,
Fig. 67. Tyrolean,Adoration
c. 1440.

Fig. 69. Botticelli,AdorationoftheMagi,
c. 1470, detail.
Fig. 70. Mantegna School, Adorationofthe

Magi, c. 1475-80.

Fig. 71. PieterBruegel,Adoration
oftheMagi, 1564.

Fig. 72. Giovanni Cariani, Madonna and Child withDonor, 1520.
Fig. 73. Sebastiano del Piombo, Holy Family

withSaintsand Donor,c. 1505-10.

Whether any of these pictures of the Adorationintend a referenceto the

foregoneCircumcision is not ascertainable. We see only thattheyshow the in-
fantexposing his nakedness like one conferringa boon; we are unsure whether
the message is - "Look, I your Creator have come to share your humanity";or,
in St. Bonaventure'swords, "See how I have not delayed to pour out foryou the
price of my blood."73The message, in eitherreading, is a summons to the be-
liever's faith. And it is surely in response to this summons that the Adoration
became a model forthe gaze of private Venetian donors wishingto testify - as
the Magi had done-to theirfaithin the Incarnation (Figs. 72, 73).74
The Incarnation of the Trinity'sSecond Person is the centrumof Chris-

tian orthodoxy.But we are taughtthatthe godhead in Christ,while he dwelled
on earth, was effectivelyhidden- insufficiently manifestforthe Devil to recog-
nize, obscured even from Christ's closest disciples (Mark 8:27-30; Matt.
16:13-20), apparent only to a handful of chosen initiatesand a few beneficia-
ries of his miracles.75By the testimonyof Scripture, the manhood in Christ,
though free from ignorance and sin, was otherwise indistinguishable--not
because the protagonistof the Gospels assumed a deceptive disguise (like a
godling in pagan fable), but because he took real fleshin a woman's womb and
endured it till death.
This much Christendom has professed at all times. Not so Christian
art. For when a depictive style aims at the other-worldly;when the stuffof
which human bodies are formedis attenuated and subtilized; when Christian
representationsof Christ, dismayed by the grossness of matter, decline to
honor the corporealityGod chose to assume - then,whateverelse such art may
be after, the down-to-earthflesh of the bodied Word is not confessed. It is
arguable from a stylistic viewpoint--at least in retrospect and from a
Renaissance vantage--that the hieratic Christs of Byzantine art are better
adapted to Gnostic heresies than to a theology of Incarnation; for, to quote
Otto Demus again, "The Byzantine image . . . always remained a Holy Icon,
without any admixture of earthlyrealism." But for those Western Christians
73. St. Bonaventure, TreeofLife, p. 129.

74. Cf. also Giovanni Bellini's Madonna and Child withSaintsand Donor (Louvre) and Andrea
Previtali's Madonna and Child withDonor (Padua, Museo Civico).
75. Cf. the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Saying 91: "They said to him, 'Tell us who You are so
that we may believe in You.' He said to them, 'You read the face of the sky and of the earth, but
you have not recognized the one who is beforeyou'" (Nag HammadiLibrary,p. 128). As to the hid-
denness of Christ's divine nature during the Ministry, the propagandistic trend of the canonic
Gospels seems to create somewhat of a problem. The working of the redemptive plan required
that the devil be tricked into thinkingJesus mere man, hence deserving of death. But of the
demons whomJesus exorcized, most were sensitiveto his othernature. What then made the devil
so sluggish?

72 OCTOBER
who would reverethe Logos in its human presence, it was preciselyan "admix-
ture of earthlyrealism" that was needed to flesh out the icon. And because
Renaissance culturenot only advanced an incarnationaltheology(as the Greek
Church had also done), but evolved representationalmodes adequate to its ex-
pression, we may take Renaissance art to be the firstand last phase of Chris-
tian art that can claim full Christian orthodoxy. Renaissance art- including
the broad movement begun c. 1260- harnessed the theological impulse and
developed the requisite stylisticmeans to attest the utter carnality of God's
humanation in Christ. It became the firstChristian art in a thousand years to
confrontthe Incarnation entire,the upper and the lower body together,not ex-
cluding even the body's sexual component. Whereat the generations that
followed recoiled, so that, by the 18th century, the Circumcision of Christ,
once the opening act of the Redemption, had become merelybad taste. When
Goethe reportson Guercino's Circumcision ofChrist,a paintinghe admired in the
artist'sbirthplaceat Cento in mid-October 1786, he speaks of it in the simperof
polite conversation: "I forgavethe intolerable subject and enjoyed the execu-
tion."76And a standard modern referencework by Louis Reau explains that
the Circumcisiondropped out of Christian iconographybecause of the subject's
"indecency."" Both authors unwittinglyabrogate the special status of the body
of Christ- the exemption of Christ's nakedness fromthe mores of Christen-
dom.
We are leftwith a cultural paradox: Renaissance artistsand preachers
were able to make Christian confession only by breaking out of Christian
restraints.
One gesture in paintings of the Madonna and Child offersits meaning

direct; and it graces some of the most cherishedcreationsof Renaissance art. I
referto pictures- among them several by Giovanni Bellini (Figs. 74, 199)-
whereinthe sex of the ChristChild takes emphasis fromthe mother'sprotecting
hand. In movementsof sublime tendernessdeeper than modesty,Mary's hand
shields- and convertsinto symbol- her Son's vulnerable humanity.This "pro-
tectionmotif"seems commonerin Italian painting(Figs. 75-77), but it is found
XXIX as well in Germany and the Netherlands (Figs. 193, 194). In Isenbrandt'sRest
on theFlightintoEgypt,the boy seizes the profferedgrape that forebodesthe Pas-
sion, while the Virgin screenshis groinwiththe flatof her hand (Fig. 78). And
a Hans Baldung woodcut (Geisberg 85; c. 1515-17) presentsthe Madonna is-
suing fromthe gates of heaven while pressingprotectivefingerson the Child's
genitals.
76. "Ich verziehden unleidlichenGegenstandund erfreute michan der Ausfiihrung"
(Itali-
enische
Reise).
II/II, Paris, 1957,p. 260.
de l'artchritien,
77. Louis Reau, Iconographie
Fig. 76. Lorenzo Lotto, Holy Familywith

Donors,c. 1526-30.

Fig. 74. Giovanni Bellini, Madonna and Fig. 75. Cosimo Rosselli, Madonna and Child
Child,c. 1475-80. withtheInfantSt. John.

Fig. 77. Palma Vecchio, Holy FamilywiththeMagdalen,c. 1516-17.
Fig. 78. Adriaen Isenbrandt, Reston the

FlightintoEgypt,c. 1515.

Adora-
Fig. 79. BrugesSchool illumination,
tionoftheMagi, c. 1480-1500.
The motifsof exposure and of maternalprotectionsurvivein abundance.

Less frequentare picturesfromthe late 15thand 16th centuriesthat show the
privy parts touched by the boy himself- whether in sleep, bashfulness, or
ostension.This curious categoryincludes an Adorationpage froma Bruges Book
of Hours (Fig. 79), Andrea del Sarto's TallardMadonna(Fig. 2), Sodoma's Holy
Familyat the Villa Borghese (Fig. 203), a Titianesque Sacra Conversazione
(Fig.
202), and Veronese's Holy FamilywithSt. Barbaraand theInfantSt. John(Fig.
80)- a shortlist, but long enough to make the items on it otherthan idiosyn-
cratic.78Under what impulse were such picturescreated?how were theymeant
to be understood? and, being misunderstood(presumably as excesses of ir-
reverent"realism"),how is it that theywere preserved?
At the mentionof Veronese's name, art historiansare likelyto suspect ir-
religion.Veronese's insouciance beforethe tribunalofthe Inquisition in 1573 is
notorious; and some mightwant to charge the Child's gesturein St. Barbara's
presence to the artist'ssupposed worldliness,his penchant, perhaps, to make
78. A fewfurther instances:thetriptychoftheMadonnaandChildwithSaintsby LudovicoUr-

bani, 1474,Recanati,Museo Diocesano; an engravingby theMasterofSt. Sebastian,c. 1480,
depictingtheVirginand Childin a designfora pax (Lehrs 10); Denis Calvaert'sMystic
Marriage
panel of 1590 in theCapitolineMuseum, Rome.
ofSt. Catherine

Fig. 80. Veronese,HolyFamilywithSt.Barbara
andtheInfantSt.John,c. 1560.
mockeryof the sacred. But Veronese was an intelligentman; and like everyin-
telligentartist,he respectedhis subject; and like most great artistshe could not
help but rethinkit. Now suppose that his subject was simply the Word made
flesh- the First Principle and AlmightyPower become to all appearances an
ordinaryman-child. "Ordinary,"says Veronese, except to those who even now
confessthe Child's inapparent divinityin its veryconsent to be human. And is
not this what the picture shows? The artisthas staged a tableau of the mar-
velously banal, a domesticized sacra conversazione, wherein the Child, doing
what babies do, moves the surroundingfiguresto staggered reactions of pen-
siveness, impetuous curiosity,devotion, surprise. In clockwise order: the Vir-
gin pressingher breast; St. Joseph peering; St. John, too, gazing centerwardas
he kisses the Infant'stoe; and St. Barbara with the palm branch she wins for
her martyrdomin that same Infant'scause. Not fora momentcan we imagine
thiscrew unmindfulof the dormant godhood in theirmidst; or less than stirred
by its humanness. These witnesses at the cradle are admitted to an intimacy
more awesome than infantilemasturbation.79As the sleeper touches the fount
where the firstdrops of all-healing blood are to issue, theylearn that the boy's
divinitywills the Passion of its assumed body; and theyare seeing thiswilling-
ness expressed in a mode consonant with the infantbody assumed.
Some such awareness of authenticreligious meaning may explain the re-
peated copying of Veronese's picture- known to us in no less than five ver-
sions.80 But before long, as incarnational realism yielded to better manners,
the work'smeaning was lost and the motifbecame unacceptable. Gian Antonio
Guardi's copy in Seattle (Fig. 205) beggars the bystanders'awe by removingits
cause; it insertsa clothunder the Child's active hand - in lieu of a starkrevela-
tion,a modestcache-sexe. And oftherecentlycleaned versionin Baltimore,themu-
seum catalogue reports that "the only area of extensive overpaint was the
addition of draperybetween the Child's legs" (Fig. 204). Then, discussing the
composition, the text observes, not unperceptively:"Attentionshould be paid
to a rare compositional feature- the absence of a focal point."
Even more astonishing(because one cannot naively dismiss the action as
oftheCucciniFamilytotheMadonna
a naturalisticmotif) is Veronese's Presentation
(1571; Figs. 5, 81). As the Theological Virtues presentthe familyof the donor,
the Virgin presentsthe Child- her righthand, his foot,her left,his sex. The
79. Only in comic-erotic imagerydoes infantile becomea subjectforart-as in

masturbation
thesixthplateof TheErotic
Drawings Zichy(1827-1906),New York,1969.Had Veronese
ofMihaily
depictedtheInfantalone, itslikenessto Zichy'scontentedbaby wouldbe remarkable.But the
comparisonprovesthatVeronese'swholemeaningresidesin thevariedreactionsoftheattendant
saints.
XIV-XVIIthCen-
80. The knownversionsofVeronese'spicturearediscussedin ItalianPaintings
fromtheCollection
turies ofTheBaltimoreMuseumofArt,ed. GertrudeRosenthal,Baltimore,1981,
pp. 179, 182-85. A paintingby AntonioCarneo insertstheVeroneseChild intoan even more
elaboratefiguralcontext(Fig. 207).
of theCuccini
Fig. 81. Veronese, Presentation
Family to theMadonna, 1571.

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78 OCTOBER
companion to thismajestic painting--originallyon a facingwall in the Cuccini

Palace in Venice - was a ChristBearingtheCross.Gloss as you will the Virgin's
gesturein the Presentation,it demands to be understoodin a Christologicalcon-
text.
Rarest among Infancyscenes thatrefersexually to the manhood of Christ
are images of the Child withthe penis erect. They survivein sufficient number
to show that 16th-century paintersand patrons thoughtthe motifnot inappro-
priate. Yet, forobvious reasons, this troublingphenomenon has not been re-
ported, and notice of it even now is likelyto starteveryskepticalimpulse; as it
did in thiswriter,beforeclose confrontationwithAlvise Vivarini's altarpieceof
1504 in the Leningrad Hermitage (Figs. 82, 208) removedthe last doubt. Here
again is a sacra conversazione of somber mood; yet the Child's member- dis-
creetly shadowed and barely perceptiblein black-and-whitereproduction- is
renderedin satyr-likeelevation. And so it appears again in the Perino del Vaga
Holy Familytondo in Liechtenstein(Fig. 83).81 Such emblematicvirility,even
81. For a good reproductionin coloroftheLeningradVivarini,see B. Asvarishch

et al., The
Leningrad,1977, pl. 5. Anotherexampleof the motifthatescaped overpainting
Hermitage, is
Girolamodel Pacchia's HolyFamilywithInfantSt. John,c. 1530, formerly
London, Duke of
reprod.in Berenson,ItalianPictures,
Westminster; Central,III, fig.1559.
Fig. 82. AlviseVivarini,MadonnaandChildwithSaints,1504.

The Sexuality
of Christ 79
Fig. 83. Perinodel Vaga, HolyFamily,c. 1520.
in private shadow, does seem exceptional. But more lifelikeversions of infant

erection (a baby's penis stiffensand levels withoutchange of size) turn up in
iconic Madonnasby Holbein the Elder, Giovanni Bellini, Cima da Conegliano,
Perugino, Marco Palmezzano, Francia, Pacchia, Correggio, and Raffaellino
dal Colle (Figs. 84-87); and thereafterin the work of some NorthernManner- XXX
ists. Andrea del Sarto contraststhe Christ Child's stiffer
member with that of
St. John- a differentiation which suggeststhe likeliestreason forthe motif:it
demonstratesin the Infantthatphysiologicalpotencywithoutwhichthe chastity
of the man would count fornought.

Fig. 84. Cima da Conegliano, Madonna and
Child, c. 1500-10.
Fig. 85. Perugino, Madonna and Child,

c. 1500.

Fig. 86. Correggio, Madonna oftheBasket,
c. 1523-25.
dal Colle, Madonnaand

Fig. 87. Raffaellino
ChildwiththeInfantSt.John,c. 1530.

82 OCTOBER
Whether presentlycommon or scarce, such symbolic images cannot be

written off as aberrations. Our museums hang countless old pictures ex-
purgated for preciselythis sort of detail. One deftbrushstrokeor two would
take the naughtinessout of a Renaissance icon and fitit formodern walls. Few
offendersescaped. How many Renaissance picturescontained motifsthatnow
strikeus as scandalous we shall never know. What astounds us is that theyex-
isted at all, and that any came throughunscathed afterrunning gauntletsof
XXXI censorshipfromthe mid-16thto the mid-20thcentury.
One small group of pictures poses a more difficultproblem. Is it con-

ceivable that Christian artistswould assign the erectionmotifto the figureof
the dead Christ?82The loins of these figuresare, of course, draped; but it had
long been the special pride of Renaissance painters to make drapery report
subjacent anatomic events. Even the infanterectionwas sometimesbetrayed
only by the heave of the loincloth; of which outstandingexamples are Correg-
gio's Madonna di S. Giorgioin Dresden (Fig. 88), several Madonna and Child
82. The fallacy of naturalism as a general-purpose explanation has been so oftenattacked in

this essay that I shall not tryto refuteit here, where the folkloreof hanged men's erectionsseems
particularlyirrelevant.
1530-32,detail.
Fig. 88. Correggio,Madonnadi S. Giorgio,

Fig. 89. Jan van Scorel, Madonna and Child
withDonors,c. 1527-29, detail.
Fig. 90. Jacques de Gheyn, Madonna and

Child withtheInfantSt. John,c. 1590-93.

Fig. 91. WillemKey, Pieta,after1530.
panels by Jan van Scorel (Fig. 89)83 and an astonishingengraved roundel by

Jacques de Gheyn afterAbraham Bloemaert (Fig. 90), its mystical circum-
scriptionbespeaking thejoys ofheaven.84Could a like signal emanate fromthe
dead Christ? What, forinstance, are we to make of the Pietaby Willem Key
(Munich and Karlsruhe; Fig. 91)-a picture known in two versions and
believed to have been begun by Quentin Massys? Shall we construethe turbu-
lence of the loinclothas an inflationof vacant folds,or are we bound to inter-
pret these surfacesas reactive to formsbeneath, insinuatinga phallic tumes-
cence? The latter,since we cannot be sure, seems an unholy notion. Yet the
problem is posed again in the famous Pieta etchingby Jacques Bellange (Fig.
92), and again in a late 16th-centuryanonymous Flemish Christas VictoroverSin
and Death (Fig. 93). Finally, a positive answer becomes compelling when we
83. Three other Van Scorel panels display the same motif;see Friedlander, EarlyNetherlandish
Painting,XII, no. 329 (Berlin), no. 332 (Kassel), no. 413 (Lisbon).
84. The engraving (Hollstein 334) dates from the early 1590s. Its circumscriptionreads:
"Dear Jesu, how sweet the delights, How everlasting the comforts,Constant and unalloyed,
wherewithYou solace our souls. This world has not the like; it mingles sorrow with joy and
knows nought that endures ("Quam dulces semper lusus, quam propria semper, Et syncera
animis confers solatia JESU. Talia non hic mundus habet, qui tristia miscet, Laetis, et solidi
quicquam promitterenescit").

Fig. 93. Flemish, Christas VictoroverSin and
Death, c. 1590-1600.
Fig. 92. Jacques Bellange, Piethi,c. 1615.
Fig. 94. Ludwig Krug, Man ofSorrows,c. 1520.

86 OCTOBER
compare certainimages of the mysticalMan of Sorrows, dating from1520-32,

where phallic erection is unmistakable. Among these is a rare engraving by
Ludwig Krug (Fig. 94), impressionsof which can have survivedonly by being
locked away in printcabinets seldom disturbed.85And thereare threepaintings
of the subject by the young Maerten van Heemskerck- the predella of one in-
scribed "Ecce Homo" (Figs. 95-97). An anonymous variant, painted on glass
and cruderin quality, adds the fourbeasts ofthe Evangelists,the ox in bull-like
charge at the center (Fig. 98).86
Are these works sacrilege or still affirmativeChristian art? And if we in-
cline to admit them, thenhow, under what rationale? We expect no certainties
here, no textsor supportivedocumentsto spell out intentions.Mysteryin such
16th-centurypictures is duly veiled. But our quandary we can analyze with
some precision: whetherto keep denyingthe existence of the erectionmotifor
to acknowledge its presence; whetherto dismiss the motifas gross foolishness
or to grant it symbolic value; and, finally,whetherto reject its symbolismas
XXXII alien or to allow a possible, if irregular,compatibilitywith the subject.
Let me assume that the ithyphallicmotifin these images of the mystical
Man of Sorrows was mysteriouslymeant. One mightconjecture that Heems-
kerck's symbol simply inverts the archaic biblical euphemism of "flesh"for
penis. At the original institutionof circumcision,the Lord of Genesis (17:13)
says: "My covenant shall be in your flesh." Heemskerck's paintings would
reversethat tropeby representingthe risen fleshin the roused sexual member.
It is no farcryfromone to the other- no strainingleap of imaginationto equate
penile erection, reciprocally,with fleshvivified.
As a symbol of postmortemrevival, the erection-resurrection equation
roots in pre-Christianantiquity: it characterized Osiris, the Egyptian god of
the afterlife,representedwith his restoredmember out like a leveled lance.87
85. Cf. theunusuallyexplicitgenitalreference in Ludwig Krug'stwo survivingwoodcuts-

TheFall ofMan and theExpulsionfrom Eden(c. 1515;Geisberg890 and 891). The artistis evidently
concernedwiththeroleof thesexual organin redemptive history.
86. The AmsterdamRijksmuseumpreservesyetanotherversionofHeemskerck's Man ofSor-
rows(no. A1306), but thispanel does notappear to be autograph.
87. The elementsoftheOsirismyth,as theycame downto theRenaissancethroughPlutarch
and Diodorus Siculus,maybe summarizedas follows:a beneficent ruler,Osiriswas betrayed
and murderedbytheevil Seth-Typhon, and hisbodydismembered (theeventis depictedin one
ofPinturicchio'sfrescoesin theVaticanBorgiaApartments). Isis, hisloyalconsort,reassembled
thescatteredpartsofthebody,remadetheunretrieved phallus,and establisheditas an objectof
procreatesafterdeath,and hiscultcomesto be identified
specialworship.Osirisis resuscitated,
withthephallicritesofDionysus-Bacchus. Plutarch(Moralia,371) givesthemytha metaphysical
and Reason, theRuler and Lord of all thatis good, is
"In thesoul, Intelligence
interpretation:
Osiris,and [in nature]. . . thatwhichis ordered,establishedand healthy. . . is the effluxof
image. But Typhonis thatpartof thesoul whichis . . . unruly."
Osirisand his reflected
The Renaissanceliterature on Osirisis discussedinJean Seznec, TheSurvival ofthePagan
Gods,New York,1953,pp. 21, 26, 228, 238; and in EdgarWind,PaganMysteries intheRenaissance,
2nd ed., New York, 1968,pp. 99, 133ff.,174, 300.

Fig. 95. Maerten van Heemskerck, Man ofSorrows,c. 1525-30.

88 OCTOBER
Man ofSorrows,
Fig. 96. Maertenvan Heemskerck, 1532.

The Sexuality
of Christ 89
Fig. 97. Maertenvan Heemskerck,

Man of Fig. 98. AfterMaertenvan Heemskerck,
Sorrows, 1525. The TrinitywithChrist
Resurrected.
And the ithyphallusas emblem of immortalityhaunts later Mediterranean

mysterieshonoring Bacchus. The prevalence of such symbolism accounts
perhaps forthe readiness withwhichChristian theologyassociated the penis in
its circumcisionwith resurrection(see pp. 52, 156-57).
In Western literature,the locusclassicusfor our metaphoric equation is
Boccaccio's Decameron, the tenthtale of the thirdday, where the sexual arousal
of the anchoriteRustico is announced, withblasphemous irony,as "la resurre-
zion della carne." The contextof the novella makes Boccaccio's wording- the XXXII
resurrectionof the fleshfollowingits mortification - an apt and effectivepun.
But this same "pun," now deeply serious, lurks in the greatest 16th-century
representationof the RaisingofLazarus- Sebastiano del Piombo's colossal paint-
ing in London, composed with the assistance of Michelangelo: Lazarus' loin-
cloth,which in the preparatorydrawing dips unsupportedbetween the thighs,

90 OCTOBER
appears in the paintingfirmlypropped frombelow - a sign ofresurgentflesh.88

Constant throughoutis the conceit of the phallus as a manifestationof
power. In an ancient textwell known to 16th-centuryauthors, the Oneirocritica,
ofDreams,ofArtemidorus,"thepenis . . . is a symbolofstrength
or Interpretation
and physical vigor, because it is itselfthe cause of these qualities. That is why
some people call the penis 'one's manhood' [andreia]."89And the "machismo"of
the 16thcenturygave thissentimentvisual expressionin a featureof masculine
dress unique in Westernhistory:the salient codpiece as a tokenof prowess and
virile fecundity.90
Nothing here seems specificallyChristian. Yet it is preciselyin the Re-
naissance that this ancient topos surfacesin the most Catholic context- within
a sermon on the Circumcision delivered by Battista Casali in 1508, again inter
missarumsolemnia,before Pope Julius II. During a lengthyaside on a com-
XXXIV memorativephallic hieroglyphposted on triumphalobelisks by King Sesostris
of Egypt, the preacher invokes the male member as the "greatesttestimonyof
fortitude"(amplissimum fortitudinistestimonium).91In common with his audience
of prelates and theologians, Casali takes it forgranted that the phallus is rea-
sonably equated with power.
But the supreme power is the power which prevails over mortality.It was
forthis that the penis- "unconquered weapon" in the contest waged with the
Fates, battlingvictoriouslyagainst death- was praised by Bernardus Silvestris
(see p. 46). And it is in this sense again thatthe phallus of Christ resurrectedis
spoken of in yetanothersermon,deliveredby Cardulus beforePope Alexander
88. Obviously, in a picture so large and complex, the topical undulations of Lazarus' loincloth
need never be noticed- probably never were. But we are now posing a novel question: whether,
in a picture of 1520, the sexual member could participate in resurrectionsymbolism. And we are
shown a positive answer when we follow the roll of the loincloth from thigh to thigh. I entreat
speed readers not to dismiss this observation before giving the image careful attention.
The two survivingstudies forthe Lazarus group are discussed and reproduced as Michel-
angeloautographsinJohannesWilde,ItalianDrawings
... intheBritish
Museum: and
Michelangelo
His Studio,London, 1953, nos. 16-17, pls. xxix-xxx. The attributionis rejected(in my view rightly)
in Luitpold Dussler, Die Zeichnungen des Michelangelo,Berlin, 1959, nos. 561-62.
89. Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, I, 45, p. 38f. The passage is cited by Valeriano (see p. 186).
90. Flaunted as an instrument not of pleasure, but of power, Cf. Montaigne's pretended
puzzlement in 1588 when the fashionhad begun to go out of style:"What was the meaning of that
ridiculous part of the hose our fatherswore, and which is stillseen on our Swiss? What is the idea
of the show we stillmake of our pieces, in effigyunder our breeches; and what is worse, often,by
falsehood and imposture, above their natural size?" (Essays, III, 5). Strikingexamples of that
"ridiculous" 16th-centuryfashion are: the squire in Lucas van Leyden's engraving of the Triumph
ofMordecai,1515; Parmigianino's CountofSan Secundo(1533-35; Madrid, Prado); Bronzino's Por-
traitof a YoungMan (c. 1535-40; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art); Nicolo della
Casa's engraving of Baccio Bandinelli,1548; Titian's Philip 11 (1550; Madrid, Prado); Frangois
Clouet's portrait of Henry11 (1559; Florence, Uffizi); Hans Lautensack's engraved portrait of
GeorgRoggenbach (1554; Bartsch 9); and Tobias Stimmer'sportraitofJakobSchwitzer (1564; Kunst-
museum Basel). More problematic is the recurrenceof the motifin Bruegel's PeasantDance, De-
troitInstituteof Arts, and in Callot's Balli di Sfessania.
91. O'Malley, "Casali," p. 283.

VI some ten years beforeCasali's. Discussing the theologicalquestion whether

or not the circumcisedprepuce of Christwas reassumed in the risenbody, Car-
dulus cites opinions both for and against, and reportsthat those in favor of
reassumptionregard the restoredmember as a signumvictoriae-- i.e., the phallus
as sign!
Returning now to Heemskerck's outrageous conception of the Man of
Sorrows with the testimoniumfortitudinis in plain evidence, we restateour ques-
tion: is the erection-resurrection equation in paintings of c. 1530 admissible
withinthe Christian ethos? And now a positive answer no longer seems scur-
rilous: in the similitudeof Christ'sbody, Heemskerck (like Ludwig Krug and
the others) may have attempteda metaphor of the mortified-vivified flesh.To
justifyhis conception, he could have said, or thought,somethinglike this: ifit
was in the organ of generationand lust thatChrist initiatedhis Passion; and if,
in the exegetic tradition, its circumcision on the eighth day prefiguresthe
Resurrection, the final puttingaway of corruption; then what is that organ's
status in the risen body? Or more simply: if the truthof the Incarnation was
proved in the mortificationof the penis, would not the truthof the Anastasis,
the resuscitation,be proved by its erection?Would not this be the body's best
show of power? It was surelyin this sense that the Heemskerck canvas of 1525
(Fig. 97) was understoodby the glass painterwho foundits seated Man of Sor-
rows adaptable to an elaborate Resurrection,complete withTrinity,attendant
angels, and Evangelists' symbols (Fig. 98). Without change of posture, the
Christ in the copy appears to rise fromthe tomb, as does the horned bull, in-
serted between Christ's mountingthighsunder his member.
I do believe that Heemskerck's images of the Man of Sorrows were con-
ceived witha Christianwill and deprofundis; theyimpressme as desperate raids
on the inexpressible- the unknowable mysteryof a god's unmanned body in its
resurgence. Nevertheless,they remain deeply shocking. Their vision of a set-
tled Christ, alone in sterile,self-centeringmasculinity,seems to us- and must
have seemed to most artists- a miscarriedsymbol. And it miscarrieson more
counts than one. Not only because Heemskerck'ssense of human anatomy as a
jerked mechanism is here especially chilling;and not onlybecause the precision
of the physiologicaldatum, favoredby utmostproximity,overwhelmsthe sym-
bolic purpose. Heemskerck's iconic vision transgressesbecause the pictorial
economy is thrownoffbalance by the genital symbol. Inordinatelyaffectivein
psychic impact, it remains exiguous on the scale of the picture-one either
misses it, or sees nothingelse; so that the failureis ultimatelya failureof art.
I have dwelled on this"failure,"perhaps unfairly,in order to set up a con-
trastwith a resounding success. By the mid-15thcentury,an acceptable cir-
cumvention of the prohibited member had been devised in Northernart--a
diversionthatspares what is midmostby fanningout; a potentsynecdochethat
celebrates the thing covered in the magnificencebestowed on the covering: I
mean the enhanced loincloth of Christ on the cross.

Fig. 99. RobertCampin (?), Crucifixion,
c. 1420-40.
As a compositionalartifice,thisbanner loinclothis an inspiredinvention.

It resolves a pictorial problem posed by conventional Crucifixiondesigns-the
problemof vacant flanksin the middle zone ofthe fieldbetweencrossbeam and
horizon. By means of a gorgeousflutterflaringforthfromthe center,the blanks
are repletedand animated; and so felicitousis the solution that its aptness on
grounds otherthan formalhas never been challenged. No one has questioned
the wisdom of making such pageantry of a breechcloth; or grudged its tur-

Fig. 100. Rogervan derWeyden,Crucifixion,
c. 1450.
bulence as a wind gauge where no breath is stirring;nor its plausibilityin a

narrativethat calls forthe least covering of a victimwhose garmentsare the
coveted loot of his executioners.
The fulldeploymentof thisinvention,as of so many, appears to be due to
Roger van der Weyden (Campin perhaps cooperating; Figs. 99, 100). In
several ofRoger's Crucifixions,
the spare aprons of theearliermastersunfurlinto
flyingbanners, buoyed up by an indwellingbreeze where all else is becalmed.
By 1500, these streamers winging the sacred loins glorifymost German
crucifixes(Figs. 101-04, 222-25)--often over-abundantly,as if less were Ikse
majeste.Yet, ostensibly,still a loincloth. Only the inherentmetaphoricityof
Renaissance realismcould exalt thishumblestof garmentsto such efflorescence,
and convertthe ostentatiogenitalium decentlyinto a fanfareof cosmic triumph. XXXV

1503.
Fig. 101. Lucas Cranach, Crucifixion,

Above left: Fig. 102. Diirer, Christon the
Cross,1505.
Above right: Fig. 104. Hans Baldung Grien,

Christon theCross,c. 1515.
Fig. 103. Master D.S., Crucifixion,

c. 1505-10.

96 OCTOBER
In the undisguised formof the ostentatio, the groin of the adult Christ is
directlytouched. Such action is found in fourdistinctsituations. In the firstof
these- scenes of ChristShownto thePeople- it is exceedinglyrare, but one out-
standing instance is a mid-16th-centuryItalian masterpiece by Moretto da
Brescia (Fig. 105). Moretto treatsthe historicmoment of the Ecce Homo as an
ahistoricdevotional image - more like a Man of Sorrows. It is a sternpicture:a
stairwayleads up to a loggia; at its footlies the cross, less than lifesize,but for
an attributelarge enough. At the stairhead, a winged weeping angel exhibits
the seamless garmentof Christ; and the Condemned himselfunder his crown
of thorns,seated low with tied hands, the reed between the fingersof his left
hand, while his rightpresses against the groin. This pressure and the fixityof
his outrightglance comprise all his action.
Surprisinglyconstant is the gesture of the self-touchin many-figured
scenes of Entombmentor Lamentation. That the lay of the hand in these in-
stances is not less than a "gesture"seems to me undeniable, since no stir of
limbs in Christ's body, whetherdoing or suffering,can be other than willed.
This much at least the divine nature in the Incarnation ensures. As the incar-
nate Word deigned to gestate in a virginwomb and exited withoutgiving in-
jury; as Christ ascended the cross and therespread his arms in worldwideem-
brace; as in his death, laid on his mother'slap, he gentlyfingersa fold of her
garment, and, entombed, will resist corruption, so also his disposition of
XXXVI hands, even in death, is at all times volitional and heuristic. Medieval and
Renaissance artists understood that the hands of the dead Christ will not
plunge where the livingdivinitywould refrain.Yet in theirimages of the after-
math of the Passion, Christ's hand falls again and again on the genitals--in
small-scale illuminations, in painted altarpieces, in monumental sculptural
groups.
The motifcan be traced back to the 1330s. In one early instance (Fig.
106), it seems interpretableas a modest safeguard,since the painterhas chosen
to leave Christ's ample loincloth transparent. (Cf. the "Christus pudicus" in
14th-centuryBaptisms,discussed in Excursus XIV.) Expressions of modesty
may stillbe intendedin certainilluminationsfromthe late 14thcentury,where
eitherthe motheror an attendantpleurante draws a sheet over the private parts
(Figs. 107, 108). Even in 15th-centuryworks, the modestyexplanation forthe
placement of Christ's own hands would remain plausible if the body lacked
other covering. But in another early instance of the motif(Fig. 109), the loins
of the corpse are draped, as theytend to remain throughoutthe 14th and 15th
centuries; and it must be a motive other than modesty that calls and attracts
attentionto well-hidden pudenda. Say, rather, that an ostensiblyfunctional
gesture is now re-enacted symbolically.
Fig. 105. Morettoda Brescia,EcceHomo,c. 1550.

F-g
Vim,
. ...... .:-:?:-
Wl
P~EjNZ
Is.i

Fig. 106. Rimini School, Lamentation,
c. 1330, detail.
Fig. 107. Illumination fromthe Petites Fig. 108. French illumination,Lamentation,

Heures ofJean de Berry, Entombment, c. 1400.
c. 1380-85.

Fig. 109. French, Entombment,
c. 1330.
Fig. 110. Alberto di Betto da Assisi, Lamentation,

c. 1421.

100 OCTOBER
This is manifestlythe case in such sculpturalgroups as our Fig. 110, and

in Fouquet's illuminationsand othercontemporaneousmanuscripts(Figs. 111,
112).92 Thereafter,the dead Christ's hand on the loincloth,sometimestensed
to a vital grasp, is found over and over in both Italian and Northernworks
(Figs. 113, 114, 228-31). We have noted the action as well in a drawingby An-
drea del Sarto (Fig. 3), and are probably meant to recognize it in a sketchby
Pontormo.93Only fromthe latter16thcenturyonward does the gesturegradu-
ally fade fromthe repertoire:in the canonic Catholic imagery of the Wierix
brothersof Antwerpa self-touchinghand is unthinkable,thoughit survivesin
92. The FouquetshopLamentation reproducedbelow(Fig. 112) is a copyoftheillumination

for
Vespersin theHoursofEtienneChevalier(c. 1452-61,Chantilly,MusdeConde); theEmbalming
placed at Complinein thesame Hours, again displaysthegroin-touching
ofChrist, gesture.
93. Florence,Uffizi300F; see Janet Cox Rearick, The Drawingsof Pontormo, Cambridge,
Mass., 1964,fig.105.
7xl
i...............
-i
:iiij:iii:i:~ii
iiJf~:i
Iftf?
1*
M4100"t
VM
:-I:I
mown
mmmm
mww
Fig. 111. GuillaumeVrelant(?), illumination, Lamen-

Fig. 112. Fouquet Shop illumination,
c. 1454.
Entombment, tation,c. 1470.

Fig. 113. Master of the 2ebrik Lamentation,
Lamentation,c. 1505.
c. 1535-40.
Fig. 114. Jan van Scorel, Lamentation,

Fig. 115. Ribera,Entombment,
c. 1630.
rare instanceseven into the 17thcentury(Figs. 115, 232, 233). In Ribera's En-
tombment at the Louvre-of which we know several replicas-Christ's left-
handed motioncannot be meant simplyto steady the knotof the loincloth;the
act is demonstrativeand it is grievous, like the dead Christ's showing of his
XXXVII stigmata.94
In earlier Renaissance representationsof the deposed body, the groin-
searching hand occurs as well on a monumental scale. Often in lifesizecom-
posite sculpturesof the Entombment- in groups known as the Holy Grave,
widely disseminated through French, North Italian, and Germanic regions
duringthe 15thand early 16thcenturies- thispatheticreach is the last physical
act assigned to the Crucified(Figs. 116, 117). The gestureis too pointed and
too oft-repeatedto disregard,or to dismiss as a veristicportrayalof what dying
men are said to do in theirthroes.Whethernormal or not in actual death situa-
tions, a dead man's hand cupping his genitalsformsno part of standard icono-
graphic traditions.We findno such posture on the Dying Gauls of Pergamene
94. For replicas of Ribera's painting, see Nicola Spinosa, L'operacompletadel Ribera(Classici
dell'Arte,97), Milan, 1981, no. 38; to which should be added the 19th-centuryengravingbyJoa-
quin Luque Rosell6 (reprod. in Luis Alegre Nufiez, Real Academiade Bellas Artesde San Fernando:
Nacional, Madrid, 1968, no. 55, fig. 4) and an unrecorded 17th-century
Catdlogode la Calcografi'a
(?) painted copy at the Seminary of St. Charles Borromeo in Overbrook, Pennsylvania.

The Sexuality
of Christ 103
sculpture;nothinglike it among thefelledcombatantsof Baroque battlescenes;

or in Mathew Brady's Civil War photographs; nor in the thousands of actors
and extraswho feigndeath in the movies. Civilian corpses, fromplague victims
to heroes, likewiseavoid the gesture- except only certaintomb figureshoused
in sanctifiedspaces. And these are of a date well past the inventionofthe motif.
The gesturein its originbeforethe mid-14thcenturyis properonly to represen-
tationsof Christ,and forsome sixtyyears to none other. Only by the end of the
14th centurydo we see it adapted to representationsof Adam, and to high- XXXVIII
dying princes and prelates whose tomb effigiesrehearse Christ'sown posture.
Fig. 116. French,Entombment,

c..1450-1500.
c. 1540-54.
Fig. 117. GermainPilon Shop, Entombment,

Fig. 119. French,Pieth,15thcentury.
To me it now seems that the dead Christ touchinghis groin is visualized

in the totalityof a promise fulfilled.His Passion completed, he points back to
its beginning,much as his blood runs fromthe last wound back to the first- as
ifto say, consummatum est.In thejoining of firstand last, the Passion is brought
to perfection.95
And we need look forno othermeaning when we encounterthe gesturein
NorthernPieta groups of the 15thcentury(Figs. 118, 119, 234-38). In rare in-
stances, it is the Madonna's hand that restson the loincloth- in reminiscence
perhaps of Mary's role as protectressofJesus' infancy(Fig. 121). But whether
the act is performedby the motheror by the livinggodhead in the corpse of the
Son, or jointly by both (Fig. 120), its sign character is apparent.
95. An operation is feltto be perfectwhen the span frombeginning to end collapses in unity.
Thus St. Bonaventure on the perfectionwroughtby the Incarnation (Breviloquium, IV, 1, p. 144):
"What more suitable act of wisdom than to bring the universe to full perfectionby uniting the
First and the last: the Word of God, origin of all things, and the human creature, last to be
made." Cf. also n. 65 above.
Fig. 118. French,Pieth,c. 1400.

Fig. 120. Upper Bavarian, Pietbi,c. 1490. Fig. 121. Flemish, Pietaz,c. 1510-20.

Fig. 122. AfterRoger van der Weyden,
Throne ofGrace,1443.
A sign it remains in a 15th-centuryFlemish subgroup ofthe typewe know

as the Trinity,or Throne of Grace. Normally, in these visionaryimages, the
Second Person is posed upright,indicatingwiththe righthand the last wound
received. But the works I have in mind differfromthe more common type in
directingthe Father'slefthand to the Son's groin(Figs. 122, 123, 243-46). Like
the symbolic "blood hyphen," the two pointing hands span the Alpha and
Omega of the Passion, the ostentatio genitaliumcomplementingthe requisite
ostentatio
vulnerum.We are shown once more that the incarnateWord died as a
full-fraughtman, triumphantover both sin and death; his sexualityvanquished
XXXIX by chastity,his mortalityby Resurrection.

Fig. 123. Swabian, Throne
ofGracewith
Saints,c. 1480.
There is somethingdisquietingin these presentations;and this leads me,

hesitantly,to a final reflectionof the kind I have sought to avoid. It will not
have escaped the reader that my discussion has leftout of account all psycho-
logical considerations; such factorsas may operate in the Christologicalcreed
itself,and such psychicdeterminantsas may have influencedindividual artists.
As to the first,I gladly leave it to studentsof disciplinesotherthan mine. Nor
am I inclinedto speculate on the innermotivesof painterswho chose to involve
the sexualityof Christ in theiriconography.If personal or subconscious drives
motivated this or that artistin his approach to the Christ theme, these drives
were ultimatelysubordinated to his conscious grasp of the subject, since the
treatmenthe accorded the subject must be compatible withthe liturgicalfunc-
tion which the work was to serve- often as a commissioned altarpiece in a
place of public worship. And monumentalimages of the Trinitywere certainly
destined foraltars. Their meaning, as I understandit, was to give visible form
to a climacticliturgicalmoment, the moment of the petitionin the rite of the
Roman Mass when, at thetransubstantiationoftheEucharisticspecies into the
sacramental body of Christ, that body sacrificedis offeredto the Father with
prayers for its acceptance. The Throne of Grace, as the Apostle called it
(Hebrews 4:16), is the idea of the sacrificedSon in his acceptabilityto the
Father. Visualized as the triunegodhead enrichedby the humanityof the Sec-
ond Person, it had been a familiartheme since the 12th century.
But what makes the images I am citingrare and psychologicallytroubling
is the Father's intrusive gesture, his unprecedented acknowledgmentof the
Son's loins. Nothing in received iconographysanctions it; and common intui-
tion proscribesit.Joyce'sStephen Dedalus speaks of the steadfastbodily shame

108 OCTOBER
by whichsons and fathersare sundered.96 He perceivedtheirseverance,the

distancingoftheirpersonsthroughshameofbody,as thewayofall flesh.And
preciselythisshamecavesin nowbeforeoureyes.Naturaldistancecollapsesin
this coalitionof Persons whereinthe divine Father'sonly-begotten is (as
theologyhas it) a virgin,virginallyconceived;enfleshed,sexed,circumcised,
sacrificed,and so restoredto theThroneofGrace; theresymbolizing notonly
the aboriginalunityof the godhead,but in its moredramatic,more urgent
message,a conciliationwhichstandsforthe atonement,thebeing-at-one, of
man and God. For thisatonement,on whichhingestheChristianhope ofsal-
vation,NorthernRenaissanceart foundthe painfullyintimatemetaphorof
the Father'shand on thegroinofthe Son; breachinga universaltaboo as the
symbolofreconcilement.
fittest Such a symbolcan onlyhave sprungfroman
artistattunedto thedeep undertowofhis feelings.And it would notsurprise
me ifitsoriginator turnedout to be, once again, Rogervan derWeyden.It is
perhaps more surprisingthata handfulof painters,engravers,and carvers
understoodthe metaphorwell enough to adopt and to imitateit- before
everybodywas educated into incomprehension.But this incomprehen-
sion- the"oblivion"to whichthetitleofthisessayrefers - is profound,
willed,
and sophisticated.It is the price paid by the modernworldforits massive
historicretreatfromthemythicalgroundsofChristianity.
A fewwordsmore.The fieldI have triedto enteris unmapped,and un-

safe,and morefar-reaching thanappearsfrommypresentvantage.Much of
whatI have said is conjecturaland surelydue forrevision.I can hardlyclaim,
as St. Bernarddoes in closinghiseighty-second sermonon theSong ofSongs:
"We need have no regretsforanything we have said; it is all supportedby un-
questionedand absolutetruth."But I have riskedhypothetical interpretations
chieflyto show that, whetherone looks with the eye of faithor with a
mythographer's cool, the fullcontentof the icons discussedbears lookingat
withoutshying.And perhapsfromone further motive:to remindtheliterate
among us thatthere are moments, even in a wordyculturelike ours, when
images from
start no preformed program to become primarytexts.Treatedas
ofwhatis alreadyscripted,theywithholdtheirsecrets.
illustrations
96. Ulysses,Episode IX (Random House ed., p. 205): "They are sundered by a bodily shame
so steadfastthat the criminal annals of the world, stained with all other incests and bestialities
hardly record its breach."

Excursuses
I. Whether the subject exists a thousand; and it keeps expanding,

because the material abounds.
The terms "Christ" and "sexuality"are
normally felt to be irreconcilable, and
rightly so; sin, absent in one, but in- II. Whether the subject ought to
criminatingthe other, keeps them apart. be publicized
Therefore, the claim that they do come
togetherin Renaissance painting arouses More surprising than the forthright
vigorous disbelief.And ifthe proofis said treatment of the ostentatiomotif in the
to reside in the pictures, the hearer works reproduced is the fact that they
assumes that those pictures must be ex- escaped subsequent censorship.Normally,
ceptional. Such initial resistance gives such passages in Renaissance pictures
way--as I have found repeatedly in would have been retouched sooner or
private sessions withskeptics- only to the later: a loincloth insinuated under the
cumulative impact of number. This is mother's hand sufficedto convert a de-
why no less than 123 pictures are re- monstrativeact into a posture of common
produced in the text of this essay and as modesty. Down to the 1930s, dealers, col-
many again in the back pages, with many lectors, and public museums feltbound to
more cited in reference. How such expurgate paintings that would otherwise
superfluityis received depends less on the have seemed unfitto exhibit(see Excursus
person than on the progress of persua- XXXI below). Apparently, the offending
sion. Readers in theirskepticalphase will featureswere viewed eitheras marks of ir-
think half a hundred instances still too religion on the part of the artist, out of
few. And once conviction has taken hold, place where the subject was sacred; or
more than six is too much. else, as if the characters representedhad
But the glut of the evidence is essential. been caught off-guardin awkward mo-
It helps establish the subject as one con- ments of privacy. Either way, it was
cerned not with idiosyncrasies,but with a wrong to look-which explains why any-
major phenomenonin historicChristianity. one giving the matter his full attention
The present archive of Renaissance im- falls under instantsuspicion. Can his mo-
ages whereinthe emphasis on the genitalia tives be sound? "Why are you interested
of Christ is assertiveand centralruns near in this?" is often the firstquestion asked,

110 OCTOBER
promptedby fear of that "impious curios-

ity"which the Doctors of the Church have
so roundly condemned. Then let me
quote St. Bonaventure addressing a fel-
low religious: "Imprudentinvestigations,"
he writes, "are displeasing to . . . good
brothers,and to God, and to his angels.
But I would wish that you and I may .
detestno more than we should, nor things
that should not be detested" (Letterto an
UnknownMaster, VIII, 335; quoted in
Bougerol, Bonaventure,p. 8).
III. On the dignityof the touched

chin
What I have summarilycalled the chin- Fig. 125. Drawing afterArchaic Greek
Achilles,600-550
shield relief,Priambefore B.C.
chuck should be understood to include
any reachingfor,any touching,fingering,
pinching,caressing, cupping, or clasping;
so long as the target is constant (Figs.
7-12, 124-28). The hand at, under, or
approaching the chin is what counts, and
it counts heavily in received iconography.
Fig. 124. Egyptian relief,RamsesIII Fig. 126. Archaic Greek vase painting,
and Concubine,XIX Dynasty. TheseusWooingAriadne,700-650 B.c.

Robert Herrick had serious love play in
mind when he wrote: "Love makes the
cheek and chin a sphere to dance and play
in." But the lines were composed before
the mid-17th century, at the expiring
end of an ancient tradition. Thereafter,
for reasons difficultto assess, the chin-
oriented gesture rapidly loses status.
For some years past, I have kept a note
of every delivered chin-chuckin my read-
ing: fromGuzmandeAlfarache (1599-1604)
and Pepys' Diary(1664), throughSwiftand
Fielding and George Eliot to Joyce and
Proust. And there is not one in this ran-
Fig. 127. French mirrorcase, LoversRiding dom haul but conveys some tang of
to theHunt, c. 1320-40. nastiness, coarseness, or condescension.
To unpack the collection here would be
wasteful.Let it sufficethatthe chin-chuck
as a symbolicformhas suffereda gradual
debasement since the 17th century. It
may still befitchildren, giving or getting
it; but between adults, a chin-chuck ad-
ministeredby man to woman is patroniz-
ing, faintly demeaning - and implies
something of mockerywhen the receiver
is male. Modern lovers, it seems, do not
localize erotic fantasies at the chin; and
what had been a mature lovers' gambit in
medieval and Renaissance practice has
come to look comical. Therefore, any bid
to sublimate or to sacralize the chin-chuck
motifin the iconographyof devotional art
must seem misdirected.
And yet, the woman touching the chin
of a man may be, in an early 16th-century
engraving, the disconsolate Virgin squat-
ting by the corpse of her son (Veit Stosz,
Lehrs 3; cf. the mid-14th-centuryBohe-
mian Pieta' by the Hohenfurt Master,
Schiller, Iconography, II, fig. 605). And
the reciprocal chin-chuck observable on
French children's playgrounds ("Je te
tiens, / Tu me tiens / par la barbichette;/
Le premier/ qui rira / aura une tapette")
may, in medieval art, stand for the
highest good, the summumbonum:at the
Fig. 128. Cologne School, Madonnawiththe

Sweet-peaBlossom,c. 1410.

Fig. 129. Upper Rhenish illumination,Death oftheVirgin,1250-1300.
Virgin's death, her soul's nuptial union p. 331, no. L6). On the otherhand, some
with Christ findsexpression in a mutual recent observers have begun to see the
touching of chins (Fig. 129). The gravity chin-chuckas a functioningpart of Chris-
of the gesture in such adult moments has tian symbolism (see Steinberg, "Met-
gone unnoticed, perhaps because alloca- aphors," pp. 280-83). Hans Wentzel's
tion to the ChristChild had conceptualized discussion of the Sponsa-Sponsus image
it as typical infantbehavior. in a 12th-centuryillustration of Can-
Emile M le (1949) had seen only "win- Umfangendes Kinns"-
ticlesinterprets"das
some childishness" in theyoungChrist's"ca- the claspingof a woman's chin- as Christ's
ress of his mother'schin" (aimablesenfan- expression of love for the human soul
tillages;see Excursus XVII); and a major ("Die ikonographischenVoraussetzungen
1972 exhibitioncatalogue of medieval art der Christus-Johannes-Gruppeund das
still reads the gesture as "illustratingan Sponsa-Sponsus-Bilddes Hohen Liedes," in
evolution toward humanization and Heilige Kunst:Jahrbuchdes Kunstvereinsder
tenderness"(Rhin-Meuse:Artet Civilisation DioizeseRottenburg,
Stuttgart,1952, p. 11).
800-1400, Cologne and Brussels, 1972, And the authorof the"Maria-Sponsus"en-

tryin Kirschbaum'sLexikon(1970) remarks embrace"). The words were understood to

that,in small French Bibles since the mid- refer to the consummation of physical
13th century,Song of Songs illustrations love as a figurefor the spiritual. Origen
depictingtheVirgin and Child show thein- (d. c. 254), settingthe course for all sub-
fantembracingthe mother,"or unitedwith sequent Christian interpretationsof Can-
her in a gesture of tenderness perhaps ticles, weaves back and forthbetween the
interpretablein a bridal sense (e.g., the literal sense and the mystic:
Child touching the mother's chin)"; see
His lefthand is under my head, and
Dorothee von Burgsdorffin Lexikonder
his righthand shall embrace me. The
christlichenIkonographie,ed. Engelbert
picture before us in this drama of
Kirschbaum, II, Rome, etc., 1970, col. love is that of the Bride hastening
309.
to consummate her union with the
It is the context of Song of Songs il-
lustrations that provides the clue. The Bridegroom. But turn with all speed
to the life-givingSpirit and, eschew-
adaptation of the old lovers' ploy to Chris-
tian art was, I suggest,mandated by Can- ing physicalterms,consider carefully
what is the lefthand of the Word of
ticles 2:6 (repeated in 8:3). I referto the
God, what the right; also what His
words "his lefthand is under my head and
Bride's head is--the head, that is to
his right hand shall embrace me" (Laeva
eius sub capitemeo,/ Et dextera say, of the perfect soul or of the
illius amplex-
Church; and do not sufferan inter-
abiturme).
To these words, the Middle Ages pretationthathas to do withthe flesh
and the passions to carry you away
assigned the sublimest role. In the apse
mosaic of Sta. Maria in Trastevere, (Origen, Song of Songs, p. 200; Pat.
Rome (before 1143), where Christ and gr., 13, cols. 162-63).
the Madonna throne side by side as con- Further on, Origen writes: "Here the
sortsin heaven, Mary displays a scroll in- Church that is the Bride begs her
scribed withthisverse. And forSt. Aelred Bridegroom who is the Word of God to
of Rievaulx (d. 1167), these same words support her head with His lefthand, but
point the climax of the unitive mysticex- with His righthand to embrace the whole
perience,when soul and God meet directly: of her, and hold her body fast."
"All earthly affections being put to Explicit testimonythat the words "left
slumber, and all worldly desires and hand under my head" signifycoitus comes
thoughtssilenced, [the soul] takes its joy from Jerome. Expounding a verse in
only in the kiss of Christ and rests in his Daniel (2:34), which speaks mysteriously
embrace, exulting and saying: 'His left of a "stone cut out of a mountain without
hand is under my head, and his right hands," Jerome sees in it a prophecy of
hand shall embrace me"' (quoted from Christ "born a virgin of a virgin," and
Pat. lat., 195, col. 673, in Perella, TheKiss adds: "'Hands' is, of course, to be
Sacredand Profane,p. 61). understood of the marital act, as in the
How was this action visualized, and verse His lefthand is undermyheadand his
what did the exegetes make of the text's righthandshall embracem'e"(Epistle XXII,
primary sense? Here we need not be of 19; Jerome, Letters,p. 151). This literal
two minds, for the reading of the verse, reading holds in the Expositioin canticacan-
then as now, was unequivocal (see Pope, ticorum of the Venerable Bede, who would
AnchorBible, p. 384: "This verse needs lit- have the lovers in a lectulus,or small bed
tle explication"--it applies ". . . to sexual (Pat. lat., 91, col. 1105). Likewise in the

114 OCTOBER
famous commentary of Honorius of bridegroom, the Word? Does that

Autun (early 12th century), the first,or which is called the word of man have
literal, reading of the verse has the "true within it separate bodily parts. .. ?
King" reclining on the Bride's couch; All the more does he who is God and
which is no sooner said than Honorius the Word of God not admit diversity
proceeds to explain that the nuptial act of any kind. .... For he is the
here refers to the Word's espousal of wisdom of God, of whom it is writ-
human nature in the Incarnation, and ten: his wisdom is beyond number-
also to Christ's marriage with the Church ing. But . . . we speak as well as we
(Expositio in cantica canticorum,Pat. lat., can of that which we do our best to
172, col. 585). understand, ... taught by the au-
St. Bernard, in the fifty-first of his thorityof the Fathers and the usage
eighty-six sermons on the Song of Songs, of the scripturesthat it is lawful to
is more forthcoming: appropriate suitable analogies from
the things we know.. .(Sermon
"His- left arm under my head, his
LI, 7, pp. 45-46).
rightarm will embrace me". ... It is
clearthatthebridegroomhas returned Were such "analogies from the things
forthe purpose of comfortingthe dis- we know" equally suitable to the visual
tressed bride by his presence... arts? Preachers and exegetes dealing with
And because he found that during words had an easier time of it. They could
his absence she had been faithfulin assert that the verse under discussion- at
good works . . . he returnsthis time the first of its four levels of mean-
with an even richerreward of grace. ing-denoted a couple embraced in re-
As she lies back he cushions her head clining position in the marital act; then
on one of his arms, embracing her swiftlyunsex the image into abstraction.
with the other, to cherish her at his But what dodge was available to an artist
bosom. Happy the soul who reclines who had to present that amorous symbol
on the breast of Christ, and restsbe- in a code grounded in physicality;whose
tween the arms of the Word! "His left Bride had to be drawn concrete, formed
arm under my head, his right arm as a woman, yet without the umbrage of
will embrace me" (Sermon LI, 5; Jerome's nuptial act, or the Bernardine
Bernard, SongofSongs,p. 44). "lying back with the head cushioned on
one of his arms"? In the 12th-century
Bernard returns to the theme in the
mosaic at Sta. Maria in Trastevere, the
following sermon (p. 49): "her tender seated Sponsa receives Christ's right-
bridegroom supports her head on his left armed embrace on her shoulders, but
arm, as has already been said, that she
despite the full verse spelled out on her
may relax and sleep on his breast." The scroll, the left-hand action of Christ is
reading of the ambiguous Latin laeva eius omitted: clearly unfitfor representation.
("his left") as "arm," rather than "hand," Fortunately,art has other resources. In
enables Bernard to envisage the action as
a 12th-centuryillumination from Salz-
a marital embrace in reclining position.
But as he continues he hastens to subtilize burg, the female figure,identifiedby the
laevaeius inscription,waftstoward the en-
what he had just made concrete:
throned Bridegroom, whose left hand
What more are we to think the left gropes chinward along her cheek (fron-
hand and the right are for the tispiece to an Honorius of Autun manu-

scriptvolume, Munich, BayerischeStaats-
:..........
bibliothek, ms. lat. 4450, fol. Iv; see
Reiner Haussherr, Die ZeitderStaufer, exh. iNil
cat., Wiirttembergisches Landesmuseum,
Stuttgart, 1977, I, no. 740, for descrip-
tion and citation of literature).
In the celebrated colored Dutch block-
book of Song of Songs illustrations(1465;
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek),
the Bride and Bridegroom, canopied by a
banderole bearing the laevaeius verse, act
out the same scriptural moment, not
however in accord with exegetical inter-
pretation,but afteran alternativemodel:
the crowned Sponsa rests head and arms
on the knees of the seated Sponsus; his Fig. 130. French, initial "O" froma Can-
ticles manuscript, Christand Ecclesia,c. 1200.
right hand embraces her shoulders, his
lefthand is under her head - at the chin.
In my hypothesis the artists resort to
the ancient formula of the touched
chin-already allegorized via Cupid and
Psyche- to convey the lovers' tryst
without the bedding down prescribed in
the literal commentary on Canticles. In
other words, they use the chin-chuck as
metaphor-as a visual text with both
literal and mysticalconnotation. Passing
between Christ and the Virgin, the
gesture becomes an all-purpose sign for
the love bond between Christ and Mary-
Ecclesia, between Christ and the soul, the
Logos and human nature. Needless to
say, not every artistpondered the textual
background or the theological implica-
tions of the chin-chuck; some assigned it
to the righthand instead of the left. But
all must have known that they were
wielding a symbol, no matter how
naturalized in appearance. The following
three reproductions (Figs. 130-32) il-
lustrate works dating from c. 1200, c.
1410, and c. 1565. Each is precise in
representingthe Virgin withChrist'sright
hand embracing and his chinward left
"under her head."
Fig. 131. Master of Heiligenkreuz, Madonna

and Child,c. 1410.

Fig. 132. Luca Cambiaso, Madonna and Child,c. 1565.

IV. Irreligious alternatives "nothing remarkable, since it is not un-

common fora grandmotherto diaper her
Under the influenceof Carl Koch, one baby grandchild."
other commentaryon Baldung's "scandal-
ous" woodcut entered the literature:Jean
Wirth's "Sainte Anne est une sorciere," V. Concerning the practice of
Bibliothiqued'Humanismeet Renaissance,40 fondlinga man-child'sgenitalia
(1978), pp. 449-80. Wirth accepts Koch's
reading of St. Anne's gesture as a "con- In the interestof maximizingfecundity,
juration," but he does not thinkit benign. the great anatomist, Gabriello Fallopio (c.
He believes the printto be an instrument 1523-62) thought it necessary to ad-
of derision, directed against the growing monish parents and nurses to "be zealous
popularity of the cult of St. Anne. That in infancyto enlarge the penis of a boy"
his interpretationputs the Madonna in (see A. Comfort, in The AnxietyMakers,
collusion witha wicked old sorceressgives London, 1967, p. 94). But if such zeal
him no qualm. As he sees it, the two was ever endemic in Western Christen-
women exploit the inattentionof the nod- dom, it has not been so recorded in visual
ding St. Joseph to play the boy a mean documents- excepting only and para-
trickthat will condemn him forlifeto en- doxically in the instance of Christ, the
forced chastity. And this hypothesis Ever-virgin.And yet Aries adduces Hans
strikesWirth as the more plausible, since Baldung's woodcut for its supposed docu-
Jesus did in factdie prematurely,leaving mentary value. His (inaccurate) descrip-
no progeny. ("Les deux femmesluijouent tion of it reads as follows: "St. Anne's
'
un mauvais tour qui le condamnera une behavior strikesus as extremelyodd - she
chastete forcee. . . . Comme le Christ est is pushing the child's thighsapart as ifshe
mort prematurement. . . et qu'il ne fut wanted to get at its privy parts and tickle
pas gratifi6par le ciel d'une prog6niture, them. It would be a mistake to see this as
la seconde hypothese [the hypothesis of a piece of ribaldry"(Centuriesof Childhood,
the malignant spell] vient plus naturelle- p. 103). For further discussion of this
ment a l'esprit." No wonder Wirth is "widespread tradition"(Aries), see Lloyd
astonished to findthat the artistresponsi- deMause, "The Evolution of Childhood,"
ble for this "explicit blasphemy" escaped Historyof ChildhoodQuarterly,1 (1974),
burning, or even censure. p. 507, and especially Elizabeth W. Mar-
The glosses of Wirth and Koch are vick, "Childhood History and Decisions
cited here because, until 1981, no others of State: The Case of Louis XIII," in The
were offered.And the maturer approach New Psychohistory, ed. Lloyd deMause,
embodied in the 1981 Baldung exhibition New York, 1975, pp. 213-14. The latter
catalogue (Marrow/Shestack,Hans Baldung paper deals with the infancyof the future
Grien, no. 21, p. 129) still contends Louis XIII, as recorded in the diary of his
against a naturalism deeply entrenched. physician, Dr. Heroard. We learn that
One scholar suggested that the Christ when the Dauphin was a year old, he reg-
Child, as almost the only infantcharacter ularly touched and exposed himself, and
in Renaissance art, must necessarily be invited handling, etc. But the record of
the repository of whatever observations these proceedings was locked in a doctor's
artists make about infant behavior. diary; no artist in 1602 would have de-
Another sought to explain St. Anne's for- picted the Dauphin in such extremity.
wardness as an "optical illusion"; or as The question remains: Why the Christ?

118 OCTOBER
VI. More on the Baldung Grien VII. Who needs God's divinity
woodcut proved?
Any purelysecular reading of St.Anne's The constant in the orthodox creed is
forward gesture in Baldung's woodcut the union of Christ's two natures; but the
must be misguided if only because it de- emphasis shifts,depending on the polemi-
fectsfromthe context.That contextallows cal needs of the moment. Thus the early
no loose ends. Everythingin the artist's Church Fathers were emphatic about the
design takes part in a coherent symbolic divinity in the historical Jesus. St.
program, fromthe gravityof the persons Augustine confessed that before his con-
depicted to each prop and action: the version he was only thinkingof "Christ as
book and posture of Joseph; the Child's of a man of excellentwisdom, to whom no
reach forthe Virgin's chin; the solicitude man could be equaled. . . . But what
of St. Anne and, finally, the dead tree mysterytherewas in 'the Word was made
hosting a vigorous vine. This lifeless flesh,' I could not even imagine" (Con-
stump with its undulant contour and its fessions,VII, 19). Elsewhere he writes:
locus at the rightmargin is close kin to the "We have refuted the folly of those
paradisal tree in Baldung's Fall of Man who . . . refuse to worship [Christ] as
woodcut of the same year (1511). But God, but whom, nevertheless,they.
whereas, in the Fall of Man, the Edenic pronounce worthyto be honored as a man
tree was entwinedwitha serpentineSatan far surpassing other men in wisdom"
rising in leftwardcoils, it is a rectifying (Harmonyof the Gospels,II, prologue, p.
freshvine that mounts the dry trunkbe- 102). And again: "This is precisely what
hind St. Anne. If Baldung knew what he constitutesunbelief,that Christ is held to
was doing, he also knew that, according be withoutany divinitywhatsoever"(Ser-
to legend, the Tree of Life planted in mon IX, 2 [Ben. 191]; Sermons,p. 108).
Eden was predestinedto yield its wood to But how was the divinity of Christ
the cross. Thus, in the St. Anne wood- argued, how was skepticism to be over-
cut- whose subject is nothing less than come? Apologists such as St. Irenaeus
the Incarnation- the vine as reference argued from the saving effectof Christ's
to the Passion is already in place on the ministryand redemptivedeath upon hu-
lignumvitae.(Cf. on this point, Marrow/ man guilt, since no one but God could
Shestack, Hans Baldung Grien, no. 21, forgive sins against God. (For St. Ire-
p. 129, where, however, the vine-Christ naeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Ori-
equation is somewhat weakened by a fur- gen on this point, see Pelikan, Christian
ther referenceto the grape vine as a sym- Tradition,I, p. 155.) The logic is irrefu-
bol of St. Anne's fruitfulness.The above table: those who consider themselves ab-
catalogue entryincluded a briefsummary solved know absolutely that only a divine
of my reading--with premature citation agency could have won their acquittal.
of publication. For a similar symbolic Others, notably St. Athanasius (295-
interpretation,see Colin Eisler, "Hans 373), argued the godhead of Christ from
Baldung Grien: An ExhibitionReviewed," the miracles. The Incarnation was neces-
The PrintCollector'sNewsletter, 12 [July- sary, Athanasius explained, in order to
August 1981], p. 69.) refutethreekinds of idolatry:the worship
of nature, the worshipof demons, and the
worship of other men, such as defunct

heroes or ancestors. Christ quashed these 15, 18, 19, pp. 171, 179,
(De incarnatione,
errorsby the miracles he produced in his 181).
manhood, in the course of which he sub- These Early Christian arguments for
dued nature's laws, routed demons, and the godhead of Christ derive fromChrist's
rose fromthe dead, as no man had done inimitable power--whether it be the
before; thereby proving to those who power to control the forces of nature, to
venerated the dead, or demons, or command demons, or to remit Original
nature, that he lorded over them all. Sin. But compare St. Bonaventure. Like
St. Athanasius, the great Franciscan
Because men had turned away from
the contemplation of God . . . and (d. 1274) speculates on "the reason why
the Incarnation of the Word was neces-
were seeking God in creation and
sensible things, and had set up mor- sary":
tal men and demons as gods for When man sinned . . . he fell head-
themselves; for this reason . . . the long into weakness, ignorance, and
WordS of God took to himselfa body malice. . . . He could no longer im-
. orderthatthose who supposed
in itate divine power, behold divine
.
that God was in corporeal things light, or love divine goodness. The
might understand the truthfromthe most perfectway forman to be raised
works which the Lord did through out of his misery was for the first
the actions of his body. . . . If their Principle to come down to man's
minds were preconceived toward level, offeringHimself to him as an
men, so that they supposed them to accessible object of knowledge, love,
be gods, yetwhen theycompared the and imitation. Man, carnal, animal,
works of the Savior withtheirs,it ap- and sensual, could not know, love, or
peared that the Savior alone among imitate anything that was not both
men was the Son of God, since men proportionateand similar to himself.
had no such works as those done by So, in order to raise man out of this
God the Word. . . . [For he] cast out state, the Word was made flesh;that
every illness and disease from men; He might be known and loved and
from which anyone could see his imitated by man who was flesh..
divinity. (Breviloquium, IV, 3, pp. 144-45).
Similarly, Christ confounded the worship Bonaventure worships, but he no
of demons by showing that he could put longer pleads the godhead ofJesus. Argu-
them to flight("for the fact that he comments from Christ's power over nature,
manded demons and cast them out was demons, and death- argumentsby which
not a human deed, but a divine one"); and Athanasius nine hundred years earlier
he dethronedthe dead as objects of adora- had sought to cow skeptics and heretics
tion by himself dying and rising again. into submission- are not adduced. The
Finally, ". . . even at his death ... the "firstPrinciple,"we are told, became man
whole creationwas confessingthathe who so as to put a model of man's own poten-
was known and sufferedin the body was tial withinhis reach. Augustine's fear that
not simplya man, but the Son of God and mere admiration of Christ's human ex-
Savior of all. For the sun turned back, cellence might annul belief in his divinity
and the earth shook, and the mountains is no longer a clear and present danger.
rent . . . and these things showed that To the faithful,the grandeur of God is
Christ who was on thecross was God . ." manifestin his condescension.
sufficiently

120 OCTOBER
And how, we may ask, would a Re- CARO FATTU EST DE VIRGINE
naissance preacher argue the divinity of MA.")--which, he writes,"informsus, if
Christ? The answer seems to be that he up to this point we were in any doubt,
would not, because believers do not need that the altarpiece represents not the
persuasion. Michelangelo said as much in Adoration of the Child, but the Incarna-
a remarkablespeechjustifyingthe relative tion, the mysteryof the word made flesh"
ages of mother and Son in his firstPietah. ("Thoughts on Andrea della Robbia,"
Mary's youthful bloom, he explained, Apollo, 109 [March 1979], pp. 176-97).
mighthave been "ordained by the Divine No predella inscription accompanies
Power to prove to the world the virginity Fra Filippo Lippi's well-knownAdoration
and perpetual purityof the Mother." But, of theChild in Berlin, painted c. 1460 for
he continued, this was "not necessary in the chapel of the Medici Palace in Flor-
the Son, but ratherthe contrary;wishing ence. But this is the work fromwhich the
to show that the Son of God took upon della Robbia relief at La Verna derives,
himselfa true human body subject to all and it encapsulates the doctrineof the In-
the ills of man, excepting only sin, he did carnation in yet greaterfullness.The set-
not allow the divine in him to hold back ting is a dark forest.From rightof center,
the human [emphasis added], but let it the kneeling Virgin looks down on the
run its course and obey its laws..." naked Child. Her stature, despite genu-
(Condivi, p. 26). flection,is undiminished; her mantle, lit
by no natural light, a thin morning blue.
And beneath the hem of her tunic lingers
VIII. Dogma as pictorial subject the Child's straightfoot- Lippi's token of
"whenceness," the sign of the Infant as
It may be too early to speak of a trend, "issue," plained on the floridearth. At the
but during the past decade or so a fair same time, the Child forms the nether
number of Renaissance images have been pole of the upright Trinity. The dove
significantlyretitled. By whatever names sheds its rays down the gaping center,and
they were formerlycalled, their subjects at the summit,God the Father spreads his
have come to be recognized as simply the palms to the Child's measure. Sts. John
Incarnation. Such is Piero di Cosimo's and Bernard attend as witnessesto the In-
altarpiece at the Uffizi,which Mina Bacci carnation.
showed to be not an Immaculate Concep- At least one more painting by Lippi
tion, as used to be thought(L'Opera com- represents the same subject again: the
pleta di Pierodi Cosimo[Classici dell'Arte, Madonna and Child with Two Angelsat the
88], Milan, 1976, no. 33, p. 92). Such Uffizi. A recent analysis by Marilyn
again is a major altarpiece at La Verna, Aronberg Lavin reads it, in the symbolic
an enameled terracottarelief by Andrea mode of the Song of Songs, as a royal
della Robbia dated 1479, recently pub- wedding, wherein Christ, throughMary,
lished by John Pope-Hennessy. The relief takes humanity as his bride ("The Joy of
presents the nude Christ Child laid on a the Bridegroom's Friend," pp. 193-210).
grassy mound, attended by the Madonna A furtherinstance is the late retitlingof
and angels in various attitudesof venera- an altarpiece by Fra Bartolommeo. "Its
tion. "The Adoration of the Child" would subject had been misunderstood,"we read
once have seemed the self-evidentsub- in the 1982 catalogue of Florentineworks
ject. But Pope-Hennessy reads the majus- in the Louvre (Sylvie Beguin, et al., Le
cule legend in the predella ("VERBUM au Louvre,Paris, 1982,
XVIe siecleflorentin

no. 11). Dismissing earlier alternative tion remains conjectural. Following is a

titles("Annunciation," "Immaculate Con- preview of what such a catalogue might
ception"), the author informsus that its contain.
proper subject is "the Incarnation of Discountinginsignia,such as thecrossed
Christ." Candidates equally eligible for nimbus or the attendance of angels and
such renaming- e.g., Botticini'sMadonna supernatural portents, our inventory
and Child with Angels (Fig. 15), or would include signs of instant maturity
Michelangelo's Doni Tondo- readily come nothing short of miraculous. For exam-
to mind. (The case for the Michelangelo ple: a build of Herculean musculature at
tondo was presented during my A. W. the outset of life; or a controlled, athletic
Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, May agility in standing, striding, grasping,
1982, at the National Gallery of Art, etc. Such metaphors of ideality are char-
Washington, D.C.; to be published by acteristicallyItalian. Alternatively,15th-
Princeton University Press.) centuryFlemishpaintings,notablyRoger's
Such pictures project a new ico- (Figs. 22, 52, 138), presentthe Child with
nography that is neithericonic nor narra- distended belly and spindly legs--an ap-
tive, nor linked to any liturgical feast. parent debilitywhich connoisseurs with a
They are historiatedemblems designed to penchant for diagnostics attribute to
enshrinethe centralmysteryof the Creed. rickets;I have heard it said thesepast forty
As Mina Bacci wrote of the Piero di years that those Flemings painted rachitic
Cosimo altarpiece at the Uffizi, they are babies because they didn't know any bet-
direct "visualizations of the dogma." ter. It is, however, more probable thatthe
The incidence of such pictures and the condition of Roger's typical Christ Child
demand which they presuppose confirm symbolizes the state of the newborn, by
the emergence of a specific theological which the precociousness of the Infant is
orientation in the Quattrocento. And rendered the more amazing. ("The births
theirmislabeling in the recentpast reflects of living creatures at firstare ill-shapen,"
an unwittingredistributionof emphasis. wrote Francis Bacon.)
For when the envisioned dogma is called We have come to take precociousness
an Adoration, we are being directed to in the baby Jesus forgranted. His grown-
that which is worshipped, namely the up behavior- the bestowing of blessings,
divinityin the Child; whereas the intent crowns, keys, betrothal rings, and so
of these pictures was to extol the Word's on--these quaint anomalies are familiar
Incarnation. in principle (Figs. 28, 133, 134). But we
This does not mean that the godhead in are continually entertained by the unex-
Christ was to be slighted; only that the pected, as when we find him indicating
evidence forit must come throughthe veil the right word on a page (in Botticelli's
of the flesh,or, as we should say, by way Uffizi Magnificat); or when the Blessed
of naturalism. The familiar effectof this Cardinal Giovanni Dominici (d. 1419)
requirement was the progressive hu- suggeststhatthe Child be shown tracinga
manization of the Christ Child in hem for his mother to sew. ("Iesu profila
Renaissance art. But this should be seen ed essa Madre tal profilocuce"; Regoladel
with itscorollary- the imperativeto offset governodi curafamiliarecompilatadal Beato
that humanization by inventing ever Giovanni Dominici [1403], ed. Donato
subtler intimations of the Infant's Salvi, Florence, 1860, pt. IV, p. 131;
divinity- inventions that deserve to be englished in Creighton E. Gilbert, Italian
catalogued, even where their interpreta- Art 1400-1500.: Sources and Documents,

Fig. 133. Lorenzo Lotto, MysticMarriageofSt. Catherine,1523.
Fig. 134. Cesare Magni, Madonna and Child withSaints,c. 1530.

The Sexuality
of Christ 123
Englewood Cliffs,N.J., 1980, p. 145. An

earlier German translation is intriguing,
but unfortunatelyuntenable: it would
have the Child furnishthe drawing which
his motheruses as an embroiderypattern;
see P. Augustin R6sler, KardinalJohannes
DominicisErziehungslehre. . . , Freiburg i.
Br., 1894, p. 26-"wie Jesus zeichnet,
wThrend die Mutter selbst nach der
Zeichnung stickt.")
We come upon more surprises in
studying the Child Jesus' diet, his com-
panionships, his playthings,and pastimes
(Figs. 78, 135, 136). But most deserving
of itemizationis the themeof prolepsis- a
future tense in the grammar of visual
representationwhose origins lie in antiq-
uity: an infant Hercules holding the ap- Fig. 135. Style ofJoos van Cleve, Christ
ples of the Hesperides is the figureof him ChildEating Grapes,c. 1515.
who will steal the apples. The phenome-
non was noted by Bernard Schweitzer in
discussing the helmet of Menelaus, deco-
rated with anachronisticreferencesto the
hero's subsequent peregrinations: "The draw it away from the lamb, that sacri-
journeys of Menelaus fall into the period ficial animal which signifiesthe Passion."
after the conquest of Troy. How then The same writer described another of
could he, on the plains of Ilium, be wear- Leonardo's pictures: ". . . a Madonna
ing a helmet which alludes to these trav- seated, and at work with a spindle, while
els? But it is a familiar experience, the infant Christ . . . looks with wonder
confirmedover and over, that antique art at fourrays of lightthat fallin the formof
readily used this kind of prolepsis for the a cross, as ifwishingforthem"(Fra Pietro
characterizationof figures"("Das Original da Novellara, writing to Isabella d'Este;
der Pasquino Gruppe," Abhandlungen der see Ludwig Goldscheider, Leonardo da
siichsischenAkademie,1936, p. 109). Vinci,London, 1943, p. 19).
In the iconographyof the Christ Child, I see no end to the artists' resource-
and most conspicuously in Renaissance fulnessin the staging of premonition. In-
painting, the sense of futurityis per- stances unfamiliar, or not previously
vasive- objectively,because Christ'swhole recognized, come in unbidden-like the
destiny is engraved in the Incarnation; postcard in yesterday's mail, with its
subjectively, because the boy is under- reproductionof Quentin Massys' Madonna
stood to foreknowhis death. Upon this and Child in Brussels (no. 6647). The
theme artistsplayed infinitevariations. A picture exhibits again the mysterious
(lost) Leonardo cartoon represented--ac- anachronism of the Child as beadsman
cording to a contemporary's account (cf. Fig. 128): the littleboy toys with the
dated April 3, 1501--"the Christ Child rosary and halts at one of the five larger
seizing a lamb and about to embrace it. beads that symbolize the stigmata. Or,
The mother . . . catches the Child to visitingthe Yale Art Gallery, notice what

may be premonitory- how else should
the pictorial action be understood? In a
gesture uncharacteristic of infants, the
boy throwsout both arms, as he will again
on the cross; and the mother catches the
movement by hand and wrist, as if to
say-"but not yet." This "not-yet"motif,
which presents the joy of the Virgin as a
privilege preceding her sorrows, remains
to be studied; it is surely the narrative
content of the Leonardo cartoon cited
above, of Michelangelo's Tondo Taddei
(London, Royal Academy), and of Ra-
phael's Alba Madonna in Washington.
All these inventionsshare the common
objective of reconcilingincompossible yet
consubstantial natures in the person of
Christ. One distinguishestwo approaches
to the same end, drawn from opposite
Fig. 136. Quentin Massys, Madonna and

Child,c. 1500.
the Infant is doing in Pinturicchio's

Madonna and Child (Fig. 137): he looks
down at his pet goldfinch, thoughtfully
holding itswingtipsout at fullspread - an
image of the Crucifixion produced in
child's play. This is hardly a new inven-
tion, but perhaps an original variation. In
Cima's Madonnaand Childin London [no.
634], the boy holds the wing-spreading
bird by its tail. And I recall seeing a noble
14th-century stone-carvedMadonna group
fromJoigny in the Louvre: as the Child
touches his crowned mother's chin,
mother and Child between them spread-
eagle the bird. (For the wingspread as a
recurring Crucifixion symbol, cf. John
Donne's poem "The Crosse," and the
emblemof the FrenchOrdre de St. Esprit.)
Even Correggio's delightful small
Madonna of theBasketin London (Fig. 86)
Fig. 137. Pinturicchio,Madonna and Child

withSaints,c. 1490-95.

starting points--either from gloom or
from jollity, but each, in its way,
Christological. Naturalism here will not
answer. Where theChild's spiritis somber,
it is not because littleJesus is thoughtto
be moody, peevish, or vexed, but because
the young Christ, as conceived by Man-
tegna, Bellini, or Michelangelo, knows
himselfborn to incipient death; and this
despite the fact that the body blooms in
fullItalianate health. On the other hand,
in the vision of Roger van der Weyden,
Jesus displays the physical immaturityof
the neonate, yet exposes his sex with
exacting precision-and smiles (Figs. 22,
138). This glee is a marvel since, accord-
ing to Aristotleand otherancient authori-
ties, a baby awake does not smile until
fortydays afterbirth, when both mother
and child are out of danger. The infant's
first smile, then, becomes, as Reinach
puts it, a formal taking possession of life
(Reinach, "Le rire rituel," p. 590). And
the neonate's smile is an awesome thing.
Pliny reportsthatone child only since the
race came into being smiled on its birth- Fig. 138. Roger van der Weyden follower,
Madonna and Child,afterc. 1440.
day: Zoroaster-significantly, as Norden
points out, the founderof the firstsoterial
religion (Norden, Die Geburtdes Kindes, enough to derive his norm of human in-
pp. 64ff.). fancy fromricketybabies.
How much of thisancient lore survived Assume the conjecture correct,and we
throughthe Middle Ages on a folk level are given a telling contrast: the Child
remains to be studied. Since an infant's raw, callow, ungainly as on the day of its
firstsmile is an event waited for,cheered birth,yet smilingas a normal baby would
and bragged of in every home, it seems not; or, contrariwise,the Child battening
not unlikely that the canonic schedule and robust, yet oppressed by foreboding.
would be remembered, even in 15th- In both alternatives,a duplex nature.
centuryFlanders. If so, the undeveloped A word or two more on the laughing
infantanatomy portrayedby Roger and Child. Granted thatyoung childrenmake
his Northern followersshould be seen in merry,and thatthisobservationintrigued
the light of the smile which oftenaccom- some Renaissance artists.Even in theearly
panies it. The physique is the neonate's; Quattrocento, long before theydispose of
the smile, the sign of preternaturalorigin. the requisite skill,theygive us half-parted
At any rate, the prodigy of the smiling lips withintentto show the Child smiling.
newborn is herewithofferedas a hypoth- By the latter 15th centurythe problem as
esis that seems to me preferable to the a task in naturalistic representationwas
rachitic, which would have Roger naive mastered. But the impulse to depict a

126 OCTOBER
child's smile was initially an impulse to ists, Northern or Mediterranean, who

ascribe it to Christ. It was an idea about conceived their Christ Child as newly
the divine Child's subjective response to born, its instantsmile would be - like the
humanation that posed the representa- imminent smile in the Eclogue - the sig-
tional problem. nal of the birth of a god.
When a laughing Christ Child appears But I know of no text to indicate that
in one of Andrea del Sarto's Madonna artists of the 15th and 16th centuries
groups--clutching his genitals as he meant their smiling Christ Child to obey
points to his mother'sbreast, or chuckling the Vergilian apostrophe. The classic
to see her point to her bosom (Fig. 2)- summaryof the interpretativetraditionof
the painter is telling us that he (unlike the Fourth Eclogue is Domenico Com-
Mantegna, Bellini, or Michelangelo) paretti, Vergilin theMiddle Ages [1895],
imagines the nurslingjubilant at his In- London, 1966, chap. vii, "Vergil as
carnation, laughing for the very reason Prophet of Christ." It throws no light on
that the heavens rejoice. It is even con- the problem. My suggestion that the hu-
ceivable thatin the vision of Rossellino, man smile of the Christ Child is also a
Piero di Cosimo, Raphael, Correggio, or token of its divinityenters our catalogue
Andrea del Sarto-God enjoys being only as an unproven hypothesis.
man, tastingthe goodness of his creation
and the excellence of human milk. One
thingis certain: the hilarityis projected as IX. God's greaterdeed
consonant with, better still, as indicative
of the mystery.I doubt that it was ever
meant to exhibit "the age-old relationship We are not accustomed to place
between the prescient Virgin and the material nature and human salvation on
unreflectingChild," as though a babyish one intellectual track; scientific inquiry
want of reflectioncould overwhelm this and soteriologyhave been diverging too
Child's other nature (Pope-Hennessy, long. But theywere rated togetherby the
"The Virgin with the Laughing Child," Greek Fathers as firstand second crea-
p. 73, referringto Rossellino's terracotta tion; and the second was adjudged more
group, Fig. 23). No Renaissance artist wonderful than the first(see Danielou,
knew a Christ "unreflecting,"whetherliv- The Bible and theLiturgy,pp. 269-70). For
ing or dead, in uteroor in infancy. St. Augustine, too, the redemption
The Child's laughter does not enter through Christ was a divine feat easily
Renaissance iconography because chil- paired with the Creation; his saints, as
dren frolic, as though it behooved the they enter heaven, sing the ". . . praises
Christ Child to act only as othersdo. If he of God in that he not only made what was
smiles, it is at least thinkablethat he was not, but redeemed fromcorruptionwhat
meant to act like the savior child apos- he had made" ( CityofGod,XXII, 17). Im-
trophized in the closing lines of Vergil's plicit in Augustine's vision of the Two
Fourth Eclogue. The heavenly child of Cities is the conviction that the City of
Vergil's messianic poem had been iden- God, immanent in the world since the
tifiedwith the Christian Savior since the coming of Christ, outranks the terrestrial
4th century. At the end of the poem, the creation. And the 12th-centuryAugustin-
moment of parturition, he is exhorted: ian, Hugh of St. Victor, tips the balance
"Begin, baby boy, to know thy mother decisively; he parallels the distinctionbe-
with a smile." For those Renaissance art- tween God's works of creation and those

of Christ
The Sexuality 127
of restorationwith the relative merits of loved, and imitated,"a world restoredto

the elect and the reprobate: admirable perfection,a natural order of
divine institutionand redeemed carnality.
You must understand that the elect
assess the works of God in one way,
the reprobate in another. For the
X. The signal at the breast
elect reckon the works of restoration
as superior to those of the firstcrea-
The nursling eyeing the viewer and
tion, because those were made for
calling attention to what he is doing-
bondage, but the formerwere forour this extraordinary motif becomes com-
salvation. The reprobate, by con-
monplace in Trecento painting and sur-
trast,love the worksof creation more vives amazingly amidst untold variations
than those of restoration, because
through more than three hundred years
they seek present satisfaction, and
not future bliss. The pagan philos- (Figs. 59, 139, 141-43). But its simple
ophers, in searching out the nature
of things with curiosity--thatis, in
inquiring into the works of creation,
have become futilein theirthoughts;
but Christian sages, by meditating
constantlyupon the worksof restora-
tion, drive every vanity fromtheirs.
The elect, considering their restora-
tion, are kindled with the fireof love
divine; the reprobate,withtheirfalse
love of the loveliness of things
created, grow cold in the love of God
(Noah's Ark,IV, 11, pp. 137-38).
Now we learn fromO'Malley (pp. 49,
139) that Renaissance preachers were
willing likewise to rank the redemption
the greaterof the two deeds by which God
is known. Yet in Hugh of St. Victor's
askesis they might have perceived some
ingratitude. For it is one thing to dis-
parage the created world in its fallencon-
dition. But God's decision to dwell
creaturelywithinhis creation rectifiedthe
created order. And to persistin contemn-
ing a world which God reconciled to him-
self by sharing its substance is to disdain
the means employed in the redemption.
How orthodox theology would deal
with this argument I am not certain. But
it is the contained, inward argument of
Renaissance art. Its world (to adapt
Bonaventure'sformula)is a world"known,
Fig. 139. Carlo di Camerino, Madonna of
HumilitywithTemptation ofEve.

The commentary misses the demonstra-
tiveness of the action, the urgency of its
appeal, the sense of a message conveyed,
as if to say, "I live with food like you-
would you doubt my humanity?"
In art-historicalliterature,the message
has not been received. Puzzled by the In-
fant's alerting glance in Cima's Madonna
and Child in Amsterdam (Fig. 140), one
scholar mistakesits grave summons for a
momentarydistraction:"La Madonna sta
offrendoil seno al Bambino distratto e
rivolto verso di noi. . . ." (Luigi Mene-
gazzi in Cima da Conegliano.Catalogodella
Mostra,Venice, 1962, no. 74, p. 55). Even
the blatant paradox by which the sum-
mons is driven home in Bramantino's
Madonna and Child(Fig. 141) has aroused
only perplexity: William Suida found it
"strange"("cosa strana") that "the sturdy
Fig. 140. Cima da Conegliano, Madonna and
Child,c. 1510.
meaning remains to be recognized. Mil-

lard Meiss interpretedthe Child's hither-
ward glance while seeming to suck as
another instance of the Trecento trend to
invigorate the design and narrow the
psychologicaldistance between image and
viewer.
The intimacy between the Virgin
and Child . . . effectsa like intimacy
between these figuresand the spec-
tator,and this is greatlyenhanced by
the behavior of the Child. Though
nursing, he turns to look directly
outward, and the Virgin in most ex-
amples does likewise. . . . The turn
of the head and glance of the Infant
out toward the spectator, while his
body faces the Virgin and he presses
her breast into his mouth, resultsin a
combination of movements that is
one of the remarkableinnovationsof
early Trecento Italian art (Meiss,
"The Madonna of Humility" [1936],
in Black Death, p. 146).
Fig. 141. Bramantino,MadonnaandChildin

a Landscape,c. 1485.

babe is shown in the act of advancing
toward the foreground,while sucking, as
if in passing, the maternal breast, and
gazing with intense self-consciousnessat
the spectator"(BramantePittore e ii Braman-
tino,Milan, 1953, p. 67). Nor does Suida
notice the simultaneous attention to the
Child's loincloth, which must be part of
the message: the assumption of both sex
and hunger is the Child's twofoldoffering
to the viewer.
Fig. 143. Ribera, Madonna and Child, 1643.
the Christ Child designates or exposes at

the same time his penis and the maternal
breast (Figs. 2, 144, 145). The polarityis
explicit in St. Augustine's sermon for
Christmas (Sermon I, 23-24 [Ben. 51];
Sermons,pp. 52-56), which links eating
and begetting as correlative instruments
of survival:
There are two works of the flesh
upon which the preservationof man-
kind depends. . . . The first. . has
to do with taking nourishment. .
But men subsistby this supportonly
as far as they themselves are con-
cerned; fortheydo not take measures
fora succession by eating and drink-
ing, but by marrying. . ... Since,
Fig. 142. Joos van Cleve Shop, Holy Family, then, the human race subsistsin such
c. 1520.
wise that two supports . . . are in-
dispensable, the wise and faithful
man descends to both froma sense of
Sexual capability and dependence on duty; he does not fall into them
food: these are definingtraits of the hu- through lust. . ... If these prudent
man condition, and their polarity is im- and temperate people were offered
plied in Renaissance paintings whenever the opportunity of living without

food and drink, with what greatjoy
would they welcome this benefac-
tion. .... [The parallel was stated
earlier:] If they could be given the
opportunityof having childrenwith-
out marital intercourse,would they
not embrace so great a privilegewith
the greatestenthusiasm?
Seven hundred years later, the thought
is echoed by Hugh of St. Victor, whose
wise man "sorrowseven to have to satisfy
those needs which the weakness of man's
state imposes" (Noah's Ark,I, 3, p. 97).
Another six hundred years, and ship-
wreckedGulliverat lastfindsSt. Augustine's
ideal of rational, pleasureless procreation
noblyrealized by the Houyhnhnms (Jona-
than Swift, Gulliver'sTravels[1726], IV,
chap. viii).
Fig. 145. Central Italian, Madonna and Child
withSaints(overpainted), c. 1525-50.
XI. "Complete in all the parts

of a man"
Following are three probable instances

of indirect reference to the genitals of
Christ in standard theology.
(1) An allusion to Christ's sexual
member in circumcisionmay be intended
when St. Bonaventure explains thatas the
infectionof lust and corruptionin us had
"penetrated every part of the body," so
Christ "sufferedin every part of his body"
(Breviloquium,IV, 5, p. 172).
(2) The referenceis implicit when the
mocking of Noah's nakedness (Gen.
9:21-25) is said to foreshadow the Pas-
sion - a typology in the 13th-century
Biblia pauperumthat goes back to St.
Augustine: "The nakedness of [Noah] sig-
nifies the Savior's passion"; and again,
"The passion of Christ was signifiedby
thatman's nakedness"( CityofGod,XVI, 2).
Fig. 144. Filippo Lippi, Madonna and

Child withSaints,c. 1435-40, detail.

The genital focus in the analogy gains ever, the female organs shall remain
precision when the scene of the mocking adapted not to the old uses, but to a
of Noah appears depicted over an altar new beauty, which, so far frompro-
to which the Christ Child is brought for voking lust, now extinct,shall excite
the Presentation (see the panel by the praise to the wisdom and clemencyof
Master of the Life of the Virgin in the Na- God.
tional Gallery, London).
The "new beauty"to which,in Augustine's
(3) The eschatologies of both St.
fantasy,the female organ shall be adapted
Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas make
reference to the pudenda of glorified was, I suspect, suggested to him by the
conventional obliteration of the rima in
bodies in an argument that necessarily
Hellenistic and Roman sculpture. Mean-
implicates Christ's sexual member. Au-
while, we note that the argument arises
gustine speculates whether on the Last
entirely from St. Paul's dictum that the
Day women shall be resurrectedas women resurrectedwill be "conformedto the im-
or in the optimal form of Christ's own
age"- or "shaped into the likeness"- "of
masculinity. The question was forced the Son of God" (Rom. 8:29; cf. Eph.
upon him by the Gnostic pronouncement
that women, having no place in the 4:13). It is this promise which raises the
issue whether those who had lived as
Kingdom, must eitherstay out or change women would resurrectwith a female or,
sex. The closing paragraph of the Gospel
of Thomas tells it as follows: like Christ, with a male organ.
I add a fourth instance, drawn from
Simon Peter said to them,"Let Mary somewhat marginal eschatology. In the
leave us, for women are not worthy debate whether Christ resurrected in a
of life." Jesus said, "I myself shall body still circumcised or with foreskin
lead her in order to make her male, restored, the proponents of the former
so that she too may become a living alternative argue that the Jews on the
spirit resembling you males. For Last Day "would see him as the brother
every woman who will make her- whom theyhad not received, and against
self male will enter the Kingdom whom they had contended most cruelly"
of Heaven" (Nag Hammadi Library, (Carvajal, Oratioin die circumcisionis,
fol.
p. 130). 9v).
Augustine rules (as will Aquinas, see
our n. 20) thatwomen shall rise female as
they had lived. The passage deserves XII. The necessary nudity of the
quoting in full (City of God, XXII, 17): sufferingChrist
For my part, I feel that theirs is the
more sensible opinion who have no Nothing less than a sense of necessity
doubt that therewill be both sexes at on the part of Renaissance artistscan ac-
the Resurrection. . . . For . . . from count for developments such as the fol-
those bodies vice shall be withdrawn, lowing:
while nature shall be preserved. Now In Trecento Italy, carved wooden cru-
the sex of woman is not a vice, but cifixeswere usually draped withloincloths
nature. And in the Resurrection it of fabric soaked in plaster. Under the
will be freeof the necessityof carnal cloths, no sexual members were carved-
intercourse and childbearing. How- as none were painted in typical Trecento

Fig. 146. Donatello School, Crucifix.
scenes of Christ baptized. But on 15th- hibition at the Liebighaus, Frankfurt

century crosses intended for similar (DiarersVerwandlung in derSkulptur,1981,
public displays, the genitals, even though no. 161), the workelicitedthe observation
theywere to be covered by plaster-soaked that "the meaning [of these naked cruci-
fabric, were fully rendered. Margrit fixes]has not been explored"; and thatthe
Lisner cites examples by Michelozzo, noveltyhere is "not the representationof
Desiderio, Giuliano da Sangallo, and the the nude, but the possibilityof exposing
young Michelangelo, and she observes en the pudenda."
passant that these 15th-centurycrucifixes In painted representations of the
have carved genitalia as "an interpretation Crucifixion-a subject in which Duccio
of the human nature of Christ." (Lisner, and Giotto had introduced the diaphan-
"The CrucifixfromSanto Spirito,"p. 813; ous loincloth-a number of 14th- and
to Lisner's examples we add the Donatel- 15th-centuryartistsrisk representingfull
lesque crucifix[Fig. 146] published both nakedness, and they do so invariably in
with and without its added loincloth, in works of exceptional poignancy. (Figs.
Baldini/dal Poggetto, Firenzerestaura,figs. 38, 149. See also the Crucifixions in the
64, 65.) Holkham Hall Bible, cited above, n. 31;
A strikinginstance of later date is a Van Eyck's Crucifixion panels in Berlin,
crucifixafterGiambologna (c. 1600). In Fig. 147, and New York, The Metropoli-
the catalogue of the Giambologna exhibi- tan Museum of Art; Giovanni Angelo di
tion held in London and Vienna (1978, Antonio, Christon theCross,Venice, Fon-
no. 107a), the loinclothwas described as a dazione Cini, reprod. in Zampetti, Paint-
contemporary addendum ("Lendentuch ingsfrom theMarches,fig. 72. For 16th-
eine wohl zeitgen6ssischeHinzufiigung"). centuryexamples,see Burgkmair'swoodcut,
Catalogued again for a remarkable ex- our Fig. 148, and Diirer's Large Calvary,a

Fig. 147. Jan van Eyck (?), Crucifixion, Fig. 148. Hans Burgkmair, Christon the
c. 1430. Cross, 1515.
drawing of 1505 in the Uffizi,copied both

in sculptured relief and engravings,
reprod. in Diirers Verwandlung, cat,. 97.)
Roger van der Weyden inventsthe motif
of a breeze-driven sheet, not tied to the
body, but loosely floatedagainst the loins,
as if by a sudden gust (Fig. 100).
Turn to images of the Flagellation.
From the early 15th-century onward,
they begin to show Christ totallynaked.
(Examples: the Rohan Hours, Paris,
Biblioth'eque Nationale, ms. lat. 9471,
fol. 214; Master of Marguerite d'Orleans,
Book of Hours, c. 1450, New York, Pier-
pont Morgan Library, ms. 190, fol. 50v;
panel by a 15th-century
a Flagellation Lim-
bourg master, formingthe painted wing
of a sculpted Depositionaltarpiece, Paris,
Mus'e de Cluny; a Holbein school canvas
in the Kunstmuseum Basel.) The shock of
these works has hardly abated.
In scenes of the Lamentation, too, from
about 1400, the nakedness of the corpse
may be newly dramatized (Fig. 149).
At
HOW
Sometimes a mourner appears in the act
-----
--
---
Fig. 149. Illumination fromthe Grandes
Heures de Rohan, Lamentation, c. 1420-25.

cency and the need to "follow the naked
Christ." Perhaps this conflict explains
why some painters, modest enough to
keep the loins of Christ covered, will yet
include a disturbing incipience of pubic
hair, as if to say--if there must be con-
cealment, let thatwhich is hidden at least
be confessed (see Antonello da Messina's
Man of Sorrowsin Madrid, Prado, and
Rosso's Dead ChristwithAngels, Boston,
Museum of Fine Arts).
No motive now on the books justifies
these phenomena. They project a reli-
gious vision unwilling to compromise
with decorum- as we find it again in
Crashaw's poem "On our crucifiedLord
Naked, and bloody": "Th' have left thee
naked Lord, O that theyhad: / This gar-
Fig. 150. Wolf Huber, Lamentation,
1524. ment too I would they had deny'd
Thee.
of drawing a cloth over Christ's loins

(Figs. 107, 108; cf. also Meiss, French XIII. Baptism and required dress
Painting,figs. 646, 648 forvariants of this
theme); or theVirgin, holdingthe deposed As a pictorial subject, Baptism pre-
body, covers it by the vehement throwof sented artists with a delicate problem,
a mantled arm (Pseudo-Jacquemart, c. since the sacrament was understood as a
1400, ibid., fig. 216). In 16th-century new birth. "In Baptism," wrote Theodore
German art, as in some Hans Baldung of Mopsuestia (c. 350-428; quoted in
engravings, or in Wolf Huber's Lamenta- Danielou, TheBibleand theLiturgy,p. 49),
tion(Fig. 150), the nakednessof the corpse "the water becomes a womb forhim who
is not uncommon. An outstandingexam- is born"; and such radical symbolismwas
ple of a stark naked Christ is Rosso not easily reconciled with the wearing of
Fiorentino's Pietaiin the Louvre. A rare garments. Even the white raimeritworn
later instance is Cavaliere d'Arpino's En- ritually over the naked body betokened
tombment of c. 1606 (Il Cavalierd'Arpino, ideal nudity, for Bishop Theodore says
exh. cat., Rome, 1973, no. 41). D'Arpino further:"Since you came up from Bap-
is one of a handfulof artistswho carrythe tism, you are clad in a vestmentthat is all
theme of the naked Christ into the 17th radiant. This is the sign of that shining
century. world . . . to which you have already
Finally, post-Passion Christs often ap- come by means of symbols. When indeed
pear totallynude (e.g., Campin's Mass of you receive the resurrectionin fullreality
St. Gregory,Friedlander, EarlyNetherlandishand are clothed with immortality and
Painting,II, pl. 100, nos. Add. 150 and incorruptibility,you will have no further
73a); each work seeks an original resolu- need of such garments"(ibid.). So also St.
tion of the conflictbetween common de- Gregoryof Nyssa (c. 330-c. 395) speaks of

The Sexuality
of Christ 135
the "robes of light,"lost throughthe sin of bonne," ably discussed by K. Wessel

Adam, to which the Christian is restored ("Der nackte Crucifixusvon Narbonne").
in the baptismal sacrament, wherein The storycomes to us throughGregoryof
Christ has "taken away the fig-leaves,that Tours (c. 540-594) in his Eight Books of
garment of our misery, and clad us once Miracles(Miraculorumlibri VIII, I, 23). It
more with a robe of glory"(ibid., p. 50). tells of a priest named Basileus, who
Whatever the degree of actual nudity receives three nocturnal visitations from
prescribed in Early Christian perfor- Christ. Terrible of aspect, the apparition
mances of the rite, in representationsof demands that the painted image in the
Jesus baptized, he often appears wholly local cathedral, wherein he, Christ, ap-
naked (Fig. 151). Until the end of the 6th pears girt with only a linen cloth, be
century, this "unembarrassoedtype," as I decently covered over. Twice Basileus
would call it, preserves the antique habit forgets;and is whipped forhis negligence.
of nude figuration.But it was the requi- Finally, he apprises his bishop, who
site Christian symbolismthat allowed the orders the image veiled, to be exposed
habit to linger- in the exceptional in- thereafteronly for brief devotional exer-
stance ofBaptism- beforeChristianinter- cises; whereupon the apparitions cease.
diction took root. We do not know when the story first
The growth of a puritanical ethos in came to be told- Wessel points out that
Early Christian art is traceable in the Gregory of Tours may have transcribeda
legend of the "Nude Crucifix of Nar- legend more than a century old. But he
reconstructs the likeliest circumstances
under which such a legend would have
arisen: presumably, during the 6th cen-
tury, a picture of the Crucified in the
Church of Narbonne was normallyveiled
by a curtain, and it would be this custom
which the legend undertakes to explain.
Wessel concludes that a traditionalearlier
(mid-5th-century?) image of the near
naked Christ began to give umbrage in
the course of the latter 5th and early 6th
centuries. To demonstrate an analogous
retreat from earlier nudity--firstin the
Eastern Empire, then in the West-he
traces changes in representations of
Daniel.
But we have a more direct index in
representationsof Christ'sBaptism. From
the 7th centuryon, artistshaving to cope
with the subject faced an awkward di-
lemma: its natal and resurrectionalsym-
bolism called for full nudity, and the
dignityof the protagonistdemanded fron-
tality; yet modesty forbade the display of
his sex. (See Schiller, Iconography,
I, figs.
376, 374, fortwo rare instancesof evaded
Fig. 151. Byzantine mosaic, Baptismof Christ,
c. 500, detail.

136 OCTOBER
frontality:a 12th-centurystone relief on hide. Afterabout 1400, both theseexpedi-

the Parma Baptistry portal, and an il- ents-embarrassed and disembarrassed,
lumination from a Lower Saxon manu- respectively- were gradually discarded.
script, c. 1200, in Trier Cathedral. Such And forgood reasons: foreven if,accord-
attempts to escape the dilemma are in- ing to pious faith,it was the contact with
stantly recognized as falling outside the Christ that purged the Jordan and so
tradition.) fittedit for its baptismal task, neverthe-
Medieval artists tended to meet the less, darksome water as a cleansing agent
difficultyin one of two ways: eitherby pil- is an infelicitousmedium; and the oblit-
ing the baptismal water up to waist level eration of the pudenda must have ap-
and rendering it opaque with dark pig- peared no less offensive.Hence the emer-
ment or texture- and this I call the "em- gence of two compromise solutions, of
barrassed type" (see the 9th- and 10th- which the earlier (1200 to the mid-15th
centuryexamples in Schiller,figs.366-71); century) resorts to a gesture of modesty
or else, if the water was lefttransparent, recalling that of the antique Venuspudica.
by simply strippingthe loins of genitalia the lefthand covers the groin, the other,
(9th century [Schiller, fig. 372] through crossing the chest, rises in blessing. We
the late Gothic period, our Fig. 152). The are given a novel type, a Christus pudicus,
choice was between hiding or nothing to or, in terms of our chronological se-
quence, a Christ re-embarrassed (Figs.
153-55; later examples are Simon Ben-
ing's Baptismof 1525-29 in the Prayer-
book of Albrecht of Brandenburg, fol.
58v, now in the J. Paul Getty Mu-
seum, and the Baptismrelief,1531, on the
choir screen of Amiens Cathedral). One-
handed modesty gestures in scenes of
Baptism are occasionally found earlier
(Schiller, figs. 357, 379, 380). They
become common again around 1400 (our
Figs. 156, 157; Meiss, FrenchPainting,
figs. 98, 168, 229).
The final and definitive compromise
consists in adapting to scenes of Baptism
the loincloth that had been standard in
Crucifixion imagery since the 5th cen-
tury. Renaissance painting has made this
motifso banal that we accept it unques-
tioningly,like a bathing suit at the beach.
Yet Christian art had resistedthis conces-
sion- the recourse to even a minimal gar-
ment at the baptismal moment- for
almost a thousand years. It was adopted
at last only when other alternatives to
stark nudity were felt to have failed. In
thejudgment of Renaissance artists,tinc-
tured water to effectintransparencymust
Fig. 152. Byzantine illumination,Baptismof
Christ,14th century.

Fig. 153. English enamel, Baptismof Christ,c. 1200.
have appeared naive, and the omission of Christ's body in older pictures; they pro-
a man's sex, simply monstrous. test against the prior negation. In short,
The chronologyof these developments the loincloththatbecomes standard attire
leads to a surprising conclusion. Jesus' in Renaissance Baptismsand forever after
loins in Renaissance painting are draped; was initially charged, like the foregoing
but the retirementof his genitalia behind pudicitygesture,to reverse an intolerable
shamefastgestureor breechclothtakes on deprivation. Its functionwas to affirmthe
a new meaning, the opposite of the ob- presence of what was concealed. Without
vious. We discover that the action of
covering up, whether by hand or gar-
ment, is not imputed to Christ as a reflex
of modesty, comparable to the posture of
Adam possessed by theshame ofpudenda.
On the contrary, Renaissance Baptisms
resortto the coveringin order to remedya
dispossession of genitalia ascribed to
Fig. 154. Limoges School, Baptismof Christ, Fig. 155. Roger van der Weyden (copy),
c. 1250. Baptismof Christ,afterc. 1450.

offense to propriety, it gave assurance
that the Incarnate was complete in every
part of a man. I close thisExcursus witha
passage froma French Passion play of the
early 16th century,presumably based on
an earlier tradition:
JESUS
Baptize me, if you will!
SAINT JOHN
Baptize you?
You who come to save us all.

JESUS
Good knight,do not speak such
words.
We must now, between us,
Humbly fulfill
Fig. 156. Illumination fromthe Tres Belles All righteousness.
Heures de Notre-Dame, Baptismof Christ, SAINTJOHN
c. 1390. Oh, precious, holy flesh,
I would not dare to touch you.
Naked must I see you, my Lord.
To begin the New Law.
Jesusdisrobes.Thenletthedovedescend
nearJesus.
JESUS
Now I am naked; baptize me
Without furtherprotest.
Let SAINTJOHN,pouringthewater,
say in a loud voice
Sanctifyme, good Jesus,
Sanctifyme, my savior!
ThenletJesusput on his clothes.

GOD THE FATHER tohisangels
This is my beloved son
Who has initiatedbaptism.
He has ended circumcision.
( The Baptismand Temptation of Christ:

The FirstDay ofa MedievalFrenchPas-
sion Play, trans. John R. Elliott,Jr.,
and Graham Runnalls, New Haven
and London, 1978, pp. 77-79.)
Fig. 157. Flemish, Baptismof Christ,c. 1400.

XIV. The virginityof Christ trine in the most elegant pun ("a virgin
shoot sprung from a virgin"): virgovirga
The phrase from Tertullian (c. 160- virginegeneratus.
230) cited in the text is taken from his
De monogamia,5: "This more perfect
Adam, Christ- more perfect because XV. Potency under check
more pure - having come in the flesh to
set your infirmityan example, presents "It is necessity that makes another a
Himself to you in the flesh,ifyou will but eunuch, my own choice makes me so,"
receive Him, a man entirely virginal" writes the proud St. Jerome (Epistle
(Treatises, p. 80). The St. Methodius XXII, 19; Letters, p. 150). For some of the
passage that precedes the title "Arch- orthodox Fathers, notablySt. Methodius,
virgin"reads: "What thendid the Lord, the voluntary chastity is the test of man's
Truth and the Light, accomplish on com- likeness to God (Musurillo, introd. to The
ing down to the world: He preserved His Symposium,p. 7). Askesis here is in-
fleshincorruptin virginitywithwhich He dissociable fromthe exercise of free will.
had adorned it. And so let us too, if we For it was in the facultyof volition that
are to come to the likeness of God, man, before the Fall, was made in God's
endeavor to aspire to the virginity of image; and that faculty is supremely
Christ. For becoming like to God means demonstrated in man's ability to choose
to banish corruptibility..." (Symposium, chastity- not on occasion, but in sustained
Logos I, 5, p. 47). continence.
The St. Jerome quotations in the text Christ's commendation of those who
are taken from Epistles XXII, 19 and make themselves eunuchs for heaven's
XLIX (Letters,p. 151, and Kelly, Early sake was taken literally by Origen, the
ChristianDoctrines,p. 189). Elsewhere, 3rd-centuryFather. Son of a Christian
Jerome writes, intendingto include mar- martyr, he had in his youth committed
ried couples: "All those who have not re- the "headstrong act" of castrating him-
mained virgins, following the pattern of self- a notorious error which he later
the pure chastityof angels and that of our repudiated. (The story and its conse-
Lord Jesus Christ himself, are polluted" quences are recounted in Eusebius,
(AgainstJovinian, I, 40; quoted in Pelikan, HistoryoftheChurch,VI, 8, p. 247.)
ChristianTradition,I, p. 289). If the connection between commend-
For the Photius passage, see his Homily able chastityand freewillseems somewhat
VII, 6, p. 145. obvious, the point of it still escaped the
The traditionruns fromthe Apocalypse great Edward Gibbon. A footnotein chap-
(14:4)--"Who were not defiled with ter 69 of the Decline and Fall lifts from
women, fortheyare virgins. These follow Hume's Historyof England the following
the Lamb . . ."--to Jean Gerson: '"Jesus account of the crueltyof GeoffreyPlanta-
Christ as a virgin is married to the Holy genet, fatherof Henry II: "When he was
Church, similarly a virgin . . ." (Con- master of Normandy the chapter of Seez
sidirationssur S. Joseph, 1413, in Oeuvres presumed, without his consent, to pro-
complktes, ed. P. Glorieux, Paris, 1966, ceed to the election of a bishop: upon
VII, p. 64). But it was St. Bernard who, which he ordered all of them, with the
in his forty-seventhsermon on Canticles bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all
(Song ofSongs,p. 7), encapsulated the doc- theirtesticlesbe broughthim in a platter."

140 OCTOBER
Gibbon comments: "Of the pain and dan- "ignudo" need not mean total nudity; in
ger theymightjustly complain; yet, since common parlance even penitentsstripped
theyhad vowed chastityhe deprived them to the waist were called "nude," and the
of a superfluoustreasure." Roman signatories to the contract may
Fine English wit; wretched theology. have gotten more nudity than they ex-
Geoffrey'svictims had more to complain pected.) But Lotz adds this significant
of than pain and danger: they had been sentence: "For Michelangelo this nudity
robbed of the merit of volitional absti- must have been an essential part of the
nence in imitationof Christ. work's'spiritualcontent"'("Sie [die Nackt-
heit] muss fiirMichelangelo ein wesent-
XVI. Concerning Michelangelo's licherTeil des'geistigen Gehaltes' gewesen
Risen Christ sein," p. 149). He did not stay to define
the spiritualcontentthatwould have been
The longer one dwells on the theologi- servedby an ostentatio Wolfgang
genitalium;
cal grounds for genital shame, the more Lotz died in October 1981.
imperative that Christ be therefromex- Meanwhile,modernMichelangelomono-
empted. This exemption, overrulingpro- graphscontinueto cling to aestheticism:
priety,must be the Christian meaning of The nature of this Christ is am-
the nakedness of Michelangelo's Risen
Christin the church of the Minerva in biguous and the reasons for its total
Rome. But on thispoint, our professional nudityare obscure. . . . We see here
literatureis distracted.The undress of the Michelangelo's unabashed love, even
statue still impels Michelangelo scholars hunger, for the beauty of the nude
to discover its cause outside Christianity. figure,which fromthe rear could be
in every sense a pagan work. It is
"Michelangelo has conceived the Man of
Sorrows as a naked hero of antiquity," ultimately this conflict between
wrote Herbert von Einem (Michelangelo pagan nude and the Man of Sorrows
of Christian iconography that has
[1959], London, 1973, p. 127). And placed Michelangelo's Christ in a
Wolfgang Lotz: "Michelangelo's creation
reflectsrather the antique conception of special limbo, separate from all his
other works (Howard Hibbard, Mi-
the god who appears among men in su-
New York, 1974, pp. 168-
chelangelo,
preme earthly beauty, than the post-
69).
antique conception of the 'spiritualized,'
crucifiedand resurrectedSon of the tran- As my textargues, the "conflict"here is
scendent God" ("Zu Michelangelos Chris- not between the rival attractionsof Chris-
tus in S. Maria sopra Minerva," p. 148). tian iconographyand pagan nudism. The
Near the close of his article, Lotz cites the conflictinheres in the Christian content,
nudity of the statue as one reason for its caught between the competing claims of
proven unsuitability as a religious cult moralityand the exemptive nature of the
image. He points out that all preserved body of Christ. Of course, the normal
replicas, the earliest of which dates from alternative of a Christ figure modestly
the 1580s, show the figure with a loin- draped is no less justifiable. Leagued with
cloth, even though the nudity was stipu- the moralist, even the theologian might
lated in the original contract: "un Cristo agree thatChrist needs a loincloth,not to
grande quanto al naturale, ignudo, ritto, conformto his own proper nature, but in
con una croce in braccio." (The word concession to ours--so that lewd ogling

not be encouraged. But that, in 1514-20, XVII. Of thenudityoftheChrist

was not Michelangelo's worry. He would Child
have shrugged and approved Calvin's
quote from Augustine: "If you receive Two great medievalists- Emile Mile
carnally, it does not cease to be spiritual, and Millard Meiss--gave thought to the
but it is not so foryou" (Calvin, Institutes phenomenon of Christ's nudity. Under
of theChristianReligion,IV, xiv, 16). the head "Aspects nouveaux du groupe de
The dictatesof carnal decorum became la Mare et de l'Enfant," Maile wrote this
compelling beforethe end of the 16thcen- importantpassage (L'Art religieux, p. 147):
tury. And by 1630, the nudityof Michel- In the 12th century,the Son of God,
angelo's statue at the Minerva furnished seated on the lap of his mother, is
the subject of an apocryphal anecdote told
robed in the long tunic and the phi-
by the Sicilian chronicler Francesco
Baronio (De Panormitana losophers' pallium; in the 13th, he
majestatelibriIV, wears a child's dress; in the 14th,
Leiden, [1630], III, 96, p. 102): he would be entirelynaked did not
When Michelangelo Buonarroti, in his motherwrap his lower body in a
Rome, had carved a Christ our Lord fold of her mantle. This nudity of
and had made him with his male Christ is, as it were, the mark of his
parts unencumbered [laid bare or set humanity; he now resembles the
free- humanispartibusabsolvisset],it children of humankind. He re-
befell that when he placed the statue sembles them furtherin his whims,
on view . . . a certain man, indig- his lovable infantcapers [aimablesen-
nant at seeing Christ Jesus covered fantillages], whether caressing his
by no human garment, girded him mother'schin, or at play with a bird.
with a linen cloth, so that he might He resembles them, finally, in his
not seem indecorous. Michelangelo, subjection to nature [par lesfatalitisde
unable to endure this, snatched it la nature]:the Son of God feels hun-
away. The man put another back; gry, and the artistsshow the Virgin
again he [the artist]in vain tore it to giving him suck.
pieces .
These, when first published, were
Baronio's contentious fable is ill- pioneering insights. Mile saw correctly
conceived. Michelangelo's statue was not that the Child's nakedness serves 14th-
carved in Rome; it was shipped unfinished century painters as an index of its
from Florence, and the sculptor did not humanity; that the Infant is ranked with
attend its installation; nor did the mature other nurslings even in its hunger for
Michelangelo at any time show the least milk. But in perceiving only a process of
interestin work once delivered. But the humanization, Mile mistook the boy's
very improbability of the invention (re- caress of the Virgin's chin, or his clutch-
calling the 6th-centurylegend about the ing a bird, for playful sport that could
crucifixat Narbonne; see Excursus XIII) have been any baby's. He ignored the ap-
betrays the quandary which Christians pellant gaze of the Child while at the
found so hard to resolve wherever the vi- breast, and would not see thatthe mother's
sion of the nudusChristushad to be faced, mantle, seeming to cloak theChild's bas du
not as a metaphorical trope (like nuda corps,mightbe an unveiling. The mystery
veritas),but in earnest. of humanation which the artistsprojected

142 OCTOBER
by way of a naturalism fraughtwith sym- informationabout a change in Tyrolean

bol, scandal, and paradox, was demysti- sleeping habits around 1370, he chose not
fied, as though the sole impulse had been to share it. He did not wonder whethera
to render the Infant lifelike and run-ofwoman would dress for sleep "at the mo-
the-mill. ment of parturition"; nor consider the
Meiss' chapter on the evolution of the hierarchic distinctionbetween upper and
nude image of Christ (French Painting, lower body (discussed below, Excursus
pp. 125-30) proceeds similarly without XVIII); nor the special dignityof Mary's,
regard to the theological motive. He ob- or of her mother's,bosom. He was posit-
serves "the decision to allow the Child to ing a general concern with the unclothed
appear quite nude at the ceremonial oc- body so as to undistinguishthe special un-
casion of the homage of the Magi"; finds dress of the Child initiated in cult images
this decision taken in 14th-century paint- half a centuryearlier. The Christ Child's
ing in Alsace and Bohemia, and widely nakedness was to be not a symbolic value
diffusedby the end of the century.But he but a "manifestation of nudism," in-
adds at once that it was "not only the troduced because "infancy [was] associ-
Christ Child when adored by the Magi ated on naturalistic grounds with both
whom certain centers in the later four- nudity and nursing."
teenth century wished to see nude"-- Reflecting on the general evolution of
"there are a few other very unusual nude nudity in the Trecento, Meiss found the
figures that suggest a broader concern great Tuscan centers "conspicuously ab-
withtheunclothed body." Of this"broader sent from this development"- until Ma-
concern" the firstexample cited is a stark saccio in the 1420s based his nude Christ
naked Christ in a Catalan Crucifixion of Child on antique models. "Evidently,"he
c. 1355-60 (Fig. 38 left). But in this altar- wrote,"the nudityof the Christ Child was
piece, the thievesflankingthecentralcross acceptable to the Florentinesonly when it
wear ample aprons, so that here again, in assumed a classical, indeed pagan form-
Meiss' prime exhibit,the "broad concern" a ratherparadoxical situation."
is, in fact, narrowly focused on the To us the facts look somewhat dif-
nakedness of the Christ. (The distinction ferent,since we findthe Child's total nu-
between a wholly or nearly nude Christ dity,the "altogether,"less interestingthan
and well-aproned thieves is made else- the anxiety to achieve it. In this enter-
where, as in the Holkham Hall Bible, fol. prise, Florence, in the century before
32 [see n. 31 above], and again in the Masaccio, is fully engaged--witness the
Rohan Hours, Paris, Bibliothbque Na- standing Child, nude under all-showing
tionale, ms. lat. 9471, fol. 27.) gossamer, in the panels by Maso di Banco
Meiss discovers a "more startling in- and Nardo di Cione (Figs. 32, 36). And we
stance of nudity"in a Nativityscene froma see even this as a denouement, following
Tyrolese altarpiece of c. 1370: the Virgin the gradual unveiling that began c. 1260
abed -"at the moment of parturition"- with the hoisting, parting, and thinning
appears nude from the waist up, "ren- of the Child's dress (see Excursus XIX).
dered with the tender sensuousness of a As for classical models, their entrance is
Renaissance Venus." This work and a tardy: it was only when nudity,or a close
comparable Birthof the Virginfrom Lom- approximation of it, had been achieved
bardy (c. 1383; his figs.557, 558) are said that antique forms became relevant as
to reflect"the habit of sleeping without correctives and paradigms. But nudity
clothes." Perhaps so; but ifthe author had was not initially visited on the image of

Christ "on naturalistic grounds," or XVIII. The body as hierarchy

through pagan influence; it flowered
within the devotional subject, fosteredby The human body as a hierarchical
a determinationto see Christ naked. system is a conceit of Late Antiquity, if
Yet the urge to explain the precocious not older. According to Artemidorus,
nakedness of the Child in 14th-centuryart "many dream interpretersthink that the
without crediting Christian motives re- feetsignifymenials" ( Oneirocritica,or Inter-
mains strangelypersistent.And it has led pretationofDreams,p. 40). Inevitably, such
at least one modern art historianto adopt or similar rank ordering was applied to
a socio-economic model. He proposes to the Incarnation; head and feet respec-
read our 14th-centuryicons as social pro- tively polarized the divine and the
tests conceived somewhat in the spirit of human. Thus Eusebius: "The nature of
Kiithe Kollwitz, with the Infant's naked- Christ is twofold;it is like the head of the
ness pleading the neediest cases: I quote body in that He is recognized as God, and
froma recent issue of Kunstchronik: comparable to the feet in that for our
salvation He put on manhood as frail as
Mary with the nude Child in the our own" (Historyof the Church,I, 2, p.
14th century. The Child is truly a
child, and it was then (as it still is) 33). The 7th-century Byzantine theo-
logian St. Maximus Confessor taught as
contraryto custom to display a noble follows: "Whoever says that the words of
child naked. What decisive events
and experiences lie behind this? I theology'stand at the head' because of the
surmise: the terrible hardships suf- deity of Christ, while the words of the
feredduring the 14th century,when dispensation 'stand at the feet'because of
the Incarnation, and whoever calls the
crop failures,famine, and epidemics head of Christ his divinity, and the feet
created great labor shortagesfar and
his humanity, he does not strayfromthe
wide. The nude Christ Child in its
truth"(Liber ambiguorum, Pat. Gr., 91, col.
indigence is a cry forhelp directed to
God: "Let our children live!" [Das 1379).
Simon the New Theologian (d. 1022)
nackte Jesuskind in seiner Beduirf-
assigns distinctfunctionsto the members
tigkeitist ein Hilferufan Gott: "Lass of the body of Christ conceived as a figure
unsere Kinder leben!"] (Kunstchronik,
of the Church. Among these members the
36 [January 1983], p. 54, summariz-
"thighs" stand for "those who bear within
ing a public lecture delivered by themselves the generative power of the
Rudolf Zeitler in Kassel, September
divine ideas of mysticaltheologyand who
23, 1982).
give birth to the Spirit of salvation on
The author seems not to have noticed earth" (Ethical Orations,I, 6; quoted in
how often the nudity of the 14th-century Pelikan, ChristianTradition,II, p. 256).
Christ Child is artfullymanaged by the The notion of the God-man's body as a
shunting of precious fabrics, and amid rank-orderedsystemappears in the West
gifts of gold, frankincense,and myrrh. in St. Bernard's restatement:"If it seemed
One would take his pleading for a bur- rightto St. Paul to describe Christ's head
lesque of neo-Marxist historiography,but in terms of his divinity(I Cor. 11:3), it
the context forbids. should not seem unreasonable to us to
ascribe the feet to his humanity"(Song of
Songs, Sermon VI, 6, p. 35). Cf. the
French text, apparently 17th century,

144 OCTOBER
quoted (as usual withoutsource) in Anna The GoddessNatura,p. 158), conceives the
Jameson's LegendsoftheMadonna(ed. Lon- human body in three major divisions-
don, 1903, p. 47): "Dieu montre par ses head, breast, and loins, the lower appen-
pieds nus qu'il a pris le corps de l'homme." dages being comprised under the last.
The topos is discussed by Ernst Kan- Within the inferiorregion, furtherdiffer-
torowicz (The King's Two Bodies, pp. entiation would serve no useful symbolic
70-75) with emphasis on St. Augustine's purpose; what matters is the contrast to
exegesis of Psalms 90 and 91, whose drift the superior dignity of head and breast.
Kantorowicz summarizes as pedesin terra, The topos is recognizable in King Lear's
caput in coelo- feet on earth, head in "But to the girdledo the gods inherit,"and
heaven. He adduces the familiarimage of again in Goethe's assertionthat"all ethical
the Ascension, wherein Western artists, expression pertains only to the upper part
fromOttonian times to the Cinquecento, of the body" ("Jeder sittliche Ausdruck
depicted a "disappearing Christ," whose gehart nur dem oberen Teil des Korpers
"feet alone --the symbol of the Incarna- an"; see "Uber Leonardo da Vincis Abend-
tion- remain as a visible token of the mahl zu Mailand," 1817). The feetthem-
historical fact that the Incarnate has selves may be menial or humble, or may
migrated on earth." (For the iconography simply signifythe whole lower stratum,
of the "Disappearing Christ," see Meyer summarily identifiedwith the generative
Schapiro in Gazette des Beaux-Arts,85 function. Thus Pico della Mirandola, in
[1943], p. 147.) the closing paragraph of the Heptaplusor
The symbolism is ancient only in Discourse on the Seven Days of Creation
origin. Renaissance artists continued to (1489), analyzing the body on the lines of
take it for granted, so that we recognize Bernardus Silvestris,findsit "astonishing
the trope "feeton earth, head in heaven" how beautifully and how perfectly"the
even in thenaturalisticstagingofLeonardo's three parts of man- head, neck-to-navel,
Last Supper;see L. Steinberg,"Leonardo's and navel-to-feet- "correspond . . . to
Last Supper,TheArtQuarterly, 36 (1973), p. the three parts of the world. The brain,
388, n. 32. In a nearly contemporaneous source of knowledge, is in the head; the
image, Mazzolino's Nativityof 1510 in the heart, source of movement,life,and heat,
Ferrara Pinacoteca, the idea is spelled out is in the chest; the genital organs, the
with quaint literalness: the Christ Child beginning of reproduction,are located in
inhabitsa body-sized bubble halo thatex- the lowest part" (Heptaplus, p. 113).
cludes only the loins and legs. The Christ Given the prevalence of these meta-
of Michelangelo's Last Judgment still phors, it should not astonish us to see art-
honors this ancient tradition. ists responding to the spirit of incarna-
We must add that the symbolism is tional theology by focusing on Christ's
fluctuant. Feet, thighs, lower body, and lower body and denuding the Child from
genitalia are treated as interchangeable, the feetupward. They were confrontinga
depending on context. Marvin H. Pope systemwhose major divisions carried spe-
(AnchorBible,p. 381) points out that"'feet' cificsymbolic values.
is a standard biblical euphemism for
genitalia"- St. Jerome appropriates it for
the harlot who "opens her feet to every
one that passes by" (Epistle XXII, 6;
Jerome, Letters, p. 139). The 12th-century
poet Bernardus Silvestris (Economou,

XIX. 14th-centurynudity
The hieratic Byzantine image of the
Madonna and Child allowed the Child's
nakedness only in unshod feet- leftbare
perhaps from that same symbolic con-
sideration which we discern in the later
works of the West. For the latter, this
token nudity no longer sufficed;the gar-
ment recedes to expose the knees (Figs.
29, 158, 159, 163; comparable examples
are: the Florentine panel of the Madonna
and Child,c. 1270, at the Yale University
Art Gallery; a Madonna and Child with
Saints by the Magdalen Master [art
market]; Guido da Siena's Maesta, Siena,
Palazzo Pubblico, and the Madonna and
Child Enthroned,by his shop, Florence, Fig. 158. Guido da Siena, Madonna and Child
Galleria Accademia; the Madonna and Enthroned,1262.
Child panel by a Cimabue follower in
Turin, Galleria Sabauda; Master of the
Fogg Piet'a, Madonna and ChildEnthroned,
Assisi, San Francesco, Lower Church;
three panels of the Madonna and Childby
Deodato Orlandi [Pisa, Museo Civico,
and two in private collections]; Giuliano
da Rimini, Madonna and ChildwithSaints,
Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Mu-
seum).
Two more examples of total nudity in
14th-century Bohemian art are reproduced
in Karel Stejskal, EuropeanArt in the14th
Century, London, 1978: an Adorationofthe
Magi panel in the Pierpont Morgan Li-
brary, c. 1355, fig. 38; and a wood statue
of the Madonna and Child, c. 1360, Karl-
stein Castle, Prague, fig. 90. In at least
two furtherinstances, the Child's gesture
of covering or indicating the genitals
assures us that the objective of this total
nudity is the ostentatiogenitalium:a draw-
ing by Master Oswald of the Madonnaand
Child with St. Wenceslas,c. 1360, Stock-
holm, Royal Library, fig. 101; and a Na-
tivity,in a historiatedinitial of the Liber
Viaticus of John of Streda, Prague,
Nirodnf Galerie, before 1360, fig. 48.
Fig. 159. Cimabue (?), Madonna and Child
withTwo Angels,c. 1300.

The tokencoveringof the Child's nudity
by transparentgarmentsor veils is a motif
common throughout the Trecento. For
the transparent chemise, see also Figs.
160-62; and the Madonna and Childpanel
by Simone dei Crocefissi in Bologna,
Pinacoteca Nazionale.
Surprisinglyfrequent is the accent on
the Child's groin by the action of the
Madonna's hand (Figs. 33-35, 163, 164).
In later painting the motifof indication,
whether assigned to the Virgin or to the
Child, becomes more overt; see Figs. 4,
42, 45, 196, etc.; as well as Andrea di
Giusto's polyptych of the Madonna and
Child Enthronedwith Saints, 1435, Prato,
Galleria Communale; the Master E.S.
engraving of 1467 (Lehrs 76); and
Cranach's Madonna and Child with Sts.
Catherineand Barbaraat Erfurt,c. 1522.
Fig. 161. Maso di Banco, Madonna and
Child, c. 1340.
Fig. 160. Lippo di Benivieni, Madonna and Fig. 162. Lippo Dalmasio, Madonna del
Child, c. 1330 (?). Velluto,c. 1400.

XX. "Swags of gossamer about
the hips"
Among the vanities that kindled the

righteousbonfiresof Savonarola, George
Eliot distinguished"transparentveils in-
tended to provoke inquisitive glances"
(Romola, chap. 59). To such gear, writers
modern and ancient,Christianand pagan,
have generallybroughtsterndisapproval,
or at least irony--one hears of the filmy
gowns of Tarentum, of flesh-flattering
silksbroughtin fromCos, or "importedat
vast expense fromnations unknown even
to trade" (Seneca). Lucian described
"clothesof a tissue as fineas a spider'sweb
[which] pass forclothesso as to excuse the
appearance of complete nakedness." Sen-
eca deplored "silkenraiments- ifthatcan
Fig. 163. Master of the Magdalen, Madonna be called raiment,which provides no pro-
and ChildEnthroned,c. 1280. tection for the body, or indeed modesty,
so that, when a woman wears it, she can
scarcely, with a clear conscience, swear
that she is not naked." (Seneca, De
VII, 9, in Moral Essays,II, trans.
beneficiis,
John W. Basore, Cambridge, Mass.,
1935, pp. 478-79; Lucian, Amores,XLI,
trans.M. D. Macleod, Cambridge, Mass.,
1967, pp. 212-13). The statedobjection is
not so much to undress, as to the false-
hood of fabrics that pretend otherwise.
Transparent weaves over bare skin strike
ancient censors as instrumentsof deceit
and seduction. And yet,when such fabrics
surface again in the Trecento, it is the
fleshof the Christ Child they celebrate.
The fine cloths reproved by the
moralists still served as garments, how-
ever inadequate. We do not hear of them
being manipulated foreroticeffect- as we
see them dandled by the Renaissance Ve-
nusesof Antico, Lorenzo Costa, Lorenzo
di Credi, Hans Baldung, and Lucas
Cranach (Figs. 165-67); or by Lucas van
Leyden's Fortuna(Fig. 168). These veils
Fig. 164. Sienese (Duccio?), Madonna and

ChildEnthroned, c. 1290-1300.

148 OCTOBER
charminga woman's flankswere meant to

delight. And what we need to explain is
the prior appearance of just such para-
phernalia and of similar provocation in
14th- and 15th-centuryimages of the
young Christ (Fig. 169; see also Excursus
XXI). Perhaps we must rank the strip-
tease with the drama, the dance, and the
oratorio as another cultural form whose
deep roots are religious.
Fig. 166. Lucas Cranach, Venusand Cupid, 1531.
Fig. 165. Lorenzo Costa, Venus,c. 1500.

Fig. 167. Lucas Cranach, Venus,1532. Fig. 168. Lucas van Leyden, Fortuna.
Fig. 169. Jean Bellegambe (?), Holy Family,c. 1520, detail.

150 OCTOBER
XXI. Exposure as revelation
Fig. 170. Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. Madonna and

Child withSt. Jerome,detail.
Fig. 171. Piero di Cosimo, Madonna and

ChildEnthroned withSaints,c. 1515.

Fig. 172. FrancescoPesellino,Madonnaand Fig. 173. Zanobi Machiavelli,Madonnaand
ChildwithSt.John,c. 1455.
Child,c. 1460.
Fig. 174. Francesco del Cossa, Madonna and Fig. 175. Giovanni della Robbia, Madonna
Child,detail fromthe Pala dei Mercanti, 1474. and Child,c. 1490-1500.

Fig. 176. Titian, Madonna and Child,c. 1510-20.
Fig. 177. Francesco Pesellino, Madonna and

ChildwithSix Saints,c. 1445-50.

Fig. 178. Sebastiano Mainardi, Madonna and Fig. 180. Correggio, Madonna del Latte,
Child withSt. John,c. 1490. c. 1525.
Fig. 179. Bramantino, Madonna Trivulzio, Fig. 181. Botticelli School, Madonna and
c. 1512. Child withPomegranate, c. 1495.

Fig. 182. Giovanni Dalmata, Madonna and Fig. 183. Imitator of Antonio Rossellino,
Child,c. 1471-77. BarneyMadonna.
Figs. 170-82 reproduce select further cisively that that is so. One of the hall-
instances of uncensored showings. These marks of this sculptor is the fact that he
should be mentally supplemented by in- firstdresses up the Child, and then, in a
numerable works whose original genital rather muddled fashion, undresses him"
emphasis has been suppressed and dis- ("The Forging of Italian Renaissance
sembled by subsequent overpainting(see Sculpture," Apollo, 99 [April 1974],
Excursus XXXI). p. 252).
Fig. 183 is a special case. It reproduces The closing argument is the most fully
a marble reliefof the Madonna and Child, stated, but it is not entirelyclear. Is it
formerlyattributed to Antonio Rossel- only the "muddled fashion" that betrays
lino, but condemned by John Pope-Hen- the hand of the forger,or the very fact
nessy as the workof an unknown forgerof that the Child is undressed after being
the second half of the 19th century. The "dressed up"? If the latter is meant, then
author is the best authorityin the fieldof we have been given something to think
Italian Renaissance sculpture, and one about, irrespectiveof the status assigned
would be inclined to believe him even if to the relief. We have learned that the
he offeredno arguments for his opinion. widespread phenomenon I am discussing,
But Pope-Hennessy had the courtesy to the frequent arrangement of "fabrics
state his grounds as follows: "That this fussed so as not to hinder the showing,"
[relief] dates fromthe nineteenthcentury has not been decisivelyregisteredeven by
is not open to doubt; the angels which the most attentiveobserver. Our anony-
overlap the moulding, the cherub head mous 19th-centuryforger becomes the
which is inserted on the left,the carving firstmodern to recognize that the pur-
of the Virgin's head and the thronewitha poseful dressingup to undress had been a
full-lengthputto on an arm, all prove de- characteristicQuattrocento motif.

sepulcher looms, is not being laid upon it.

XXII. A Digression on the "Stone (People don't step upon a bench or a
of Unction" tabletop if theymean to lay somethingon
it.) Therefore, the object that so blatantly
The supposed relic on which the body juts from the picture out is no Stone of
of Christ was anointed for burial is a Unction. But this disqualification does
pious fraud, firstfabled in 12th-century not degrade it. On the contrary,the huge,
Constantinople, lost sight of after the hovering base underpropping the com-
Fourth Crusade (1204), and produced pressed cluster of mourners becomes
again in the early 19th centuryforperma- more tremendous, more fundamental,
nent installation at the Church of the when we see that it must be the slab
Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The mod- destined to seal the rectangularopening of
ern literatureon the subject has cultivated the sepulcher. (In the original painting in
confusion ever since 1860, when the the Vatican Pinacoteca, this opening was
young Charles Jean Melchior, Marquis only faintlyvisible beforerecentcleaning.
de Vogiil, published his Les Eglises de la It shows well in Guattani's engraving
TerreSainte. Vogiil's errors were mag- [1784] and in old painted replicas--even
nified in 1916 by Gabriel Millet, ampli- in the ruined copy in the Fogg Art
fied subsequently by others, and remain Museum at Cambridge.)
to thisday uncorrected.An attemptto ex- Caravaggio gave the supporting slab
pose some of the current falsehoods was extraordinary dramatic presence. He
made in my (unpublished) convocation dignifiedit by the touch of Christ'sfingers
address to the College Art Association and the caress of the shroud. At bottom
Conference in Washington, D.C., in right, in its shadow, he engloomed a de-
January 1975. Since the corrective ma- jected plant to contrast with the fresh
terial bulks too large forthe presentocca- growthunder its lighted face; propped it
sion, I confine myselfto a note concern- on cobbles as though to facilitatelifting;
ing one major painting whose symbolism and honed its extruded angle to perfect
is too eloquent to be needlessly muddled. congruencewiththeright-angledentrance-
To qualify as the legendary Stone of way of the tomb. The stone's thickness,
Unction, the platform supporting the sufficientto carrythe weightof all, shows
deposed Christ in a painting (or emit infrangibleand resistantto penetration,
broidered aer) must satisfyseveral condi- an unbreakable seal. Thus is foreshown
tions:(1) it mustbe, as originallydescribed, the wonder of the Resurrection, when the
a movable slab of red, white-veinedstone; risen Christ passes through- not in spirit
(2) it must be wept over by the Madonna; but bodily; passing through as in his
(3) as a minimal referenceto the rite, it miracle birth, without breaking the bar-
must at the very least show an ointment rier. Preachers had stressed the sheer
jar ready for use; (4) its surface must be physicality of the miracle: "He issued
reserved for the revered body and may forthfrom the sepulcher without remov-
never be trampled on. Not one of these ing the stone; and thus there were two
conditions is met in the famous picture bodies at the same time in the same place.
now chiefly associated with the Unc- O you philosophers, what say you now?
tion Stone - Caravaggio's Entombment of This effectis altogethercontraryto your
1602-04. Here the huge plinthsupportsa philosophy: two bodies at once in the
halfdozen figures;and the corpse, carried same place (Savonarola, Predicasopra Gi-
leftward to where the entrance of the obbe,ed. Roberto Ridolfi, Predica XLIV

156 OCTOBER
[Easter sermon], Rome, 1957, II, p. 376). rest in . . . anticipationof the gloryof the
This, I believe, is the promised marvel resurrection. The number eight, which
which Caravaggio's vision holds out. This signifiesbeatitude, fitsthose who, having
is why a fingerof Christ's rightarm (the already received back theirbodies, rejoice
veins of which are engorged as a dead in blessed immortality"(Noah's Ark,I, 16,
man's are not) pointedly touches the p. 70). That this system reflects the
stone--a pledge not lost on the watchful primordial hebdomad Hugh takes for
St. John. And it is fittingthat the stone's granted: "Seven denotes this present life
salient corner be brightest lit, beetling which runs through seven days; eight,
over the altar. Caravaggio's impassable which comes afterseven, signifieseternal
block is the port designate of the Resur- life. . . . Let wisdom grow, then, through
rection. seven and eight. Let it begin with seven
For the Stone of Unction, meanwhile, and attain its perfectionthrough eight."
we look elsewhere. Its earliest, most im- The same periodization still appears in
pressive and accurate representation is Voragine's Golden Legend (p. 37) and
the lapidary support of Mantegna's fore- determines the structure of Hartmann
shortenedDead Christ in theBrera (Fig. 58).Schedel's enormously popular Nuremberg
Chronicleof 1493 and 1497. This Welt-
chronik,or Liber Chronicarum, plots the
XXIII. The eighthday world's historythrough six eons down to
the coming of the Antichrist in the
For the Church Fathers the phases of seventh age, to close at world's end with
eschatological time were as the days of the the Last Judgment,when God sets a term
week; they saw the present world figured to death in the institutionof immortality.
by the seven days of Creation, the world Of almost equal persistence is the
to come by the eighth. "The day of the association of Circumcision with Resur-
Lord," writesSt. Basil, "is the futureage, rection by way of the number eight. Cir-
the eighthday which is beyond the cosmic cumcision on the eighthday typifiesbap-
week" (Danielou, The Bibleand theLiturgy, tism, which signifiesparticipation in the
p. 266). St. Methodius (fl. 270-309) sees Resurrection of Christ on the day after
the firstfive days corresponding to the the Sabbath. On this point, we have a
period of the Temple, of rituallaw, and of wealth of patristic texts, assembled by
man's progressfromincestto monogamy. Danielou. Thus Justin Martyr (c. 100-c.
The sixth day marks the period of the 165): "The precept of circumcision,com-
Church in the world. The seventh signi- manding that children be circumcised on
fies the millennium consequent upon the the eighthday, is the type of the true cir-
general resurrection- to be superseded at cumcision . . . by Him Who rose from
last by the eighth day which, following the dead on the firstday of the week.
upon shadow and image, brings the real- For the firstday of the week is also the
of
ity heaven, of immortality eternity eighth"(The Bible and theLiturgy,p. 66).
in
(Musurillo, introd. to Symposium, p. 35). Similarly, Asterius of Amasea (d. aft.
Eight hundred years later, Hugh of St. 341): "Why did circumcision take place
Victor explained that "because of the five on the eighth day? Because during the
senses, the number five aptly represents firstseven, the child was wearing swad-
natural men. . . . The number six suits dling clothes, but on the eighth, freed
spiritualpersons. . . . The number seven, from these bonds, he received circumci-
signifying rest, is proper to the souls who sion, sign of the seal [sphragis]of the faith

of Abraham. And this also typifiedthe and the number of those who did not
fact that, when we have carried the seven perish in the flood. It is taken as the
days of life,thatis to say, the bonds of sin, eighth age of Eternal Salvation. .. ."
we should, at the end of time, break these
bonds and, circumcised by death and
resurrection,as if on the eighth day em- XXIV. Resisting the physical
brace the life of the angels" (ibid., p. 65). evidence of circumcision
See, further,Danielou's chapter 16, "The
Eighth Day," with exposition of St. Basil's In view of the infinite merit which
thought upon "the firstday of the week, Christian doctrine attached to the Cir-
that on which lightwas created, on which cumcision of Christ, the refusal of
the Savior rose from the dead, of which Renaissance art to acknowledge its visual
the Sunday of each week is the liturgical effectremains an unexplained puzzle; and
commemoration.. . the cosmic day of Renaissance scholarship has evaded the
creation, the biblical day of circumcision, problem, though the blatant uncircumci-
the evangelical day of the Resurrection, sion of that other true son of Abraham,
the Church's day of the Eucharistic Michelangelo's David, causes even tourists
celebration, and, finally,the eschatologi- to wonder (see L. Steinberg, "Michel-
cal day of the age to come" (p. 266). angelo and the Doctors," Bulletinof the
Danielou proceeds to summarize the History of Medicine, 56 [Winter 1982],
relevant speculations of St. Gregory of p. 552).
Nazianzus, who finds "the contrast be- It has been suggested that Renaissance
tween the hebdomad and ogdoad" in this artists perhaps did not know and simply
cryptic text of Ecclesiastes 11: "Cast thy could not conceive the lineamentsof a cir-
bread upon the runningwaters, foraftera cumcised penis. This seems unconvinc-
long time thou shalt findit again. Give a ing, if only because in 15th-centuryItaly
portion to seven, and also to eight. .. ." Muslim slaves of both sexes were near
In expounding thisverse, Danielou points ubiquitous. The evidence is presented in
out, the Church Fathers followed a rab- Iris Origo's masterly essay, "The Do-
binical tradition, the rabbis being "the mestic Enemy"; and it raises the question:
firstto see in this text of Ecclesiastes the were the bodies of deceased slaves never
figure,not of the Sabbath and of the Sun- anatomized? We must assume thatdissec-
day, but of the Sabbath and the circumci- tions, practiced with increasing frequency
sion. . ... What the Fathers did was by physicians and artists from the late
merely to apply this idea to the Sunday" 15thcenturyon, were performednot only
(p. 268). on bodies of executed criminals, but as
For an excellent introduction to the well on circumcised slaves. For the mid-
general subject of arithmology,see Hop- 16th century, the practice is, in fact,
per, Medieval Number Symbolism,from documented in Condivi's Michelangelo
which I quote a portionof his summaryof vita (1553). Condivi reports that the
pertinent Augustinian texts (p. 85): anatomist-surgeonRealdo Colombo sent
"Since the universe is constitutedin 7, 8 is the artist, for purposes of dissection and
the number of Immortality.It returnsto
study, "the body of a Moor, a very fine
Unity as the firstday of the second week, young man, and very suitable. . . . On
or in the eighth sentence of the Beati- this corpse Michelangelo showed me
tudes, which repeats the first. It is the many rare and recondite facts, perhaps
number of resurrectionand circumcision never before understood" (Condivi,

158 OCTOBER
pp. 81-82). Of course,theyoungMoor, 'Woe unto them that are mightyto drink
whose cadaver the aged Michelangelo wine, ... uncircumcised are they in
studied, could have been captured in smell and touch, who are steeped in
childhood,beforehis circumcisionin early unguents... who pursue the embraces
teen-age. Nevertheless, his case cautions of harlots. . . . And those who preserve
us against laying contented ignorance on theirhearts in all due care . . . have been
generations of studious artists engrossed circumcised by the stone [knife] of spiri-
in the subject of the male nude. tual exercise" (In die festo circumcisionis
Perhaps the grounds fortheirresistance domini,col. 57). In medieval preaching,
should be sought ratherin an unresolved the figurativetraditionpersistseven to the
conflictof attitudes: I mean the percep- censure of idle chatter: "Therefore we
tion of circumcision as both deliverance must be circumcised in the tongue, that
and deprivation, riddance and loss. A is, speak few and only necessary things"
God-framed sacrament,vouchsafedof old (Pseudo-Bonaventure, Meditations, p. 45).
to cleanse man of the odium of Original The habit here is that of wordplay, of
Sin, was yet a "despoiling of the body" voice to ear, the habit of rhetoricand ser-
(Col. 2:11), an embarrassing defect. The mon. The verbal trope does not dwell
honorificseal of a compact between man among formsof vision, is not meant to be
and God was manifestlya shameful scar. eyed--and "circumcision" is not beheld,
Between these conflicting positions the but understood as a figureforthe slough-
gulf was unbridgeable- deeper than the ing of rank encumbrance, the removal of
theological issue, wide as the divergence any morally crippling impediment. And
between, say, Hellenic sculptorand bibli- against thisaural traditionstands the con-
cal prophet. Where the twain finallymeet viction of the unhoodwinked eye, which
in Christianity they collide in a culture perceivesthis same circumcisionas an in-
shock never quite overcome. jury, an impairment, the marring of a
In the Old Testament, circumcision, primordial perfection. And this too is
once instituted,becomes instantlymeta- Christian, since "the faith has turned
phorical.The God of Deuteronomy(10:16) away from circumcision back to the in-
pleads with his people to "circumcise the tegrityof the flesh, as it was from the
foreskinsof their hearts," and Jeremiah beginning" (Tertullian, De monogamia,5,
berates the unrepententwho cannot hear in Treatises,p. 79).
because their "ears are uncircumcised" No wonder that the word "mutilation"
(6:10). Thus, too, St. Stephen: "You comes to the mind of a mid-16th-century
stiffneckedand uncircumcised in heart author, discussing the incidence of cir-
and ears, you always resist the Holy cumcision among the ancient Egyptians;
Ghost" (Acts 7:51). And St. Paul: "He is a I am speaking of Pierio Valeriano's
Jew, thatis one inwardly;and the circum- Hieroglyphica(Book VI, p. 47) in its
cision is thatof the heart, in the spirit,not original Latin. But the Italian edition
in the letter"(Rom. 2:29). published in 1602 translates"mutilation"
This tropological vein, wherein "cir- as "pruning"("scapezzare la pellicina della
cumcision" representsany form of spiri- verga all'uomo"), substitutingthe meta-
tual purgation, is followed thereafterby phor of beneficent,life-givingcare for the
thousands of Christian preachers. The author's abhorrence of maiming (Pierio
Venerable Bede wants man's every sense Valeriano, Ieroglifici, trans. Scipion Bar-
circumcised. "They are uncircumcised in gagli, Venice, 1602, p. 93). In this in-
taste whom the Prophet confutes, saying stance, the immediate subject is anti-

quarian, antedating the Christian super- member in Renaissance images of the

session of circumcision in baptism. Yet Christ Child at an age well past the eighth
even here translatorand author separate day of life is not attributableto ignorance
in a characteristicpolarity,of which both or indifference.The reason forthe Child's
termsare inherentlyChristian--one homi- apparent uncircumcision must lie in the
letic,the otherconcrete;one respectful,the artists' sense of the body's perfection.
other repelled. Here they would not infringe,any more
That Renaissance artiststook an une- than they would deprive Eve of a navel,
quivocal stand on this matter is a fact no matterwhat the learned might say.
recorded in all their pictures and
sculptures. Depicting the nude infant
Christ at whatever age, they willingly XXV. Attitudesto sermons
paid the price of inaccuracy to spare the
reveredbody the blemish of imperfection.
So much for the conspicuous anomaly What the word "sermon" sets offin a
of a Christ (or a David) uncircumcised. secular modern mind is told in Webster's
Since the topic does not seem to have ThirdInternational
under definition3b; and
entered Renaissance writingson art, the more eloquently in Joyce's account of
proposed explanation remains hypotheti- young Stephen's wanderings through
cal. But the silence of art-orientedperiod Dublin slums: "He examined all the book-
textsreflectsonly the restraintsgoverning stalls which offered old directories and
that genre of literature: it is not in the volumes of sermons and unheard-of
character of humanist authors to referto treatises at the rate of a penny each or
the genitalia of Christ. The artists, three fortwopence"(StephenHero,Episode
however--those who were celebrating XXII). We hardly need to be told that no
these genitalia--had other connections, purchase was made.
other strains of culture to draw on. Dur- But even where sermons resound in
ing the centuriesunder review,the pietyof their proper place, i.e., from the pulpit,
believers dwelt on the details of the Incar- our sympathies are likely to fall on the
nate's physicalbeing more freelythan was side of inattention,as when we read, for
permissibleunder the inhibitionsof polite example, how the consistoryof the church
letters. We are addressing that Christian at Arnstadt, in February 1706, repri-
culture which enabled St. Catherine of manded their young organist, one J. S.
Siena (d. 1380) to claim the Lord's fore- Bach, because "he went to a nearby
skin mystically as her betrothal ring; a wineshop during the sermons." Or when
world in which the supposed relic of the O'Malley tells us that in Renaissance
prepuce of Christwas owned competitively Rome "a proclivityfortalking during the
by several churches, most eminently by sermons delivered in the papal chapel
St. John Lateran; a theological climate seems to have been almost ineradicable";
whereinit was properto speculate whether in which matter"the cardinals themselves
or not the foreskin was reassumed in were not above reproach" (Praise and
Christ's risen body - some arguing that"it Blame, pp. 20-21).
ought to be resurrectedwith him as per- I remember being struck by the "In-
taining to the truth and integrityof his troductoryNote" to a neat Oxford edition
human nature" (Carvajal, Oratioin die cir- of Evelyn'sDiary (London, 1959). The
cumcisionis, fol. 9). Under such focused at- editor, E. S. de Beer, had previously
tention, the aspect of the uncircumcised published the corpus complete in six

volumes (1955), and my demotic ver-
sion- a convenient 1300-page tome- had
been slimmed to one-thirdits bulk. How
this reduction was compassed, the editor
explains as follows:"The principal class of
omissions is Evelyn's reports of the con-
tentsof the sermons he heard between the
Restoration (29 May 1660) and the end of
1705. Only a very few fragmentsof these
are retained, either for their general
historical significanceor for Evelyn's ex-
press emotional responses to them."
The effectof such systematicomission
is to leave the modern reader, who finds
all the Evelyn he needs in the epitome,
with the false notion that the diarist
scanted "the contents of the sermons he
heard"; which makes the man's mental
world that much more secular. We have
here a type of retroactivesecularizing im- Fig. 184. Jean de Beaumetz and Shop,
posed alike on the modern perception of, CrucifixionwithCarthusian,1390-95.
say, Newton, Kepler, Leonardo da Vinci,
or indeed, the entirety of Renaissance need not assume the operation of sym-
culture. It takes some effortof historical bolism whenever the blood of the Cru-
imagination to reinstatethe institutionof cifieddeflectsfromside to center.One has
public preachingwhere thatculturemain- to allow forimitatorswho deploy a given
tained it- near the center of its intellec- motif because it looks right or familiar,
tual, moral, and social life. without rethinkingits original meaning.
But that the genital referencein the motif
could be fullyintended seems confirmed
XXVI. The blood hyphen by a startlingjuxtaposition of images on a
page in the Rohan Hours (Fig. 185).
Painters of Christ on the cross who Folio 237 displays a large Crucifixion
and,
respect nature's laws (e.g., Velazquez in as its typological parallel, a small Old
his Crucifix
at the Prado) depict the blood Testament scene adjoined. The latter
flowfromtheside wound moving in down- depicts the incident told in Numbers 25:
righttricklesupon the rightthigh.Where 7-8, where the priest Phineas dispatches
the flowis divertedinto the groin, we are an Israelite fornicatorand his Midianite
apprised that the determinant is a force harlotby piercingthe man and the woman
other than gravitational. Now last and together with a single thrust of his
firstwound are connected, as though the lance-"in locis genitalibus," says the
graph of Christ's lifelong Passion were Vulgate (Douay: "in the genital parts").
traced on the chartof his body. The motif In the Rohan miniature the accompany-
appears conspicuously in French painting ing legend reads in Old French: "S'y fery
shortlybefore 1400, and it remains for l'un et l'autre parmy leurs natures"- the
more than a centurya ready symbol. We word "nature"being the common latinate

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Fig. 185. Illumination from the Grandes Heures de Rohan, Crucifixion

with Phineas
PunishingtheAdulterous
Couple,c. 1420-25.

euphemism for the pudenda ("Nature '
. . Parties du corps humain servant la
generation";A. J. Greimas, Dictionnaire de
l'ancienfranfais,Paris, 1968, p. 433, def.
3). Remarkable here is the pairing of a
coup de lance inflictedon genitalia with a
Crucifixionwherein the firstwounding of
the "nature"of Christ is recalled in a copi-
ous effusionof blood at the groin.
(In the original 13th-century Bible
moralisee,the New Testament parallel to
the Phineas scene is not the Crucifixion,
but the punishmentof monks who break
theirvows of chastity;see A. de Laborde,
La Biblemoralisee.. . , Paris, 1911-27, fol.
83v of the Oxford manuscript. Further-
Fig. 186. Middle Rhenish, Lamentation,
c. 1450. more, though the Phineas scene in the
Rohan Hours is copied from the 14th-
century Angevin Bible moralis&e[Paris,
Biblioth'que Nationale, ms. fr. 9561, fol.
97], the latter manuscript does not draw
the typologicalparallel with the Crucifix-
ion.)
XXVII. The calendricalstyleof

theCircumcision
A learned friendsuggestsan intriguing
possibility: as the reckoning of our era
refersto the Nativity,could our reversion
to the ancient Julian calendar in placing
the year's beginning on January 1 referto
the Circumcision? I have been unable to
confirmthe hypothesis,but the following
considerations are pertinent.
(1) January1, fromitsassociationwith
pagan revels, was held in contemptby the
early Fathers and was therefore con-
sidered unfit to introduce the Christian
year. "On thisday," writesSt. Augustine,
"the Gentiles celebrate their festivalwith
worldlyjoy of the flesh,with the sound of
most vain and filthysongs, withbanquets
and shameless dances. If what the Gen-
Fig. 187. Hans Pleydenwurff
Shop, Deposition,
1465.

tiles do in celebratingthis false feastdoes man lands, that this date became again
not please you, then you will be gathered the chronological landmark it had been in
fromamong the Gentiles" (Sermon XVII antiquity- a restorationwhich Poole at-
[Ben. 198]; Sermons,p. 149). For subse- tributesto the increasing use of almanacs
quent ecclesiastical prohibitionsof Chris- and the study of Roman law. The coin-
tian participationat such rejoicings- docu- cidence was not lost upon the author of
mented for Italy, Spain, and Gaul--see the GoldenLegend(late 13th century): he
K. A. Heinrich Kellner, Heortology:A finds it fittingthat the Circumcision of
HistoryofChristian Festivals. . . , London, Christ, "the head of the Church," was
1908, pp. 163-64. As late as 742, St. "established in the head and beginning of
Boniface (the "Apostle of Germany," the year"(Voragine, GoldenLegend,p. 34).
680-754) spoke with "horror of the (4) I have found no indication that the
heathen rites with which, as he heard, it decision to appoint January 1 as the
was customary at Rome to celebrate the gateway of the year was at any time
New Year on 1 January" (Poole, Studiesin influenced (or justified ex postfacto) by
Chronology and History,p. 10). So long as symbolic considerations. And on this
paganism was vital, the Christian shud- point Poole is silent. We can only say that
der at its excesses may explain why (I the coincidence of the two events--the
quote Poole's conclusion, p. 26) "the year's beginning and the "beginning of
Church steadily opposed the observance our salvation" in the Circumcision (see
of 1January as the beginningof the year," p. 62)--offered itself to association. A
even though that date was accepted for German document of 1513 quotes St.
calendrical purposes. Jerome on the pagan custom of perform-
(2) "New Year" continued to mean ing no executions on New Year's day-
January 1, even when, afterthe 7th cen- "there is not a day in the year to which we
tury, the civil year was made to begin at may not ascribe more than 5000 martyrs
other dates. Thus the Byzantine year . .. excepting only the day of the new
began on September 1. In the Carolin- year or Circumcision of our Lord."
gian Empire, under the authorityof St. (Quoted in an inventory of the relics
Boniface, it began with the Nativity. assembled at Wittenberg; see P. Kalkoff,
Other polities reckoned fromthe Annun- Ablass und Reliquienverehrung an derSchloss-
ciation, i.e., not from December 25, but kirche zu Wittenberg unter Friedrichdem
fromMarch 25; othersagain fromEaster. Weisen,Gotha, 1907, p. 55.)
"It was natural," writes Poole, "to choose (5) In the sermondelivered in the pope's
forthe beginning of the year a day which chapel on January 1, 1485, the preacher
was associated only with Christian obser- Antonio Lollio refersto the Feast of the
vances." And it was not until the High Circumcision as "thismost holy day which
Middle Ages that the "Style of the Cir- not unjustlyis set at the head of the year."
cumcision," coincidentwith the old Julian And concludes: "Let us venerate thismost
calendar, became one among the com- sacred day of the Circumcision, which we
peting styles. may call the gate that opens the way
(3) By the 6th century, if not before, to paradise, even as it opens the year"
January 1 was established as a festivalof (Lollio, Oratiocircumcisionis,fol. 3v).
the Church, the Feast of the Circumci- A quarter century earlier (1459), the
sion; but with no referencein the liturgy Duchy of Milan had officiallyadopted the
to the beginning of the civil year. It was "Style of the Circumcision," a fact that
during the 13th century, chieflyin Ger- must have made this mode of reckoninga

matter of widespread discussion. During
the 16thcentury,most ofWestern Europe
gradually followed suit. And in 1582,
almost a hundred years afterLollio's ser-
mon, the calendrical reform of Pope
Gregory XIII (1572-85) fixedJanuary 1
as the gateway of the Christian year for
the countries of the Roman obedience.
Yet his bull of February 24, 1582, entirely
technical and precise, makes no reference
to the concomitant feast of the Church.
Lollio's then century-oldrhetoricalflour-
ish had cited the aptness of setting the
Circumcision feastat the head of the year,
not vice versa. Whether the reform of
1582 was accompanied by similarrhetoric
must await furtherstudy. (For the bull in
English translation, see Lewis A. Scott,
"Act and Bull; or, Fixed Anniversaries,"A
Paper submitted to theNumismaticand Anti-
quarianSociety ofPhiladelphia,Philadelphia,
1880. The gradual adoption of the reform Fig. 188. Juan de Flandes, Adorationofthe
and abolition of alternative systems by Magi, c. 1510.
Protestant and other states during the
following two centuries is itemized in
A. Cappelli, Cronologia,3rd ed., Milan,
1969, pp. 11-13; and Poole, p. 27.)
XXVIII. Ghirlandaio and the

Adoration
In his role as discussant followingthe
original presentation of this material at
the Lionel Trilling Seminar in November
1981, ProfessorJulius S. Held offeredan
alternativereading of the centralaction in
Ghirlandaio's tondo (Fig. 66). He sug-
gested that the old Magus, preparing to
kiss the Child's foot, may be reaching for
the cloth so as not to be grasping the
sacred limb with bare hand. I answer:
(1) Though the proposed sequel to the
moment depicted is conceivable, it is not
visually given. What the Magus' gesture
imparts is his reverence in touching the
Fig. 189. Pontormo, Adorationof theMagi,

c. 1519-20, detail.

Fig. 190. Andrea Andreani afterAurelio (?) Fig. 191. Marco Pino, AdorationoftheMagi,
Luini, AdorationoftheMagi, c. 1570. 1571.
loincloth whose withdrawal makes the (4) Even if Ghirlandaio's depicted pres-
Child naked. This much alone are we ent were spun out according to the sce-
shown. nario proposed by ProfessorHeld, the im-
(2) In the ritual touching of sacred ob- port of the given moment, wherein the
jects with covered hands, the cloth used is boy exposes his groin to the anxious
one's own. Never is it borrowed fromthe curiosity of the King, would not be
center of sanctity. No wiseman would affected.
steal the Child's covering to respectfully Dr. Joanna Lipking of Northwestern
grasp its foot. University suggests that the boy's naked-
(3) We know several Adorationsthat ness in Renaissance Infancy scenes may
show the firstKing grasping the Infant's need revealing to show him possessed of a
footwithveiled hand, possiblywithintent navel, proving him born of woman. It is
to implant a kiss (Fig. 69; cf. also Bot- an engaging thought.
ticelli's Adorationin the Uffizi). But such The Adorations reproduced here and in
instances are exceptional; in the over- the text are taken from a large stock in
whelming majority of Adorationsthat which the genital focus of the old King's
depict the old King in the act of touching attentionis unmistakable.Other outstand-
the Child's arm, foot,or leg, the contactis ing examples are: the Adorationpage in
bare-handed (Figs. 67, 68, 190, 191)- sig- Jacquemart de Hesdin's PetitesHeures de
nificantly so, since the reality of the Jean de Berry(c. 1380-85; Meiss, French
Child's human fleshis being verified. Painting,fig. 93); the Botticini tondo in

166 OCTOBER
the Art Institute of Chicago; Veronese's XXIX. The protectionmotif

Adorationin Vienna. In numerous in-
stances, the focus is effectively
blurred by To the worksreproduced in Figs. 74-78
overpainting at the Child's groin. This and 193-201, I add a shortlist of further
appears to be the case in the Adorations of examples that seem particularly expres-
Vincenzo Foppa and Bruegel (Fig. 192), sive: Andrea di Giusto's polyptychof 1435
both at the London National Gallery; in in Prato (cited in Excursus XIX); Jacopo
the Van Scorel at Bonn (Fig. 68), etc.; see Bellini's Madonna and Child in Bergamo,
also Excursus XXXI. Accademia Carrara; Jacopo del Sellaio's
Madonna and Child tondo in Vaduz,
LiechtensteinCollection; a Crivelli panel
of the Madonna and ChildEnthroned in the
Arthur Lehman Collection, and another
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Robert Lehman Collection; Bramantino's
Fig. 192. Bruegel, detail of Fig. 71. Madonna and Child,also in the Metropoli-
tan Museum; Lorenzo di Credi's Madonna
and Child withSaints in the Louvre; An-
tonio da Viterbo's Madonna and Child
panel in Bergamo, Accademia Carrara;
Lorenzo Costa's Holy Family with Sts.
Jeromeand Francis,Budapest, Museum of
Fine Arts; Pontormo's Sacra Conversazione
in Florence, SS. Annunziata; Perino del
Vaga's Holy Family with St. John and St.
Anne,Rome, Galleria Borghese; Parmigia-
nino's Madonna della Rosa in Dresden;
Gerolamo Bassano's Madonna and Childof
c. 1600 in the Museo Civico, Bassano del
Grappa. Remarkable Northernexamples
of the protectionmotif,dating again from
the 15th and 16th centuries(supplement-
ing Figs. 11, 31, 49) include: theAdoration
page by the Bedford Master, c. 1430-
35, New York, The Pierpont Mor-
gan Library, M. 359, fol. 52v; Stefan
Lochner's Adorationaltarpiece in the Co-
logne Cathedral; Hans Memling's Donne
Triptych in the Devonshire Collection,
Chatsworth; Cranach's panel of the Ma-
donnawiththeChild Holding Grapesin the
Louvre; Lucas van Leyden's Madonnaand
Child in the Oslo National Gallery, and
Lucas' engravings, The Adorationof the
Magi, 1513 (Hollstein 37), and the Holy
Family,c. 1530 (Hollstein 27).

Fig. 193. Bohemian, Madonna ofStrahova,c. 1350.
Fig. 194. Master of St. Severin, Adorationof theMagi, c. 1500.

Fig. 195. Battistadi Gerio,Madonnaand Fig. 196. Sassetta, Madonna and Child with
Child,c. 1410. Angels,1437-44.
c. 1465, detail.
Fig. 197. Mantegna School, Sacra Conversazione,

Fig. 198. Botticelli,Madonna dei Candelabri,c. 1476.
Fig. 199. Giovanni Bellini, Madonna and Child withSaints,c. 1490.

del Garbo,Madonna
Fig. 200. Raffaellino
1500.
and ChildEnthroned,
Fig. 201. DomenicoPuligo,Madonnaand

withSaints,c. 1515.
ChildEnthroned

The Sexuality
of Christ 171
XXX. Images of self-touchand of Infanterection
Fig. 202. Titian (?), SacraConversazione,

before1511.
Fig. 203. Sodoma, HolyFamily,c. 1525.

Fig. 204. Veronese Shop, Holy Family,c. 1600.
Fig. 205. Gian Antonio Guardi afterVeronese, Holy Family,c. 1750.

173
None but the God-man may.

A drawing by Ludovico Carracci (Fig.
206) displays the supine, naked Christ
Child touchinghimselfwithhis lefthand,
while his rightpoints rhetoricallytoward
an angelic messenger. Long attributedto
Annibale, the drawing is probably a study
fora lost painting, of which several copies
are mentioned in a 1631 inventoryof the
collection of Ludovico's patron, Barto-
lommeo Dulcini. One such copy, as well
as a reproductiveengraving, is preserved
in the Bologna Pinacoteca. For attribu-
tion and documentation, see Leonora
Street,"La vendita Ellesmere di disegni di
Carracci," Arte Illustrata,5 (September
1972), pp. 356-57 and fig. 14.
While the motifof the self-touchseems
fairlyrare, that of the Christ Child's erec-
tion must have been common, though Fig. 206. LudovicoCarracci, TheDreamof
St.Joseph,c. 1605.
presumably painted out in most cases.
The earliest instance I know is a Madonna
and Child withFourAngelsby Giovanni di
Marco dal Ponte (Florentine,c. 1385-1437)
in the De Young Museum, San Francisco
(61.44.5): the Child reaches for the
Madonna's veil and exposes his lower
body. In the Madonnapicturesof Cima da
Conegliano, erection is normal; e.g., his
Madonnaand ChildwithSts.JeromeandJohn
in the Washington National Gallery; a
Madonna and Child in the Bologna
Pinacoteca; another (in addition to Fig.
84) in the National Gallery, London. See
also Perugino's Madonna and Child of
c. 1500 in the Detroit Institute of Arts;
Francesco Francia's Madonna and Child
withSts. Jeromeand Francis,The Norton
Simon Foundation; Marco Palmezzano's
Madonna and Childpanel in Bologna, and
the same artist'sHoly FamilywiththeInfant
St.Johnin the Phoenix Art Museum; and
a HolyFamilywithSt.Johnby a Perino del
Vaga follower in the Galleria Doria,
Rome (1982 catalogue, fig. 56). In Par-
migianino's Visionof St. Jerome(London,
Fig. 207. Antonio Carneo, Holy FamilyAdored

byLieutenantsand Deputies,1667, detail.

Fig. 208. Vivarini, detail of Fig. 82.
National Gallery), the Child's member zeal of the censor); or entrepreneurial(as

may not be erect, but it casts a long in site clearing for urban development
shadow. and renovation); or gustatory,the dead-
liest ground of all, since nothing en-
dangers a work's survival more than a re-
XXXI. Bowdlerism cent aversion of taste.
In the past, works of art have been
The assault on art in the name of pro- destroyed by avarice or sudden need, as
priety is one mode of iconoclasm. But a when the production of goldsmiths was
general historyof the iconoclasticimpulse melted down for the metal, or bronzes
in action remains to be written.As I see were cast into cannon. And always, in
it, such a work would reveal the preserva- past times as now, there is the attritional
tion of art as an embattled cause, inter- work of neglect presiding over the crum-
mittentlythreatenedby waves of anti-art bling of structuresthat need care to sur-
feeling. vive. The dispassion of cold indifferenceis
The modalities of iconoclasm are var- a prime killer, like Baudelaire's ennui.
ious, as are the objects of its execration. More positive passions come into play
The grounds may be doctrinal (as in the periodically: a rage against art as evi-
classic Byzantine phase); or socio-political dence of the unconscionable luxuryof the
(as in the destructionof royalistimagery rich; fear of the magic of images- which
by revolutionists);or ideological (as in the accounts for eyes gouged out on painted
proscription of "decadent" art under figures; or the sheer exhilaration of van-
Hitler and Stalin); or moralistic(as in the dalism. It seems to me that mankind's

commerce with art is a yes/no affair,of raw material and Duchamp's famous ploy
which standard art historygives a lopsided would have been braver, less arch, had he
picture. suggested a household use for the De-
Add to all the above the animus feltby moisellesd'Avignonor Matisse's Red Studio.
those who are making art now against The proper response to his proposed
those who formerlymade it. "Images are waste of a Rembrandt is-"not again?!"
symbols of a deposed ruling class, . . . or Or thinkof Mir6's Portrait ofa Man in a
of a hated one," writes David Freedberg Late Nineteenth Century Frame in New York
in a fundamental work on the subject (see William Rubin, in theCollection
Mird
("The Structure . . . of Iconoclasm," p. of theMuseum of ModernArt, New York,
167). But images are symbols as well of a 1973, pp. 84-85). Judging fromwhat re-
deposed ruling style. And this explains mains after Mir6's mayhem (1950), he
what Freedberg calls the "surprisingpar- worked over a perfectlygood academic
ticipation of artists themselves" in out- 19th-century portrait--scraping away
bursts of art destruction. He documents and superimposing his own devices. The
such participation for the 16th century, day may not be far distant when some
then quotes Stanley Idzerda's "Iconoclasm enterprising Ph.D. candidate identifies
during the French Revolution" (The the anonymous artisan of the vandalized
AmericanHistoricalReview, 60 [1954], p. portrait; and then those modern graffiti
21): "No group seemed more anxious to may begin to lose their appeal.
join the iconoclastic crusade than the art- Mir6's overframed palimpsest is elo-
ists themselves." Not really surprising if quent of the destructive energy of most
one remembers that students ofJacques- modernism. Living art needs elbow room,
Louis David would toss rotten eggs at the glib successes of foregoingart stand in
Watteau's Embarkation for Cythera-a pic- the way. The young who now crave atten-
ture which from the vantage of a stout tion resent ancestor worship. Their in-
Davidien must have seemed an absurd differenceto senior art can be chilling,
confection. A century later, the Italian their antagonism implacable. And this is
Futuristsparaded under the slogan "Burn why engaged artists swell the ranks of
down the museums!" those otherzealots who formthe wreckers'
What one ought to dislikein Duchamp's procession. In the book I envisage, the
suggestion to use a "Rembrandt as an destructionof works of art would emerge
ironing board" is ultimatelythe provincial as an ongoing cultural enterprise, pur-
banality of the project: it's been done. sued at all times with a sense of enormous
Were not the Belvedere Torsoand the reliefs accomplishment: remove the blight and
of the Pergamon frieze used for building the world will be the better for it.
stones? Were not the UnicornTapestries Iconoclasts jubilate like angelic hosts at
brought out annually to protect stored the Church's burning of heretical books.
potatoes fromfrost?Did not 15th-century The mode of iconoclasm which is called
prints serve later bookbinders as paper censorship does not necessarily take the
stuffing?I once bought a pack of Old formof direct assault or removal. Its cun-
Master engravings out of a junk dealer's ning consists in denyingits own operation
cellar; I had found them wrapped in a and leaving no scars. Even in cases of
large paper sheet that turned out to be outright destruction for decency's sake,
Callot's Temptationof St. Anthonyin the the proceedings tend to be conducted (like
third state; no charge for the wrapper. Ruskin's burning of Turner's eroticdraw-
Arts out of fashion decline readily into ings) in secret, the offendingart being

176 OCTOBER
refused the protectionof habeascorpus,of are largely handmade, but of a making

publicity,or open trial. rarely dignified by historical record.
Usualiy, where serious art is arraigned, When a major Massachusetts museum
the censor'shand spares the whole on con- exhibits a Renaissance marble roundel of
dition of partial smotheringor mutilation; theMadonnaand Childwiththe Child's sex-
examples of which may be studied in any ual membercarefullychiseledoff,we cannot
public museum, but most instructivelyon tellwhich of the last two or threecenturies
the surface of the world's greatest fresco, deserves credit for the improvement.
the Sistine Chapel's Last Judgment, punc- When the recent cleaning of a glazed ter-
tuated throughoutby the fuss of loinbibs racotta relief at the Metropolitan Mu-
and underwear. As a grudgingalternative seum of Art restores the Christ Child to
to total destruction,Michelangelo's nudes its intended nudity (Figs. 209, 210), we
were twice painted over in his own cen- remain ignorant whether the deceptive
tury- to be further overpaintedin the 18th. draperyof painted plaster,now consigned
It is indeed the early 18th centurythat to the store rooms, had been put on in the
initiates one of iconoclasm's busiest Enlightenment, or by benighted Vic-
moments. It was then that Bandinelli's torians,or in our own centurywithan eye
nude statues of Adam and Eve were to the American market. And what is the
withdrawn(two hundred years aftertheir date of that lavender veil coiled about the
installation) from the Cathedral of smiling Christ in Domenico Veneziano's
Florence; thatMichelangelo's TimesofDay Madonnaand Childin the Washington Na-
in the Medici Chapel became serious can- tional Gallery (Kress Collection)? The
didates for figleaves; and that Gian An- museum files preserve letters from Ber-
tonio Guardi produced the reformedver- nard Berenson, Roberto Longhi, and
sion of the Veronese discussed above (Fig. others,assuring the prospectivepurchaser
205); while the emasculating of lesser- of a perfectsurface, free of all overpaint.
known works of art became a steady sub- Yet a franklook discerns what even old
industryin all public collections. X-ray pictures confirm: that this loin-
But we are not well informedabout the cloth is a poisonous interferencebotching
chronologyof these practices. Montaigne Domenico's color, compositional rhythm,
(Essays, III, 5) cites the "many beautiful textural consistency, and symbolic pur-
and antique statues" which were being pose. Some day, when the picture'sexten-
"castrated"in Rome during his youth by sive areas of overpaintingare swept away,
"that good man," meaning Pope Paul IV we shall behold a major religious icon of
(1555-59). This gives us a date for some the Florentine Quattrocento in a pristine
of those mutilations. But who knows by state that would have made it unexhib-
whose hand the Playing Childrenin the itable in the United States when the Kress
Amadeo reliefin the Colleoni Chapel at Collection was formed. But whetherthat
Bergamo had their genitals docked? (see silken rag was painted on in the 1930s or
Pope-Hennessy, Italian RenaissanceSculp- two hundred years earlier may never be
ture,pl. 115). Who knows when the mar- known.
ble penis of Michelangelo's Risen Christin August 7, 1826: A Virginia lady on a
the Minerva was broken, and whether pleasure trip to New York scurries past
that action was prompted by private certain plaster casts at the American
enterpriseor officialdecree? Academy of Fine Arts (she cites the Apollo
The losses borne by our masterpieces Belvedere,the Venus de'Medici, the Three

Figs. 209, 210. Luca della Robbia, Madonna
and Child,c. 1440-60, terracotta,before and
after 1977 cleaning.
Graces, etc.) and records in her diary: the former:-upon my return here I
"The room containingthe statues I took a began a Copy, in which the objection
very hasty view of: there is something should be obviated. . ... It is more
revoltingto the nature of a female to see finishedand is altogether quite equal to
so much nudity" ("New York City in the original:-be so good as to let it be
1826," unpublished diary of a Virginia seen by the person in question. . . ." (The
lady, quoted in The AmericanMagazine of letter, datelined "New York May 27th
Art,9 [December 1917], p. 66). 1829," is preserved in the Huntington
Most gravely affectedby the reign of Library, San Marino, California. For
such attitudes were American artists, text and collateral information,I am in-
John Trumbull being a case well docu- debted to Helen A. Cooper of the Yale
mented. Eager to match the Old Masters UniversityArt Gallery. See also herJohn
on their own ground, he had, during Trumbull:The Hand and Spiritofa Painter,
a sojourn in London in 1801, painted exh. cat., New Haven, Yale University
an InfantSaviorand St.John.Twenty-seven Art Gallery, 1982, esp. p. 204 and nn.
years passed before the picture was ex- 10,11.)
hibited at the Boston Athenaeum, and a Two versions of Trumbull's Infant
year later Trumbull wrote to Warren Savior survive. The one at Yale has the
Dutton Esq. in Boston: "Understanding Child decently covered; but, Trumbull's
you to say last year that an acquaintance claim notwithstanding,it is sadly inferior
of yours would have purchased my pic- to the Wadsworth Atheneum version of
ture of the Saviour & St. John, playing 1801 -upon which, at a date uncertain, a
with a Lamb: but forthe entire nudityof broad loincloth was smeared. It is not

Fig. 211. Mantegna,MadonnaandChildwiththeMagdalenandSt.John,c. 1500, detail.

known whether the overlay was applied
by the repentantpainterhimself,or (I am
changing the subject) by that hundred-
handed anonymous who, throughoutthe
past century,decked thousands of master-
works with fig leaves and loincloths--in-
cluding even Mantegna's enthronedMa-
donna and Child in the London National
Gallery. This radiant altarpiece was pur-
chased for the British nation in 1855,
cleaned in 1957, and soon afterdescribed
as "in exceptionally good condition"; the
dismal imposition at the Child's loin
receiving no comment (Fig. 211; see
Martin Davies' catalogue of The Earlier
Italian Schools,London, 1961, p. 329).
But the times change. Museum culture
has entered upon its deciduous season, a
kind of autumnal shedding and fallingof
figleaves throughoutthe civilized world,
whereverlivingsare to be made by restor-
ers (Figs. 212-15). Many Renaissance Figs. 212, 213. Barent van Orley, Holy
Family,1521, before and after 1980 cleaning.
paintings are stripped of false loincloths
already; dismantling awaits many more;
and when these moral coils have all been
shuffled off, a generation of museum
goers will face anew the immodesty of
high art-even in Philadelphia. For there,
in theJohnson Collection, hangs an early
15th-century Madonnaand Childattributed
to Battista di Gerio (Fig. 195). The panel
has suffered the addition of an extra
loincloth under the mother'slefthand, a
patchwork so maladroit in tone, color,
and texturethat it all but emphasizes the
artist'soriginal meaning; the Child's ex-
posed member was presentedbetween the
Madonna's index and middle finger.(My
thanksto Mrs. Marigene Butler, Conser-
vator, Philadelphia Museum of Art, for
lending her skill and judgment to our
preliminary investigation. And while I
am in parentheses,let me cite two further
instances of Renaissance works recently
disencumbered:Francia's Gambaro Madonna
at Yale, from which cleaning in 1959
removed "earlier repaints . . . including

Figs. 214, 215. Bronzino, Holy Family,
c. 1540-42, before and after 1980 cleaning.
a veil over the Christ Child's genitals" paradigmatic instance, dating from the
[Seymour, EarlyItalian Paintings,p. 222]; period which has been our chief preoc-
and the Ghiberti School terracottaof the cupation, the second half of the Quat-
Virgin and Child, Florence, Ognissanti trocento.
[Baldini/dal Poggetto, Firenze restaura, About 1455 Fra Filippo Lippi created
figs. 203, 204]). his immensely successful Madonna and
The question returns- when were ChildwithTwo Angels(Uffizi)- a thought-
these cover-ups perpetrated,these aggres- laden compound of mystic symbols in
sions under the aegis of purity? We are Renaissance dress. The Christ Child is
not ready yet to produce a reliable peri- shown arriving on the hands of two ro-
odization of Western prudishness in its guish angels, one of whom, a winged
subtlericonoclasticeffects.But it does ap- gamin witha grinon his face, lets us in on
pear that resistanceto the freedomsof art a happy secret, God's espousal of human
is diachronic. The virtuousdisfigurement nature. In a ritual gesture of marital ap-
of so much Renaissance painting and propriation,Lippi's heavenly Bridegroom
sculpturecannot be blamed simplyon re- lays a hand on the shoulder of his bride-
cent Comstockery,or on Victorianism,or mother (see Steinberg, "Metaphors,"
on 18th-centuryetiquette, or Calvinist p. 255, and Lavin, "The Joy of the
Puritanism, or the bigotrythat prevailed Bridegroom's Friend"). Yet his lower
after the Council of Trent. The affront body, as the symbolic locus of Christ's
fromwhich these successive ages recoiled humanity,attestshis sex. The exposure is
was deep enough to have given offensein minimal, forwhat mattersto Lippi is not
some quarters even while these works how much, but thatthe showingbe under-
were created. I draw attention to one stood as the patent of God's humanation.

For Lippi's copyists, however, even this
discreet token was overmuch. In the
dozen-odd variants and replicas of the
Uffizipicture that survive fromthe latter
Quattrocento-in every one of them, the
Child is copiously draped. Evidently,
Lippi's way of declaring the coincidence
of divine spousehood with manhood was
unacceptable to the copyists and their
patrons. One is led to suspect that the
great Renaissance masters tapped sym-
bolic resources too radical or too intimate
for wide comprehension. Confronted by
the undress of the Child, most viewers,
even in Lippi's day, seem to have seen only
a breach of decorum. And though they
withheld their hands from the original,
they circulated Lippi's concettoin ex-
purgated editions. (Following is a list of
nine copies or adaptations of Lippi's
Fig. 216. Jan van Hemessen, Madonna and
design. Four more are cited without Child,c. 1540.
reproductionsand as privatelyowned in
Lionello Venturi,"Nella collezioneNemes,"
L'Arte,34 [1931], pp. 263ff.,nos. 2, 3, 7,
8. Some of these may since have passed
into the public collections cited here. [1]
Lippi School, Florence, Ospedale degli
Innocenti, c. 1465; [2] Lippi follower,
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, 29.100.17; [3] Botticelli studio,
Washington, National Gallery of Art,
714; [4] early Botticelli[?],Naples, Museo
di Capodimonte, 46; [5] Botticelli
follower,London, National Gallery, 589;
[6] Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino or
Pesellino follower,Budapest, Museum of
Fine Arts, 50.752; [7] Botticelli[?],Ajac-
cio, Musee Fesch; [8] Paris, Musde
Jacquemart-Andr6; [9] Florentine, Lon-
don, National Gallery, 2505.)
Figs. 216 and 217-one pair to stand
for hundreds-illustrate the principle of
corrective copying in works other than
Lippi's.
The censorship wreaked by publishers
of art books is another chapter; it is ex-
Fig. 217. AfterJan van Hemessen, Madonna

and Child.

Fig. 218. Michelangelo, Doni Madonna, 1506, detail.
Fig. 219. Achille Jacquet engraving after Fig. 220. Retouched photograph of the Doni Madonna,
Michelangelo's Doni Madonna, 1876. published in Symonds' Life ofMichelangelo.
emplified in two of the finestMichelan- dington Symonds' Life of Michelangelo,

gelo monographs produced in the latter London, 1893. In both works, the il-
19th century: the 1876 quatercentenary lustrationof theDoni Madonnais retouched
volume of the Gazettedes Beaux-Arts(vol. to forestallthe offenseof sexual exposure
13, 2'me p6r., L'oeuvreet la vie de Michel- (Figs. 218-20). In another reproductive
Ange), and the editioprincepsof John Ad- engraving in the 1876 Gazettedes Beaux-

of Christ
The Sexuality 183
Arts volume, Michelangelo's nude alle- XXXII. "A peculiar notion"

goryofDusk in the Medici Chapel is given
a loincloth (pl. aft. p. 102); and so, Professor Held met my observations
needless to say, is his RisenChrist(p. 261). concerning phallism in Heemskerck's
But it appears that even Ander- paintings with steadfast skepticism; and
son/Alinari,long the venerable purveyors since disbelief on this score is a near
of photographic documentation to stu- universal reaction, I adduce his argument
dents of Renaissance art, are, or were, in in full along with rejoinders:
complicity with the censor. We gaze in That thereis a noticeable bulge in the
dismay at theirphotograph,just received, loincloths Heemskerck painted in
of Giovanni Bellini'sMadonnaand Childin
three examples of the Man of Sor-
Bergamo (cf. Figs. 221 and 53): the rows no one could deny. What it
golden straitbetween Mary's blue mantle
and the Christ Child's white tunic has may indicate, I submit, is the
been stained to the devil's color, black presence of a sizeable male member,
proportionately related to the mark-
gray- as though St. Jerome's warning athletic appearance the artist
"the power of the devil is in the loins," edly
gave to his figureof Christ(and let us
pursued even here. remember that this happened pre-
cisely at a time when fashion
glorified male virility with the so-
called codpiece, a piece of clothing
which suggested size but surely was
not meant to indicate a permanent
state of erection).
The answer to the above parenthesisis
that often enough "a permanent state of
erection"is exactlywhat the 16th-century
codpiece was meant to indicate; see the
examples cited in n. 90, above.
Held continues:
At best, Heemskerck'spicturescould
be explained as part of the iconog-
raphy of ostentatio vulnerum,referring
back to the firstblood shed by Christ;
and it is perhaps not accidental that
in one of these paintings the blood
fromthe wound in Christ's side runs
down to the groin. To finish this
point, I should like to introduce a
penitent St. Jerome[Lisbon] painted
by Jan van Hemessen, a contempo-
rary of Heemskerck, where the
saint'sloinclothshows a similarbulge
[Friedlinder, EarlyNetherlandishPaint-
ing, XII, no. 215A]; it would add a
Fig. 221. Giovanni Bellini, Madonna and
Child(Fig. 53), retouched Anderson/Alinari
photograph.

184 OCTOBER
rather peculiar notion to Jerome's in his very members." Both authors,

penance if this suggested a connec- Augustine and Braun, were speaking spe-
tion between his self-abasementand cificallyof sexual shame. They incrimi-
sexual arousal. nated the phallus, rebellious member par
excellence,as the exponent of man's captive
Since there is little profit, and less condition.
dignity,in debating whetherVan Hemes- And we have certain saints' legends
sen's "similar bulge" is in fact sufficiently - how they repelled the onslaught of sex-
similar, I shall address myselfinstead to ual temptation: St. Benedict by flinging
that "peculiar notion" which, Held himself naked into a thicket of briars
believes, a sign of sexual arousal would and nettlesand rolling in it till the blood
add to Jerome's penance. flowed; the young Thomas Aquinas by
Suppose we ask what it is that makes laying a fierybrand to his flesh. These
Jerome penitent; and let us allow that the heroes became and remained--as St.
question occurred to the painter. Was it Jerome said of himself- eunuchs by their
remorse over one dire misstep, like St. own choice. Through instant, ever-
Peter's denial; or over a misguided career, vigilantrenunciation,theycontained that
like the Magdalen's harlotry?Was it the "disobedience" which exemplifies the in-
guiltJerome feltover his early absorption dwelling law of sin.
in Cicero that makes him so beat his Tennyson's St. Simeon Stylites, who
breast that even his lion weeps? Does the afterthirtyyears of painful expiation atop
artistdepictJerome's penance because he a pillar stillcries out, "Have mercy,Lord,
thinksthe hermitsaint has a specifictrans- and take away my sin"--he indeed may
gression to expiate, or because he at- be more sorelythreatenedby pride ("Show
tributesto him a consciousness of sin so me the man hath sufferedmore than I")
grounded inward that a lifetime'scontri- than by sexual arousal; the sin encrusting
tion will not expunge it? Suppose Van him "fromscalp to sole" is not localized by
Hemessen conceived Jerome confessing his Victorian hagiographer at the crotch.
himselfhere like St. Paul (Romans 7:22- But a Catholic artist of Van Hemessen's
25): "I am delightedwith the law of God, erotic temper, painting in the age of the
according to the inward man: But I see boastful codpiece-- if he, in 1531, sought
another law in my members, fighting to project upon his penitent's body the
against the law of my mind, and cap- mark of rebellious flesh,why not precisely
tivatingme in the law of sin, that is in my at the loincloth?I thereforefindit less im-
members. Unhappy man that I am, who probable than does Professor Held that
shall deliver me from the body of this this artist would forge a perceptible link
death?" between the saint's carnal propensityand
St. Augustine had this Pauline passage his self-flagellation.The termsconnect as
in mind when he confessed that con- attackwithdefense,sicknesswith remedy.
cupiscence"intrudeswhereit is not needed, In short, the "rather peculiar notion"
and it agitates even the hearts of the which the sexual symptom adds to the
faithfuland of the saints with importune penance of Van Hemessen's St. Jerome
and nefarious desires" (C.S.E.L., vol. would be the Christian doctrine of
LXXXVIII, Vienna, 1981, p. 36). In the Original Sin. But in a risen Christ, the
words of Van Hemessen's contemporary, similar sign would convert to a new
Conrad Braun (see n. 17, above): "Man, meaning, as the resurrectedfleshitselfis
disobedient to God, feelshis disobedience converted in the glorifiedbody.

XXXIII. On theafterlife of withthehorizon would do as well. ("Indem

Boccaccio'sjest nun der Eremit alle Reize des jungen
Midchens vor Augen hatte, . . . wirkte
das alles so maichtigauf ihn, dass bei
Novella III, 10 of the Decamerontells ihm der Elektrometer anfing, einer be-
how the monk Rustico taught guileless triichtlichenWinkel mit dem Horizont zu
Alibech the proper way to put the devil in machen. . . .") In sum, all four trans-
hell. The line I have quoted - recalled by lators shied at the given intersectionof wit
my colleague Professor Paul Watson--is and sex with religion; and no doubt they
unforgettable.But it has not fared well at thought themselves pious. But I suspect
the hands of translators.The firstModern that when religion ceases to furnishmat-
Library edition (New York, 1930, trans. ter for jokes such as Boccaccio's, or for
John Payne) was prefacedby Morris Ernst strong oaths, such as "Zounds," it has
withthe good news thatthe Decameron had already departed this life.
at last passed the United States censors; One hears echoes of Boccaccio's meta-
but at the onset of that devilish passage in phor in the amatory poetry of the 16th
the novella, the textreverts(with footnote and 17th centuries. Since Elizabethan
apology) to the Italian. We findthe same verse habituallywrote"dying"fororgasm,
tedious ploy in theJ. M. Riss edition (pri- and since its expiring swains normally
vately printed, London, n.d., I, p. 252). "dye and rise," the analogy with resurrec-
Verbatim: "Then, having divested him- tion may have become too banal, as well
self of his scanty clothing, he threwhim- as too blasphemous, for plain iteration.
self stark naked on his knees, as if he But considerMercutio's conjuring speech,
would pray; whereby he caused the girl, designed to raise up Romeo ("the ape is
who followed his example, to confront dead") by sexual innuendo (Romeo and
him in the same posture. E cosi stando, Juliet,II, 1). Or (at John Hollander's sug-
essendo Rustico pih che mai nel suo gestion) Thomas Nashe's "The Choise of
desidero acceso per lo vederla cos' bella, Valentines." Here the male member, ly-
venne la resurreziondella carne, la quale ing dead, fears "To dye ere it hath seene
riguardando Alibech e maravigliatasi, Ierusalem"; then receives treatment"That
disse. . . ." A weasel note adds: "No maie availe to his recoverie"; and is at last
apology is needed for leaving, in accor- raised "fromhis swoune." The blasphemy
dance with precedent, the subsequent skirtedremains uncommitted.
detail untranslated."Apology is due rather But it surelysurvived in taverntalkand
from the Random House edition, where black humor. (I read recentlythat Albert
our sentence is rendered as "then his flesh Camus' favorite Algiers caf6 had in one
grew stiff,"the translator dropping the corner "a skeletonequipped witha phallus
pun and the blasphemy to preserve only that stood erect when jerked by a string";
the lewd. Frederick Brown in The New YorkReview
An old German edition I happen to own of Books, November 18, 1982, p. 10.) It
(by D.W. Soltan, Berlin, 1860) is remark- would be strange indeed if there were no
able in another way. Here again, the intermediaries between Boccaccio's fi-
translator,like the Random House man, nesse and the vulgarity of D. H. Law-
supposed that Boccaccio had been merely rence's The Man Who Died (1928): "He
coy in referringto his hero's erection; and crouched to her, and he feltthe blaze of
that thereforeany updated leer about the his manhood and his power rise up in his
sizeable angle formedby an electrometer loins, magnificent.'I am risen!"'

186 OCTOBER
XXXIV. Sesostris'hieroglyph memberof the man" (ab potiorihominis

parte).
Chiefwitnessforthe Sesostrisstoryto These texts,then,were widelyavail-
whichCasali's sermonrefersis Herodo- able. But whenCasali in 1512 retoldthe
tus, II, 102: "When those that he met Sesostrisstoryas partofhissermonon the
werevaliantmenand strovehardforfree- Feast of the Circumcision,his directin-
dom, he set up pillars in their land formantis likelyto have been PierioVa-
whereonthe inscription showedhis own leriano,thenalreadyat workon theHiero-
name and his country's, and how he had glyphica(publishedat theend ofa longlife
overcomethemwithhis own power;but in 1556). Valeriano'syouthfulstudiesin
when the citieshad made no resistance Greekand Latinhad been pursuedunder
and been easilytaken,thenhe put an in- renowned masters in Venice.In 1509,aged
scriptionon the pillarseven as he had thirty-two, he settledin Rome and soon
done wherethe nationswere brave; but won the favorofJuliusII, beforewhom
he drewalso on themtheprivypartsofa Casali's sermon was read. Valeriano's
woman,wishingto showclearlythatthe reference to theSesostrisstoryfallswithin
people were cowardly."(Trans. A. D. a generaldiscussionofphallicsymbolism,
Godley, Cambridge,Mass., 1920, I, p. wherewe read as followsundertherubric
391. The text was well known in the of"Magnanimity":
Renaissance.A Latin translation by Lo-
renzoValla, preparedin the 1450sat the Let thisbe the primarysignification
requestof Pope NicholasV, was printed ofthemale organswhich,incisedon
in 1474. By 1510 it had gone through so manypillars,markedon so many
three more editions. The firstItalian obelisks, and carved on so many
translation was made by thepoet Matteo other monumentsof the ancients,
Maria Boiardo [1441-94].) displaythe greatand loftyspiritof
The secondreference to Sesostris'com- thestrongman [magnum eterectum
viri
memorative occursin thePhi-
inscriptions There still
fortisanimumostentarint].
lippicaof Diodorus Siculus(I, 55, 7-8; 1st exist some fragmentsof columns
centuryB.C. The Latin translationby erected in honor of Sesostris,in-
PoggioBracciolini,producedagain in the scribed with Egyptian letters, in
1450s and dedicatedto NicholasV; was whichare discernedthesculptednat-
ural parts [naturae]of both sexes
publishedin 1472; by 1515 it had been
printedfivetimes.) Our passage reads: .... Therefore,whereveryou see
"And he fashionedthestelewitha repre- the male pudenda on columns or
sentation,in case theenemypeoplewere obelisksset up by him, understand
warlike,oftheprivypartsofa man [note [them to mean] warlike, strong,
thatHerodotushad mentioned no signfor and magnanimousmen whom he
themale member],but in case theywere conquered by arms (Hieroglyphica,
abjectand cowardly,ofthoseofa woman, XXXIV, p. 246).
holdingthat the qualityof the spiritof
eachpeoplewouldbe setforth mostclearly And howdid thiscuriouslorestrayinto
to succeedinggenerationsby the domi- Casali's sermon?It is introducedby way
nant memberof thebody"(trans.C. H. of explaining why God had excluded
Oldfather, Cambridge, Mass., 1933, women fromthe sacramentof circum-
p. 195). In Poggio'sLatinversion,thelast mas-
cision.Casali's answer- retrojecting
words translate"by the more powerful culine hardihoodto week-oldinfants--

of Christ
The Sexuality 187
explains that the ordeal of circumcision being sexually unemployed. On the con-
called forthe strengthof men, ratherthan trary: in sexual exercise the martial male
the softness of women. Sesostris' hiero- organ conquers no more than the "cow-
glyphs are brought in to clinch the argu- ardly" female parts; whereas continence,
ment. the exercise of self-discipline,subdues the
The question remains how thesymbolic strong.
equation of phallus with power would sit Does such an answer seem sophistical
with an audience of monks and prelates- and outlandish? We hear its echo as late
men who, in Jesus' phrase, had "made as 1854: "The generative energy, which,
themselves eunuchs for the sake of the when we are loose, dissipates and makes
kingdom of heaven." I think the answer us unclean, when we are continent in-
lies ready-made in the doctrine of vic- vigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the
torious chastity. They would have an- floweringof man." The lines were written
swered that the male member is not dis- by our own Henry Thoreau in Walden,
qualified as an emblem of strengthfor chap. 11.
XXXV. Wings of excess
Fig. 222. Lucas Cranach, Crucifixion,

1538. Fig. 223. Lucas Cranach, Christon theCross,
before 1502.

In the hands of the German Renais-
sance masters, the loincloth, or peri-
zonium, luxuriateslike the mantlingof an
escutcheon, yet even more broadcast, re-
splendent, and irrepressible.We read in
John 3:8 that "the wind bloweth where it
listeth."In the worksreproduced below, it
chooses to blow selectivelyabout Christ's
naked loins. And there are times when
only a steady gust keeps the otherwise
unattached fabric in place.
More may be said on the subject of the
loincloth of Christ- because artistshave
made more of it than a study in drapery.
Even the central knot, as tied by Man-
tegna (Copenhagen) or Cosimo Tura,
deserves thinking about, for even here
metaphor is at work. Are there readers
who doubt that a cloth can be knottedto
allude to the phallus? or who suspect that
Fig. 224. Diirerand assistant,Crucifixion,
c. 1500. only a mind misled by modern jargon
about symbolicdisplacement would sport
such fantasies? Let them turn again to
Montaigne (Essays, III, 5): "In my neigh-
borhood [i.e., around Bordeaux] the mar-
ried women twisttheirkerchiefover their
forehead into the shape of [a phallus], to
boast of the enjoymenttheyhave out of it;
and when theybecome widows, theyturn
it behind them and hide it under their
coif."Whetherthis is indeed what the tied
kerchiefsof those Bordelaise women de-
noted, or whetherMontaigne interpreted
them in an espritmal tournemay be open to
question; either way he has proved the
thoughtthinkable in his century. But let
the pictures suffice.
Fig. 225. Hans Baldung Grien, Crucifixion,

1512.

Fig. 226. Cosimo Tura, Dead ChristSupported
byAngels,c. 1474.
XXXVI. Not other than willed
In a Crucifixion
panel by Guido da Siena
(Utrecht, Archiepiscopal Museum; re-
prod. in Meiss, Black Death, fig. 122), a
light-footedChrist climbs the rungs of a
ladder to mount his cross. Such literalism
in symbolizing eagerness for Crucifixion
is rare-it almost annuls the root of
sufferance in the word "Passion." But
Guido's image was intended to visualize
one term of a paradox: that Christ in his
dual nature instigates as he suffers,
undergoes nothingbut what he wills. This
is why the Trinity'sSecond Person is said,
in the active voice, to enter the Virgin's
womb, and to emerge fromit nimbly,as a
bridegroom issues forthfrom the bridal
chamber. In the words of St. Augustine's
Epiphany sermon: "The Son of God was
born of his own freewill"(Sermon XVIII,
3 [Ben. 199]; Sermons, p. 157). This is why
St. Bernard assures us that the eight-
day-old Infant could easily have repelled
from its flesh the knife of the circumci-
sion- he who even in death kept corrup-
tion away (see p. 54). And this is why, in
Fig. 227. Dilrer and assistant, Lamentation,
c. 1500.

190 OCTOBER
one of the most persistentmetaphors of fied body rests or falls except by the
the Christian tradition, the outspread acquiescence of Christ's other nature.
arms nailed to the cross are received by In his formal response to my paper
the faithfulas a tendered embrace. The (November 1981), Professor Held won-
verydoctrineof the Incarnation demands dered "if the word 'gesture' can really be
it: it requires that everything done to applied to a corpse." The dead Christ's
Christ be attracted,that it be sufferedand hand on his groin,he remarked,"can only
at the same time elicited or commanded, resultfroman act of piety,imputedby the
so that passive and active concur in artist to the mourners who had laid out
unison with Christ's concurrentnatures. the dead body." I answer: Even if it were
Thus the task before Renaissance artists piety to dispose dead men's hands at the
who were choreographingthe Passion was crotch (they often are folded over the
to project physical motions that would be lower abdomen) no such interventionby
at once contradictoryand convincing. the mourners is shown. The self-touching
Few, admittedly, had Michelangelo's hand of the deposed Christ is gestural
imaginative resources in making a de- afterall- no need to acquit the corpse by
posed Christ seem both expired and vital. inculpating the mourners. Where a dead
But in Renaissance painting almost every Christ's hand is cupped over the genitals,
dead Christ on the cross averts his head as it is unmistakably in scores of mon-
fromthe bad thief;the lifelessdroop still uments, our task is not to exonerate the
renders a judgment. And every artist deceased, but to search the artist'sinten-
understood that no member of the cruci- tion in choosing so stark a symbol.
XXXVII. The un-dead hand on the groin
Fig. 228. Flemish, Entombment,

c. 1380-1400.

ofChrist
The Sexuality 191
Six further instances of the groin- as discussed on p. 104 (Figs. 234-38).

touching motifin multi-figuredscenes of (Among strikingexamples not reproduced
Lamentation or Entombment are re- are Giovanni Mansueti's panel at Ber-
produced in Figs. 228-33. These are gamo, Accademia Carrara, and Piero di
followed by five images of the Pieta., Cosimo's Pieta withSaintsin Perugia, Gal-
remarkable for the ostentatio
genitalium, leria Nazionale dell'Umbria.)
Fig. 229. Flemish,MaryMagdalen(?) Fig. 231. Andrea Solario, Lamentation,

SupportingtheDead Christ,
c. 1490. 1504-07.
Fig. 230. German, Lamentation,1481-1504.

192 OCTOBER
Fig. 232. Mattia Preti(?), Dead Christ

withAngels.
1631.
Fig. 233. David Kindt,Lamentation,

of Christ
The Sexuality 193
Fig. 234. Masterof theSt. Lucy Legend, Fig. 236. Lower Rhenish,Pieth,c. 1480.
Pieta,c. 1475.
Fig. 235. Lower Rhenish,Pieti,15thcentury. Fig. 237. German,Pieth,c. 1490-1500.

tions. In the 16th-centurytombs cited by
Held, imputed shame is unquestionably a
factor. Montaigne tells of the Emperor
Maximilian's modesty-"carried to such a
pitchof superstition,thatin his will he ex-
pressly ordered that afterdeath his parts
should be hidden by drawers"(Essays, III,
5). Just such posthumous modesty is
monumentalized in the French royal gi-
santsat Saint-Denis. These nude marble
effigies,though of the dead, are repre-
sented bunching fistfulsof shroud at the
pubis, as if fearful of being uncovered
(Fig. 239). But no risk of shameful ex-
posure threatens the figure of Christ in
Deposition scenes or Entombments.There
the body is almost invariably draped,
wearing a loincloth securely tied and so
adequate as to make any modestygesture
redundant. If, in such presentations,the
Fig. 238. Westphalian, PietZ,1550. dead Christ neverthelesslays his hand on
his groin,ifhe keeps pointingto what is in
no danger of showing,the will thatdirects
the hand must be mysterious,the motive
XXXVIII. In imitationof Christ must be other than shame of body. And
this conclusion is strengthened by the
ProfessorJulius Held has questioned physicalcharacterof the gesture: in scores
the necessity of my interpretationof the of instances it takes form as a vigorous
groin-touching gesture. He rightly re- clasping, grasping, or cupping-more
marked: "If the pose were restrictedto the likely a symbol of continence than a cov-
dead body of Christ, the hypothesismight ering up.
be acceptable that, with Christ's Passion Yet I am gratefulto Professor Held.
completed, the motif points back to its For if the sculptured cadavers he cites
beginning, i.e., the Circumcision. Yet as engage, in his words, in "symbolic ex-
it is encountered in differentcontexts- pression,"or evince posthumous modesty,
even in renderings of women-another or by theirgestureseek to ward offdecay,
explanation may have to be found. Could he has already conceded enough. The
it be the symbolic expression of the fact thresholdof metaphor has been crossed,
that the organs of procreation have now and the gesturewe are consideringwill be
ceased their function? Or might it be understood as a trope. Now of his three
meant as a last, though purely wishful, proposed explanations for the self-touch
defense against putrefactionwhich begins in these figures, I am inclined to doubt
(or was believed to begin) in these parts? only the first,which would referthe ges-
Or may it, after all, be a final sign of ture to the cessation of procreative func-
modesty?" tion. The remaining two- genital shame
Fortunately,thereis littledisagreement and the imminence of decay - do not ex-
between us-only a need for clarifica- clude, but rather intensifyone another.

Fig. 239. Germain Pilon, Tomb effigiesof Henry II
and Catherine de' Medici, 1565-70.
..
........
::j:-A
-,~~:::-Amiga,-:1:
M/0,i
,?::::
pl -:~::
Fig. 240. French, Mementomori,1551.
The warding hand in these effigiesmay effigies,the groin-touchinggesture as an

well have been motivated by the belief allusion to shame and decay seems an
that "putrefactionbegins in these parts"; acceptable explanation.
thoughperhaps the gestureshould be un- But since Christ's body does not suffer
derstood less as a futile,wishful defense corruption, and since in the works dis-
against corruption, than as indicating cussed his hand lays demonstrativestress
where corruptionbegins--"corruption"to on well-draped loins that need no further
be understoodin the word's double mean- covering, the meaning of his gesturemust
ing, moral and physical, comprehending be sui generis,whatever the reason for its
the effectof both sin and death. And this subsequent assignation to other dead
is why for these 15th- and 16th-century (Fig. 240). That these others, when their

tombs come to representthem as naked,
followthe example of him who had died a
thousand deaths naked in earlierimages -
that these Christian dead in their nudity
put on the uniformof theirLord- seems
to me hard to deny. If theirtomb effigies,
fromwhatever motive, enact so private a
gesture, they can do so because the dead
Christ had performedit threedays before
his Resurrection, and their hope reposes
in followingChrist.
The dependence on the example of
Christ may be confirmedby the factthat Fig. 241. Dirc van Delf, illumination,
the earliestfunerarymonumentto exhibit AnimationofAdam, c. 1404.
the self-touchingmotifin a mortal other
than Christ is the tomb of Guillaume de dead Christ, I do not mean to referit ex-
Harcigny, a man who had practicedmedi- clusivelyto the Circumcision. I would say
cine at Laon, where he died in 1393. This rather that the crucified God, in that
"tres vaillant et sage medecin" (Froissart) token gesture, indicates his sacrificial
had repeatedly treated King Charles VI. humanity, of which Circumcision and
It is likelythat he would have had knowl- stigmata togetherare the symbolic form.
edge of the marble Entombment reliefof c. The groin-touchinggesture occurs in
1330 (Fig. 109) housed in the royal two other contexts. In 15th-centuryicon-
chapel, the Sainte-Chapelle, Paris. Far ography it is occasionally found in images
more improbable that he would re-invent of Adam, either at his creation or that of
such a shocking motif for his personal Eve, or in his death. (See Fig. 241 and the
tomb in ignorance of Christ'seffigyin the contemporaneous Netherlandish Bible
king's chapel. Paris, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal,
historiale,
(For biographical data on Harcigny ms. 5057, fol. 7, reprod. in Erwin Panof-
and the dating and provenance of the En- sky, Early Netherlandish Painting, Cam-
tombment, see Les Fastesdu Gothique:Le sikcle bridge, Mass., 1953, II, fig. 57. At the
de CharlesV, exh. cat., Paris, Grand Pa- CreationofEve, the gesture appears in the
lais, 1981, nos. 18, 93. The Harcigny Bible of Borso d'Este, 1455-61, Modena,
tomb, now in the Musee Archologique at Biblioteca Estense, VG. 12, I, fol. 6,
Laon, is reproduced as fig. 1 in Kathleen reproduced in J. J. G. Alexander, Italian
Cohen, Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol: RenaissanceIlluminations, New York, 1977,
The TransiTombin theLate MiddleAgesand pl. 20. The gesture appears again in
theRenaissance,Berkeleyand Los Angeles, Giovanni Dalmata's Creationof Eve relief
1973- along with a representativeselec- fromthe dismantledtomb of Pope Paul II
tion of later tomb effigies.The motif of in the Grotte Vaticane (Fig. 242). In the
the self-touchis not discussed in her work, illuminationforthe Officeof the Dead in
nor, so far as I know, elsewhere in the the Limbourgs' Belles Heures of Jean de
literature.) Berry,the corpses of both Adam and Eve
Furtherin response to ProfessorHeld, are shown shielding their groins; New
I must rectifya misunderstanding. In York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
discussing the hand-on-groingestureof a The Cloisters Collection, fol. 99.)

XXXIX. The Throne of Grace
The type of the seated Father sustain-
ing the corpse of the Son in upright po-
sition, while the Son points to his wound,
appears to be Robert Campin's invention
(see the Leningrad panel and the Frank-
furtgrisaille in Friedlinder, EarlyNether-
landishPainting,II, figs. 60 and 65). But
what now concerns us is thatmodification
of the typewhich directsthe Father'shand
to the Son's groin. The motif seems to
originate in a painting, no longer extant,
which once exerted a powerfulinfluence,
giving rise to numerous adaptations and
copies (Figs. 122, 243-45). Whether this
modificationwas introduced by Campin
or, as I incline to believe, by Roger van
der Weyden, cannot yet be decided with
certainty. The literature concerning the
problem of attributionis not helpfulsince
the specific gesture which modifies the
Fig. 242. Giovanni Dalmata, CreationofEve,

c. 1471-77.
Finally, a word concerning the hand-

on-groin gesture in secular representa-
tions of corpses. Only two instances of the
motifhave come to my attention so far,
both dating fromthe latter 16th century.
One is a panel fromthe atelier of Antoine
Caron. It representsthe FuneralofAmor.
The nude child god, laid out on a bier,
crosses his hands in his lap (Musee Na-
tional du Louvre, Peintures:Ecolefranfaise
XIVe, XVe etXVIe sikcles,Paris, 1965, pls.
163-65). The other is an engraving after
Theodore Barendt by Jan Sadeler (Holl-
stein 451). It is one of a set representing
"The Four Last Things." The image of
"Death" shows an old man's corpse fully
shrouded,extendedacross the foreground,
lamented by next-of-kin.The left hand
shields the pudenda in a gesture clearly
adapted fromimageryof the Holy Grave.
Fig. 243. AfterCampin (?) or Roger,

Throneof Grace.

198 OCTOBER
Fig. 244. South Netherlandish, Throneof Fig. 245. Brabant School, Throneof Grace,
Grace,1450. 15th century.
Campin type has not been discussed. embroidered cope, Berne, Historisches
The motifof the Father's hand on the Museum, Friedlinder, EarlyNetherlandish
Son's groin is found again in a later com- Painting,II, pl. 99, no. 71A; a panel by
positionaltypeof German provenance: ob- the Master of St. Sang in Brussels, and
long, multi-figuredwoodcarvings, known anotherby Colin de Coter in Paris, ibid.,
to me in two monumentalexamples (Figs. IXb, no. 201 and IV, no. 90; and the
123, 246). Whetherthisvariant type is an engraving by the Master of the Bande-
independent invention, or derives the roles, Lehrs 83. A variant form of the
paternal gesture fromthe Campin-Roger composition, showing the Son's groin
design, is at present unclear. touched by himself,appears in the Throne
(Since images of the Trinitythatinclude of Grace illumination in the Breviary of
the groin-touchinggesture are rare, I list Philip the Good, c. 1454, in The Hague;
four furthercopies and adaptations of see V. Leroquais, Le Briviarede Philippele
the Rogerian type: the medallion of an Bon, Brussels, 1929, pl. 66.)

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Meiss, Millard, FrenchPainting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late Fourteenth
Century and thePatronageof theDuke, London and New York, 1969.
, Paintingin Florenceand Siena aftertheBlack Death, Princeton, 1951.
-
Methodius, St., The Symposium:A Treatiseon Chastity,trans. Herbert Musurillo
(Ancient Christian Writers, 27), New York, 1958.
Molanus, Johannes, De historiass. imaginarum etpicturarum (1570), ed. Louvain, 1771.
The Nag HammadiLibraryin English,trans. Thomas O. Lambdin, New York, 1977.
Norden, Eduard, Die Geburt des Kindes: Geschichteeiner religilisenIdee (1924),
Darmstadt, 1958.
O'Malley, John W., "The Feast of Thomas Aquinas in Renaissance Rome: A
Neglected Document and Its Import," Rivista di storiadella Chiesa in Italia, 35
(1981), pp. 1-27.
-- , Praise and Blame in RenaissanceRome: Rhetoric, Doctrineand Reformin theSacred
Oratorsof thePapal Court,c. 1450-1521, Durham, North Carolina, 1979.
~- , "Preaching forthe Popes," in ThePursuitofHolinessin Late Medievaland Renais-
sance Religion,eds. Charles Trinkaus and Heiko A. Oberman, Leiden, 1974,
pp. 408-43.
, "The Vatican Library and the School of Athens: A Text of Battista Casali,
1508,"JournalofMedievaland RenaissanceStudies,7 (1977), pp. 271-87.
Origen, On FirstPrinciples,trans. G. W. Butterworth,New York, 1966.

206 OCTOBER
, The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies, trans. R. P. Lawson (Ancient

Christian Writers, 26), Westminster,Maryland, and London, 1957.
Origo, Iris, "The Domestic Enemy: The Eastern Slaves in Tuscany in the 14th and
15th Centuries," Speculum,30 (1955), pp. 321-66.
Pelikan, Jaroslav, The ChristianTradition:A Historyof theDevelopmentofDoctrine.I: The
Emergence of the CatholicTradition(100-600); II: The Spiritof EasternChristendom
(600-1700), Chicago, 1971, 1974.
Perella, Nicolas J., The Kiss Sacredand Profane,Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969.
Photius, The HomiliesofPhotius,Patriarchof Constantinople, trans. Cyril Mango, Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, 1958.
Pico della Mirandola, Heptaplusor Discourseon theSevenDays of Creation,trans. Jessie
Brewer McGaw, New York, 1977.
Poole, Reginald L., Studiesin Chronology and History(1934), Oxford, 1969.
Pope, Marvin H., The Anchor Bible: SongofSongs,Garden City, New York, 1977.
Pope-Hennessy, John, Italian Renaissance 2nd ed., London, 1971.
Sculpture,
------,"The Virgin with the Laughing Child" (1957), in Essays on Italian Sculpture,
London, 1968, pp. 72-77.
Pseudo-Bonaventure, Meditationson theLifeof Christ,trans. Isa Ragusa and Rosalie B.
Green, Princeton, 1961.
Reinach, Salomon, "Le rire rituel," Revuede l'Universite de Bruxelles,6 (1910-11), pp.
585-602.
Ringbom, Sixten, Icon to Narrative:The Rise of theDramaticClose-upin Fifteenth-Century
DevotionalPainting,Abo, 1965.
Schiller, Gertrud, Iconographyof ChristianArt, 2 vols., Greenwich, Connecticut,
1971-72.
Art Gallery,New Haven
Seymour, Charles, Early Italian Paintingin the Yale University
and London, 1970.
Steinberg, Leo, "Leonardo's Last Supper,"TheArt Quarterly, 36 (1973), pp. 297-410.
, "The Metaphors of Love and Birth in Michelangelo's Pieths," in Studiesin
EroticArt,eds. Theodore Bowie and Cornelia V. Christenson, New York, 1970,
pp. 231-335.
Tertullian, Treatiseson Marriageand Remarriage,trans. William P. Le Saint (Ancient
Christian Writers, 13), New York, 1951.
Valeriano, Pierio, Hieroglyphica(1556), ed. Basel, 1567.
Voragine, Jacopo da, The Golden Legendor Lives of theSaints as Englishedby William
Caxton(1483), ed. London, 1900.
Wentzel, Hans, "Die ikonographischen Voraussetzungen der Christus-Johannes-
Gruppe und das Sponsa-Sponsus-Bild des Hohen Liedes," HeiligeKunst:Jahrbuch
derDiozese Rottenburg,
des Kunstvereins Stuttgart,1952, pp. 6-21.
Wessel, K., "Der nackte Crucifixusvon Narbonne," Rivistadi archaeologia cristiana,43
(1967), pp. 333-45.
Zampetti, Pietro, PaintingfromtheMarches:Gentileto Raphael, London, 1971.

List of Illustrations
on canvasorpanel. Dimensionsare
Whereno mediumis indicated,theworkis in oil or tempera
givenin centimeters, preceding
height width.
Fig. 1. Illumination from the Hours of Philip the Good, Presentation in theTemple,
1454-55 (27 x 19). The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek,ms. 76, fol. 141v.
Fig. 2. Andrea del Sarto, Tallard Madonna, c. 1515 (102 x 80). Leningrad,
Hermitage.
Fig. 3. Andrea del Sarto, study fora Pietii,c. 1520 (17.8 x 15.2). Paris, Musee du
Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins.
Fig. 4. Bartolommeo di Giovanni, Madonna and Child,c. 1490 (93.3 x 49.5). New
York, Sotheby Parke Bernet, February 15, 1973, lot 21 (formerly
Metropolitan Museum of Art).
Fig. 5. Paolo Veronese, Presentation of the Cuccini Family to the Madonna, 1571
(167 x 416), detail. Dresden, Gemaildegalerie.
Fig. 6. Annibale Carracci Shop, Madonna and Child withSts. Nilus and Bartholomew,
1608-09 (245 x 155), detail. Grottaferrata,Abbey Church.
Fig. 7. Hellenistic bronze statuette(Asia Minor), Cupidand Psyche.Paris, Musee du
Louvre.
Fig. 8. Romanesque, Herodand Salome,cloistercapital fromSt. Etienne, Toulouse,
c. 1140. Toulouse, Musee des Augustins.
Fig. 9. Simone Martini, Madonna and Child, c. 1321-25 (113 x 63). Boston,
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Fig. 10. Marco Zoppo, Madonna and Child, c. 1470 (40.8 x 29.9). Washington,
D.C., National Gallery of Art; Samuel H. Kress Collection.
Fig. 11. Barent van Orley, Madonna and Child withAngels,c. 1513 (85.4 x 69.9),
detail. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Bequest of Benjamin
Altman.
Fig. 12. South Netherlandish, Madonna and Child, c. 1500 (20.5 x 16). Cologne,
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum.
Fig. 13. Hans Baldung Grien, Holy Family,1511, woodcut (37.5 x 24). Geisberg 59.
Fig. 14. Bartolommeo Montagna, HolyFamily,c. 1500. London, Courtauld Institute
Galleries; Gambier-Parry Collection.
Fig. 15. Francesco Botticini, Madonna and Child with Angels, c. 1490 (dia. 123).
Florence, Palazzo Pitti.
Fig. 16. Cavaliere d'Arpino, Madonna and Child with St. John, St. Anne and the
Magdalen, 1592-93 (134.6 x 168.9). The Minneapolis Institute of Arts;
Gift of the Henfield Foundation.
Fig. 17. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Madonna delLatte,c. 1325 (90 x 45). Siena, Palazzo
Arcivescovile.
Fig. 18. Masolino, Madonna and Child, c. 1423-24 (95 x 57). Munich, Alte
Pinakothek.
Fig. 19. Michelangelo, Risen Christ,1514-20, marble (ht. 205). Rome, Sta. Maria
sopra Minerva.
Fig. 20. Anonymous woodcut after Michelangelo's Risen Christ. From Flaminio
Primo da Colle, Le cosemaravigliose . . . di Roma, Rome, 1588.
Fig. 21. Jacob Matham afterMichelangelo's Risen Christ,1590s, engraving (35.6 x
24). Bartsch 82.

208 OCTOBER
Fig. 22. Roger van der Weyden,Madonnaand Child,c. 1460 (49 x 31). Caen,
des Beaux-Arts;Mancel Collection.
Musie
Fig. 23. Antonio Rossellino, VirginwiththeLaughingChild,c. 1465-75, terracotta
(ht. 48.3). London, Victoriaand AlbertMuseum.
Fig. 24. Vitale da Bologna,Madonnaand Child,c. 1345, detachedfresco.Bologna,
PinacotecaNazionale.
Fig. 25. c.
Gentile da Fabriano, Madonna and Child withSts. Nicholasand Catherine,
1415 (131 x 113), detail.Berlin,Gemiildegalerie.
Fig. 26. Filippo Lippi, Madonnaand Child, c. 1445 (75.5 x 52.3). Baltimore,
WaltersArtGallery.
Fig. 27. Antoniazzo Romano, Madonna and Child with Sts. Paul and Francis, 1488
(166 x 155), detail.Rome, GalleriaNazionale, Palazzo Barberini.
Fig. 28. Michelino da Besozzo, illumination, Christ CrowningDuke Giangaleazzo
inHeaven,1403. Paris,Bibliothbque
Visconti Nationale,ms. lat. 5888, fol.1.
Fig. 29. Coppo di Marcovaldo,Madonna 1261.Siena,Sta. Maria dei Servi.
delBordone,
Fig. 30. Bohemianillumination, Adoration
oftheMagi,c. 1360-70.Prague,Cathedral
Library,Cim VI, fol. 32.
Fig. 31. Bohemian, Madonna and Child with EmperorCharles IV and Saints, 1371
(181 x 96), detail. Prague,NarodnfGalerie.
Fig. 32. Maso di Banco, MadonnaandChildEnthroned, c. 1350 (54.1 x 19.1), detail.
The BrooklynMuseum; Giftof theHeirs of FrankL. Babbatt.
Fig. 33. GiottoShop,MadonnaandChildEnthroned, c. 1320. Whereaboutsunknown.
Fig. 34. Taddeo Gaddi, Madonna and Child Enthroned,1355 (154 x 80). Florence,
GalleriadegliUffizi.
Fig. 35. Andrea di Bartolo, Madonna and Child with FourteenSaints, c. 1405-10
(87.6 x 67). New Haven, Yale UniversityArt Gallery; Bequest of
MaitlandF. Griggs.
Fig. 36. Nardo di Cione, Madonnaand ChildwithFourSaints,c. 1355 (195 x 98). The
New-YorkHistoricalSociety;BryanCollection.
Fig. 37. fromtheHolkhamHall Bible, Crucifixion,
Englishillumination c. 1325-30.
HolkhamHall, Earl of Leicester,fol. 32v.
Fig. 38. panelsfroma polyptych,
MasterofSt. Mark (Catalan), Crucifixion 1355-60.
New York, The PierpontMorgan Library.
Fig. 39. Westphalian, Disrobingof Christ,c. 1490, detail froman Anna Selbdritt
panel
(46.5 x 38). Cologne,Wallraf-Richartz-Museum.
Fig. 40. Jacopo Bellini, MadonnaofHumilitywithDonor,c. 1441 (60.2 X 40.1). Paris,
Mus6e du Louvre.
Fig. 41. AntoniazzoRomano, Madonnaand ChildwithDonor(Gaetani Triptych),
1474-79 (147 x 71). Fondi, S. Pietro.
Fig. 42. Cosimo Rosselli, Madonna and Child with St. Anne and Four Saints, 1471
(163 X 163). Berlin(East), Gemiildegalerie.
Fig. 43. 1501 (202 x 172). Bologna,
Filippino Lippi, MysticMarriageofSt. Catherine,
S. Domenico.
ofNorth
Fig. 44. Burgundian,MadonnaandChild,c. 1490(78.1 x 54.6). University
Carolinaat Chapel Hill, The AcklandArtMuseum; BurtonEmmettCollec-
tion.

Fig. 45. Benedetto da Maiano, Madonna and Child, c. 1480-90, terracotta (dia.
104.1). Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Fig. 46. Domenico Ghirlandaio (?), Madonna and Child(78.7 x 55.5). Paris, Musde
du Louvre.
Fig. 47. Hans Baldung Grien, Nativity,1523 (92 x 55). Frankfurt, Stiidelsches
Kunstinstitut.
Fig. 48. Hans Baldung Grien, Venusand Cupid, 1525 (208.3 x 84). Otterlo, Rijks-
museum Krbller-Milller.
Fig. 49. Jan van Hemessen, Madonna and Child, 1543 (135 x 91). Madrid, Museo
del Prado.
Fig. 50. Andrea del Verrocchio, Madonna and Child,c. 1470 (84.5 x 64). Frankfurt,
StiidelschesKunstinstitut.
Fig. 51. Verrocchio Shop, Madonna and Child,c. 1470 (66 x 48.3). New York, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art; Bequest of Benjamin Altman.
Fig. 52. Roger van der Weyden, Madonnaand Child,c. 1460 (49 X 31). San Marino,
California, The Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery.
Fig. 53. Giovanni Bellini, Madonna and Child, c. 1470 (47 x 34). Bergamo, Ac-
cademia Carrara.
Fig. 54. Bramantino, Madonna and Child with Sts. Ambroseand Michael, c. 1518
(122 x 157), detail. Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana.
Fig. 55. Martin Schongauer, Christ Child as SalvatorMundi, c. 1480, engraving
(8.8 X. 6.1). Lehrs 31.
Fig. 56. Alsatian, Madonna and Child withSt. Anne, 15th century (34 X 24). Paris,
Musee du Louvre.
Fig. 57. Francesco Bonsignori, VirginAdoringthe SleepingChild, 1483 (65 x 52).
Verona, Museo di Castelvecchio.
Fig. 58. Andrea Mantegna, Dead Christ,before 1506 (66 X 81). Milan, Pinacoteca
di Brera.
Fig. 59. Joos van Cleve, Holy Family, c. 1515-20 (49 x 36.5). London, National
Gallery.
Fig. 60. Jacob Jordaens, Holy Family,c. 1620-25 (123 x 93.9). London, National
Gallery.
Fig. 61. Piero di Cosimo, Madonna and Child withSt. Margaretand theInfantSt. John,
c. 1520 (dia. 135). Tulsa, Oklahoma, Philbrook Art Center; Samuel H.
Kress Collection.
Fig. 62. Andrea Mantegna, Circumcision, c. 1470 (86 X 42.5). Florence, Galleria
degli Uffizi.
Fig. 63. Jean Malouel, Pieti, c. 1400 (dia. 52). Paris, Musee du Louvre.
Fig. 64. Henri Bellechose, RetableofSaintDenis, 1416 (162 x 211). Paris, Mus6e du
Louvre.
Fig. 65. Dijon School, Entombment, c. 1400 (32.8 X 21.3). Paris, Musee du Louvre.
Fig. 66. Domenico Ghirlandaio, Adorationof theMagi, 1487 (dia. 172), detail. Flor-
ence, Galleria degli Uffizi.
Fig. 67. Tyrolean, Adorationof theMagi, c. 1440 (87.5 X 71). Kunstmuseum Basel.
Fig. 68. Jan van Scorel, Adorationof the Magi, c. 1530-35 (86 x 69). Bonn,
Rheinisches Landesmuseum.

210 OCTOBER
Fig. 69. Botticelli, Adorationof theMagi, c. 1470 (50 X 136), detail. London, Na-
tional Gallery.
Fig. 70. Mantegna School, Adoration oftheMagi, c. 1475-80, engraving(39 x 28.2).
Bartsch 9.
Fig. 71. Pieter Bruegel, AdorationoftheMagi, 1564 (111 X 83.5). London, National
Gallery.
Fig. 72. Giovanni Cariani, Madonnaand ChildwithDonor, 1520 (56 x 75). Bergamo,
Accademia Carrara.
Fig. 73. Sebastiano del Piombo, Holy Family with Saints and Donor, c. 1505-10
(95 x 136). Paris, Musde du Louvre.
Fig. 74. Giovanni Bellini, Madonna and Child, c. 1475-80 (78 x 58). Venice,
Accademia.
Fig. 75. Cosimo Rosselli, Madonna and Child withtheInfantSt. John. New York, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art; Robert Lehman Collection.
Fig. 76. Lorenzo Lotto, Holy Family with Donors, c. 1526-30 (88.9 x 114.3).
Malibu, California, The J. Paul Getty Museum.
Fig. 77. Palma Vecchio. Holy Family with theMagdalen, c. 1516-17 (80 x 117).
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi.
Fig. 78. Adriaen Isenbrandt, Reston theFlightintoEgypt,c. 1515 (48 X 33.5). Private
collection.
Fig. 79. Bruges School illumination,Adoration oftheMagi, c. 1480-1500 (16 x 11.5).
Book of Hours, New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 493, fol.
58v.
Fig. 80. Paolo Veronese, Holy FamilywithSt. Barbaraand theInfantSt. John,c. 1560
(53 x 63). London, Christie's, June 26, 1970 (replica of painting in the
Uffizi).
Fig. 81. Paolo Veronese, Presentation of the Cuccini Family to the Madonna, 1571
(167 x 416). Dresden, GemMildegalerie.
Fig. 82. Alvise Vivarini, Madonnaand ChildwithSaints,1504 (89 X 129). Leningrad,
Hermitage.
Fig. 83. Perino del Vaga, HolyFamily,c. 1520 (dia. 85.5). Vaduz, LiechtensteinCol-
lection.
Fig. 84. Cima da Conegliano, Madonnaand Child,c. 1500-10 (69.5 X 57). London,
National Gallery.
Fig. 85. Perugino, Madonna and Child, c. 1500 (70 X 51). Washington, D.C., Na-
tional Gallery of Art; Samuel H. Kress Collection.
Fig. 86. Correggio, Madonna of theBasket,c. 1523-25 (33 X 25). London, National
Gallery.
Fig. 87. Raffaellino dal Colle, Madonna and Child with theInfantSt. John, c. 1530
(125 X 85.4). Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery.
Fig. 88. Correggio, Madonna di S. Giorgio,1530-32 (285 X 190), detail. Dresden,
Gemaildegalerie.
Fig. 89. Jan van Scorel, Madonna and Child with Donors, c. 1527-29 (55 x 76).
Castagnola, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.
Fig. 90. Jacques de Gheyn, Madonna and Child withtheInfantSt. John, c. 1590-93,
engraving (dia. 18.3). Hollstein 334.
Fig. 91. Willem Key, Piet/, after 1530 (127 X 99.5). Staatliche Kunsthalle

Karlsruhe (replica of the painting in Munich, Alte Pinakothek).

Fig. 92. Jacques Bellange, Pieth,c. 1615, etching (30.7 X 19.7). Robert-Dumesnil
86.8.
Fig. 93. Flemish, Christas VictoroverSin and Death, c. 1590-1600. Bruges, Memling
Museum.
Fig. 94. Ludwig Krug, Man ofSorrows,c. 1520, engraving(11.8 x 7.8). Hollstein 8.
Fig. 95. Maerten van Heemskerck, Man of Sorrows,c. 1525-30 (77.5 x 54.6).
Greenville, South Carolina, Bob Jones University Collection.
Fig. 96. Maerten van Heemskerck, Man of Sorrows, 1532 (90 x 65). Ghent,
Museum voor Schone Kunsten.
Fig. 97. Maerten van Heemskerck, Man ofSorrows,1525 (120 x 95). Whereabouts
unknown.
Fig. 98. After Maerten van Heemskerck, The Trinitywith ChristResurrected, glass
(40 x 26.5). Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.
Fig. 99. Robert Campin (?), Crucifixion, c. 1420-40 (77 X 47). Berlin, Gemilde-
galerie.
Fig. 100. Roger van der Weyden, Crucifixion, c. 1450 (103 x 70). Berne, Kunst-
museum; Abegg-Stiftung.
Fig. 101. Lucas Cranach, Crucifixion, 1503 (138 X 99). Munich, Alte Pinakothek.
Fig. 102. Albrecht Diirer, Christon theCross, 1505, drawing (31.5 x 21.5). Vienna,
Graphische Sammlung Albertina.
Fig. 103. Master D.S., Crucifixion, c. 1505-10, woodcut (44 X 31.1).
Fig. 104. Hans Baldung Grien, Christon theCross,c. 1515, drawing (ht. 25.2), detail.
Prayerbook of the Emperor Maximilian I, Besangon, Bibliotheque
Municipale.
Fig. 105. Moretto da Brescia, Ecce Homo, c. 1550. Brescia, Pinacoteca.
Fig. 106. Rimini School, Lamentation,c. 1330 (c. 35 X 37), detail. Rome, Galleria
Nazionale, Palazzo Barberini.
Fig. 107. Illumination from the Petites Heures of Jean de Berry, Entombment, c.
1380-85 (21.5 X 14.5). Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, ms. lat. 18014, fol.
94v.
Fig. 108. French illumination, Lamentation,c. 1400. Book of Hours, Paris, Biblio-
thbque Nationale, ms. lat. 1364, fol. 105v.
Fig. 109. French, Entombment, c. 1330, marble (ht. 49). Paris, Mus6e du Louvre.
Fig. 110. Alberto di Betto da Assisi, Lamentation, c. 1421, wood. Siena, Cathedral.
Fig. 111. Guillaume Vrelant (?), illumination, Entombment, c. 1454. Book of Hours,
The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, ms. 76, fol. 7.
Fig. 112. Fouquet Shop illumination, Lamentation,c. 1470. Book of Hours, New
York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 834, fol. 21 (copy of the Lamenta-
tionin Fouquet's Hours of Etienne Chevalier).
Fig. 113. Master of the Zebr~k Lamentation (Bohemian), Lamentation, c. 1505, wood.
Prague, Narodnf Galerie.
Fig. 114. Jan van Scorel, Lamentation,c. 1535-40 (45.5 X 67). Utrecht, Centraal
Museum.
Fig. 115. Jusepe de Ribera, Entombment, c. 1630 (127 x 182). Paris, Mus6e du
Louvre.
Fig. 116. French, Entombment, c. 1450-1500, stone (life-size). Avignon, Saint-Pierre.

212 OCTOBER
Fig. 117. Germain Pilon Shop, Entombment, c. 1540-54, stone (ht. c. 152). Verteuil,
Church.
Fig. 118. French, Piet6, c. 1400, alabaster (109 x 45). Saint-Andr6-de-Cubzac
(Gironde), Church.
Fig. 119. French, Pieti, 15th century,stone. Montlugon, Notre-Dame.
Fig. 120. Upper Bavarian, Pieth,c. 1490, terracotta(ht. 106). Munich, Bayerisches
Nationalmuseum.
Fig. 121. Flemish, Pieth,c. 1510-20, wood (ht. 66). Li'ege, Saint-Denis.
Fig. 122. AfterRoger van der Weyden, Throneof Grace, 1443 (100 X 45). Exterior
wing of Edelheer Triptych, Louvain, Saint-Pierre.
Fig. 123. Swabian, ThroneofGracewithSaints,c. 1480, wood. Boston, Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum.
Fig. 124. Egyptian relief,RamsesIII and Concubine,XIX Dynasty. Medinet Habu.
Fig. 125. Archaic Greek shield relief,PriambeforeAchilles,600-550 B.C. Olympia, Ar-
chaeological Museum.
Fig. 126. Drawing afterArchaic Greek vase painting, TheseusWooingAriadne,700-
650 B.C. Heracleion, Museum.
Fig. 127. French mirrorcase, LoversRiding to theHunt, c. 1320-40, ivory (dia. 10).
London, Victoria and Albert Museum.
Fig. 128. Cologne School, Madonna with the Sweet-peaBlossom, c. 1410. Cologne,
Fig. 129. Upper Rhenish illumination,Death oftheVirgin,1250-1300 (28.4 X 20.4).
Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, 40 259.
Fig. 130. French, initial "O" from a Canticles manuscript, Christand Ecclesia as
Bridegroomand Bride,c. 1200. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, ms. lat. 17645,
fol. 112v.
Fig. 131. Master of Heiligenkreuz, Madonna and Child,c. 1410 (72 x 43.5). Vienna,
KunsthistorischesMuseum.
Fig. 132. Luca Cambiaso, Madonna and Child, c. 1565 (82 x 67). The Hague,
Mauritshuis.
Fig. 133. Lorenzo Lotto, MysticMarriageofSt. Catherine,
1523 (172 x 134). Bergamo,
Accademia Carrara.
Fig. 134. Cesare Magni, Madonna and Child with Sts. Peter and Paul, c. 1530
(148.6 x 146.1). Cambridge, Massachusetts, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
University; Gift of Dr. Arthur K. Solomon, in memory of Susan Pulitzer
Freedberg.
Fig. 135. Style ofJoos van Cleve, ChristChildEating Grapes,c. 1515 (dia. 40.5). Co-
logne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum.
Fig. 136. Quentin Massys, Madonna and Child,c. 1500 (130 x 86). Brussels, Musees
Royaux des Beaux-Arts.
Fig. 137. Pinturicchio, Madonna and Child with Sts. Jeromeand Francis, c. 1490-95
(42.6 x 32.5). New Haven, Yale UniversityArt Gallery; Gift of Hannah
D. and Louis M. Rabinowitz.
Fig. 138. Roger van der Weyden follower,Madonnaand Child,afterc. 1440 (55 X 34).
Brussels, Musies Royaux des Beaux-Arts.
Fig. 139. Carlo di Camerino, Madonna ofHumilitywiththeTemptation ofEve (181.5 X
88.6). The Cleveland Museum of Art; The Holden Collection.

Fig. 140. Cima da Conegliano,Madonnaand Child,c. 1510 (83 x 68). Amsterdam,

Rijksmuseum.
Fig. 141. Bramantino,Madonnaand Childin a Landscape, c. 1485 (46 x 36). Boston,
Museum of Fine Arts;Purchasedfromthe PictureFund.
Fig. 142. Joosvan Cleve Shop, HolyFamily,c. 1520(48.2 X 36.4). The ArtInstitute
of Chicago.
Fig. 143. Jusepe de Ribera, Madonnaand Child, 1643 (108.6 x 101). Sarasota,
Florida,The Johnand Mable RinglingMuseum of Art.
Fig. 144. FilippoLippi,MadonnaandChildwithSaints,c. 1435-40(196 x 196),detail.
Florence,GalleriadegliUffizi.
Fig. 145. Central Italian, Madonnaand ChildwithSaints(overpainted),c. 1525-50
(73.5 x 52.2). Budapest,Museum of Fine Arts.
Fig. 146. Donatello School, Crucifix, wood, beforeand afterrestoration.Bosco ai
Frati,Conventodi San Francesco.
Fig. 147. Jan van Eyck(?), Crucifixion, c. 1430 (43 x 26). Berlin,Gemildegalerie.
Fig. 148. Hans Burgkmair, ChristontheCross,1515,woodcut(25.5 X 18.3). Geisberg
438.
Fig. 149. Illuminationfromthe GrandesHeures de Rohan, Lamentation, c. 1420-25
(29 X 20.8). Paris, BibliothbqueNationale,ms. lat. 9471, fol. 135.
Fig. 150. WolfHuber, Lamentation, 1524 (106 X 87). Paris, Musie du Louvre.
Fig. 151. Byzantinemosaic, Baptismof Christ, c. 500, detail. Ravenna, Arian Bap-
tistry.
Fig. 152. Byzantineillumination,Baptismof Christ,14th century(32.3 x 22.8).
Baltimore,WaltersArtGallery,W. 531.
Fig. 153. Englishenamel,Baptism ofChrist,c. 1200(5.9 X 16.5). CourtesySotheby's,
London.
Fig. 154. Limoges School, Baptismof Christ,c. 1250, gilt copper (36.8 x 20.9).
Boston,Museum of Fine Arts;FrancisBartlettFund.
Fig. 155. Roger van der Weyden(copy), BaptismofChrist, afterc. 1450 (44 x 27).
Frankfurt, Kunstinstitut.
Staidelsches
Fig. 156. IlluminationfromtheTres BellesHeuresde Notre-Dame,Baptism ofChrist,
c. 1390 (12.6 x 11). Paris, Biblioth~queNationale, ms. nouv. acq. lat.
3093, fol. 162.
Fig. 157. Flemish,BaptismofChrist, c. 1400 (36.3 x 25.9). Baltimore,WaltersArt
Gallery.
Fig. 158. Guido da Siena, Madonnaand ChildEnthroned, 1262 (142 X 100). Siena,
Pinacoteca.
Fig. 159. Cimabue (?), Madonnaand ChildwithTwo Angels,c. 1300 (218 x 118).
Bologna,Sta. Maria dei Servi.
Fig. 160. Lippo di Benivieni,MadonnaandChild,c. 1330(?) (75.3 x 56.2). Florence,
CollectionCount Cosimo degliAlessandri.
Fig. 161. Maso di Banco,MadonnaandChild,c. 1340(82 x 39). Florence,S. Spirito.
Fig. 162. Lippo Dalmasio, Madonnadel Velluto, c. 1400. Bologna,S. Domenico.
Fig. 163. Master of the Magdalen, Madonna and Child Enthroned, c. 1280
(92.7 x 52.1). Sotheby's,London, March 24, 1965.
Fig. 164. Sienese (Duccio?), Madonna and Child Enthroned,c. 1290-1300
(30.5 x 22.9). Berne,Kunstmuseum.

214 OCTOBER
Fig. 165. Lorenzo Costa, Venus,c. 1500 (174 X 76). Budapest, Museum of Fine
Arts.
Fig. 166. Lucas Cranach, Venusand Cupid, 1531 (176 x 80). Brussels, Musees
Royaux des Beaux-Arts.
Fig. 167. Lucas Cranach, Venus,1532 (37 X 25). Frankfurt,StiidelschesKunst-
institut.
Fig. 168. Lucas van Leyden,Fortuna, Strasbourg,Mus6e des Beaux-Arts.
Fig. 169. Jean Bellegambe(?), Holy Family,c. 1520 (92 x 67), detail. Brussels,
Mus6es Royaux des Beaux-Arts.
Fig. 170. Fiorenzodi Lorenzo. MadonnaandChildwithSt.Jerome (52 X 38). Boston,
Museum of Fine Arts;Giftof Mrs. W. ScottFitz.
Fig. 171. Pierodi Cosimo,MadonnaandChildEnthroned withSts.DominicandJerome,c.
1515 (208.9 X 205.7). New Haven, Yale UniversityArt Gallery(before
cleaning).
Fig. 172. FrancescoPesellino,Madonnaand ChildwithSt.John,c. 1455 (72.4 X 54).
The Toledo Museum of Art.
Fig. 173. Zanobi Machiavelli, Madonnaand Child, c. 1460 (80.8 x 56.2). New
Haven, Yale University ArtGallery(beforecleaning).
Fig. 174. Francescodel Cossa, Madonnaand ChildwithSts. Petronius andJohnthe
Evangelist(Pala dei Mercanti), 1474 (227 X 166), detail. Bologna,
PinacotecaNazionale.
Fig. 175. Giovanni della Robbia, Madonnaand Child, c. 1490-1500, terracotta
(82 x 55). Prato,GalleriaCommunaledi Palazzo Pretorio.
Fig. 176. Titian, Madonnaand Child,c. 1510-20 (65.8 X 83.5). Vienna, Kunst-
historisches
Museum.
Fig. 177. Francesco Pesellino, Madonna and Child with Six Saints, c. 1445-50
(26.4 x 23.8). New York, The MetropolitanMuseum of Art; Bequestof
Mary StillmanHarkness.
Fig. 178. SebastianoMainardi,Madonnaand ChildwithSt.John,c. 1490 (dia. 92).
Paris, Musie du Louvre.
Fig. 179. Bramantino,MadonnaTrivulzio, c. 1512 (61 X 47). Milan, Pinacotecadi
Brera.
Fig. 180. Correggio,MadonnadelLatte,c. 1525 (68.5 X 56.8). Budapest,Museumof
Fine Arts.
Fig. 181. School,MadonnaandChildwithPomegranate,
Botticelli c. 1495(83.1 X 55.6).
New Haven, Yale University ArtGallery;University PurchasefromJames
JacksonJarves.
Fig. 182. GiovanniDalmata (and Mino da Fiesole),MadonnaandChild,c. 1471-77,
marble.Monumentof Pope Paul II, Vatican Grottoes.
Fig. 183. Imitatorof AntonioRossellino,Barney Madonna,marble(107.9 X 81.3).
Glens Falls, New York, The Hyde Collection.
Fig. 184. Jean de Beaumetz and Shop, Crucifixion withCarthusian,1390-95. Paris,
Musie du Louvre.
Fig. 185. Illuminationfromthe Grandes Heures de Rohan, Crucyfixion withPhineas
Punishing Couple,c. 1420-25 (29 X 20.8). Paris, Bibliothbque
theAdulterous
Nationale,ms. lat. 9471, fol. 237.

Fig. 186. Middle Rhenish, Lamentation, c. 1450 (32.5 x 31.5). Paris, Musie du
Louvre.
Fig. 187. Hans Pleydenwurff Shop, Deposition,1465 (178 x 113). Munich, Alte
Pinakothek.
Fig. 188. Juande Flandes,Adoration oftheMagi,c. 1510(124.8 x 79.4). Washington,
D.C., NationalGalleryofArt; Samuel H. Kress Collection.
Fig. 189. Pontormo,Adoration oftheMagi, c. 1519-20 (85 x 190), detail. Florence,
Palazzo Pitti.
Fig. 190. Andrea AndreaniafterAurelio (?) Luini, Adoration of theMagi, c. 1570,
chiaroscurowoodcut(38.5 x 27.3). Bartsch4.
Fig. 191. Marco Pino, Adoration oftheMagi, 1571. Naples, SS. Severinoe Sossio.
Fig. 192. Bruegel,detailof Fig. 71.
Fig. 193. Bohemian, Madonnaof Strahova,c. 1350 (94 x 84). Prague, Narodni
Galerie.
Fig. 194. Masterof St. Severin,AdorationoftheMagi, c. 1500(118 x 205). Cologne,
Fig. 195. Battistadi Gerio,Madonnaand Child,c. 1410 (118.5 x 64.8). Philadelphia
Museum of Art;The JohnG. JohnsonCollection.
Fig. 196. Sassetta,MadonnaandChildwithAngels,1437-44(207 X 118). Paris,Musie
du Louvre.
Fig. 197. Mantegna School, SacraConversazione, c. 1465 (56 x 43), detail. Boston,
Isabella StewartGardnerMuseum.
Fig. 198. Botticelli,Madonnadei Candelabri, c. 1476 (dia. 192). FormerlyBerlin
(destroyed).
Fig. 199. Giovanni Bellini,Madonnaand ChildwithSts.Johnand Elizabeth,c. 1490
(72 x 90). Frankfurt, Kunstinstitut.
Staidelsches
Fig. 200. Raffaellinodel Garbo, Madonnaand ChildEnthroned, 1500 (200 x 144).
Florence,GalleriadegliUffizi.
Fig. 201. Domenico Puligo, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, c. 1515
(154.8 x 171). Sarasota,Florida,The Johnand Mable RinglingMuseum
of Art.
Fig. 202. Titian (?), SacraConversazione,
before1511 (84 x 111.5). Rome, Galleria
Doria.
Fig. 203. Sodoma, HolyFamily,c. 1525 (75 x 67). Rome, GalleriaBorghese.
Fig. 204. Veronese Shop, Holy Family,c. 1600 (99.1 X 118.1). The Baltimore
Museum of Art;Jacob EpsteinCollection.
Fig. 205. Gian AntonioGuardi afterVeronese,HolyFamily,c. 1750 (60.6 X 68.6).
SeattleArtMuseum.
Fig. 206. LudovicoCarracci,TheDreamofSt.Joseph, c. 1605,drawing(27.9 x 27.3).
Artmarket(formerly EllesmereCollection).
Fig. 207. AntonioCarneo, HolyFamily AdoredbyLieutenantsandDeputies,1667,detail.
Udine, Museo Civico.
Fig. 208. Vivarini,detailof Fig. 82.
Fig. 209. Luca dellaRobbia,MadonnaandChild,c. 1440-60,terracotta (48.3 X 38.7),
before1977 cleaning.New York, The MetropolitanMuseum of Art; Be-
quest of Susan DwightBliss.

216 OCTOBER
Fig. 210. Luca della Robbia, Madonnaand Child(Fig. 209), aftercleaning.

Fig. 211. Andrea Mantegna, Madonna and ChildwiththeMagdalenand St. JohntheBap-
tist,c. 1500 (136 x 114), detail. London, NationalGallery.
Fig. 212. Barentvan Orley, HolyFamily,1521 (107 X 87), before1980 cleaning.
Paris, Musde du Louvre.
Fig. 213. Barentvan Orley,HolyFamily(Fig. 212), aftercleaning.
Fig. 214. AgnoloBronzino,HolyFamily,c. 1540-42(133 X 101), before1980 clean-
ing. Paris, Musie du Louvre.
Fig. 215. AgnoloBronzino,HolyFamily(Fig. 214), aftercleaning.
Fig. 216. Janvan Hemessen,MadonnaandChild,c. 1540(129 x 99). Wassenaar,The
Netherlands,GeertsemaCollection.
Fig. 217. AfterJan van Hemessen, Madonnaand Child (140 x 109). Antwerp,
KoninklijkMuseum voor SchoneKunsten.
Fig. 218. Michelangelo,Doni Madonna,1506 (dia. 120), detail. Florence,Galleria
degliUffizi.
Fig. 219. AchilleJacquet,engravingafterMichelangelo'sDoni Madonna,Gazette des
Beaux-Arts,1876, pl. afterp. 134.
Fig. 220. Retouchedphotograph ofMichelangelo'sDoniMadonnaas publishedinJ. A.
Symonds'LifeofMichelangelo, London, 1893, I, pl. afterp. 116.
Fig. 221. GiovanniBellini,Madonnaand Child(Fig. 53), retouchedAnderson/Alinari
photograph.
Fig. 222. Lucas Cranach,Crucifixion, 1538(60 x 40.6). New Haven, Yale University
ArtGallery;Giftof Hannah D. and Louis M. Rabinowitz.
Fig. 223. Lucas Cranach, Christon theCross,before 1502, hand-coloredwoodcut
(21.5 x 15). Hollstein28.
Fig. 224. AlbrechtDiirer and assistant,Crucifixion, c. 1500 (63 x 45.5). Dresden,
Gemiildegalerie.
Fig. 225. Hans Baldung Grien, Crucifixion, 1512 (151 x 104). Berlin, Gemiilde-
galerie.
byAngels,c. 1474 (44.5 x 86). Vienna,
Fig. 226. Cosimo Tura, Dead ChristSupported
Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Fig. 227. Albrecht Diirer and c. 1500 (63 X 45.5). Dresden,
assistant,Lamentation,
Gemiildegalerie.
Fig. 228. Flemish,Entombment, c. 1380-1400, alabaster(20 X 38). Namur,
Musie
des ArtsAnciensdu Namurois.
Fig. 229. Flemish,MaryMagdalen(?) Supporting theDead Christ,c. 1490,wood. Paris,
Musie de Cluny.
Fig. 230. German,Lamentation, 1481-1504.Gbrlitz,Gardenof the Holy Grave.
Fig. 231. Andrea Solario, Lamentation, 1504-07 (117.5 x 161.5). Paris, Muse du
Louvre.
Fig. 232. Mattia Preti(?), Dead ChristwithAngels(121 x 177). Bari, PinacotecaPro-
vinciale.
Fig. 233. David Kindt,Lamentation, 1631 (57.5 x 155). Paris, Musie du Louvre.
Fig. 234. Master of the St. Lucy Legend, Pieta,c. 1475 (52 x 39). Amsterdam,
privatecollection.
Fig. 235. Lower Rhenish,Pieth,15thcentury,wood. Rheinberg,Cathedral.

Fig. 236. Lower Rhenish, Pieth,c. 1480, wood (ht. 62). Miinster, Landesmuseum fUir
Kunst und Kulturgeschichte.
Fig. 237. German, Pieta, c. 1490-1500, wood (ht. 90). Essen, Cathedral.
Fig. 238. Westphalian, Pieth,1550, wood (ht. 67). Soest, Collection Bernd Striiter.
Fig. 239. Germain Pilon, Tomb effigiesof Henry II and Catherine de' Medici,
1565-70. Paris, Saint-Denis.
Fig. 240. French, Mementomori,1551 (75.5 x 95). Paris, Musie du Louvre.
Fig. 241. Dire van Delf, illumination, Animationof Adam, c. 1404 (18.8 x 13.7).
Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, W. 171, fol. 25.
Fig. 242. Giovanni Dalmata (and Mino da Fiesole), CreationofEve, c. 1471-77, mar-
ble. Monument of Pope Paul II, Vatican Grottoes.
Fig. 243. AfterCampin (?) or Roger, Throneof Grace(126 x 90). Louvain, Museum
Vander Kelen-Mertens.
Fig. 244. South Netherlandish, Throneof Grace, 1450. Tabernacle of Mathieu de
Layen, Louvain, St. Pierre.
Fig. 245. Brabant School, Throneof Grace,15th century,wood (ht. 40). Liege, Musie
Diocesain.
Fig. 246. Liibeck School, Throneof Grace,c. 1510 (?). Hald, Denmark.

Index of Names
Aelredof Rievaulx,St., 113 Bellechose,Henri,Fig. 64

Albertodi Bettoda Assisi,Fig. 110 Bellegambe,Jean, Fig. 169
Ambrose,St., 50, 56, 61 Bellini,Jacopo, 166, Fig. 40
Andreadi Bartolo,Fig. 35 Bellini,Giovanni,23, 72, 79, 125, 183,
Andreadi Giusto, 146, 166 Figs. 53, 74, 199, 221
Andreani,Andrea,Fig. 190 Benedettoda Maiano, Fig. 45
Antico,1', 147 Benedict,St., 184
Antonelloda Messina, 134 Bening,Simon, 136
AntoniazzoRomano, 24, Figs. 27, 41 Bernard,St., 10 n. 10, 54-55, 56, 57, 61,
Antonioda Viterbo,166 63, 63 n. 69, 108, 114, 120, 139, 143, 189
Apollinarius,63 Bloemaert,Abraham,84
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 20 n. 20, 52, 55-57, Boccaccio,Giovanni,89, 185
61, 63, 131, 184 Bonaventure,St., 10, 10 n. 9, 11 n. 11, 55,
Ari'es,Philippe,8, 117 58, 61, 71, 104 n. 95, 110, 119, 127, 130
Aristotle,125 Boniface,St., 163
Arpino,Cavaliered', 134, Fig. 16 Bonsignori,Francesco,43, Fig. 57
Artemidorus, 90, 143 Borromeo,Cardinal Federigo,27 n. 28
AsteriusofAmasea, 156-57 Botticelli,Sandro, 121, 165, Figs. 69, 181,
Athanasius,St., 118-19 198
Augustine,St., 4, 15, 16 n. 14, 17 n. 16, Botticini,Francesco,12, 121, 165-66,
18 n. 17, 20 n. 20, 27, 39, 50, 50 n. 45, Fig. 15
55, 58, 61, 65, 118, 119, 126, 129-31, Bramantino,42, 128-29, 166, Figs. 54,
141, 162-63, 184, 189 141, 179
Braun,Conrad, 17 n. 17, 184
Bach,JohannSebastian,159 Bronzino,Agnolo,90 n. 90, Figs. 214, 215
Bacon, Francis,121 Bruegel,Pieter,90 n. 90, 166, Figs. 71, 192
Bagnariis,Ludovicusde, 64 Bultmann,Rudolph,45 n. 35
BaldungGrien,Hans, 4, 6, 8, 10-11, 38, Burgkmair, Hans, 132, Fig. 148
65, 72, 117, 118, 134, 147, Figs. 13, 47,
48, 104, 225 Callot,Jacques,90 n. 90, 175
Bandinelli,Baccio, 90 n. 90, 176 Calvaert,Denis, 75 n. 78
Barendt,Theodore,197 Calvin,John,48 n. 42, 50 n. 45, 141
Barna da Siena, 32 Cambiaso, Luca, Fig. 132
Baronio,Francesco,141 Campano, GiovanniAntonio,62
Bartolommeo, Fra, 120-121 Campin, Robert,42 n. 33, 134, 197-98,
Bartolommeo di Giovanni,Fig. 4 Fig. 99
Barzizza, Gasperino,61 n. 67 Caravaggio,155-56
Basil, St., 156-57 Cardulus,Franciscus,16 n. 14, 58 n. 65,
Bassano, Gerolamo,166 64, 90-91
Battistadi Gerio, 179, Fig. 195 Cariani, Giovanni,Fig. 72
Baudelaire,Charles, 174 Carlo di Camerino,Fig. 139
Beaumetz,Jean de, Fig. 184 Carneo, Antonio,76 n. 80, Fig. 207
Bede, theVenerable,52-54, 56, 61, 113, Caron, Antoine,197
158 Carracci,Annibale,Fig. 6
Beer, E.S. de, 159-60 Carracci,Ludovico, 173, Fig. 206
Bellange,Jacques,84, Fig. 92 Carvajal, Bernardino,62, 63, 131, 159

Casa, Nicolo della, 90 n. 90 Flandes,Juan de, Fig. 188

Casali, Battista,62, 90, 186-87 Foppa, Vincenzo,166
Catherineof Siena, St., 159 Fouquet,Jean, 100, Fig. 112
Cesare Magni, Fig. 134 Francia,Francesco,79, 173, 179-80
Cimabue, Fig. 159 Freedberg,David, 175
Cima da Conegliano,79, 124, 128, 173,
Figs. 84, 140
ClementofAlexandria,St., 63, 118 Gaddi, Taddeo, 28, Fig. 34
Gentileda Fabriano,24, Fig. 25
Cleve,Joos van, 48, Figs. 59, 135, 142
Gerson,Jean, 139
Clouet, Frangois,90 n. 90
Coppo di Marcovaldo,28, Fig. 29 Gheyn,Jacques de, 84, Fig. 90
Ghiberti,Lorenzo, 180
Correggio,79, 82, 124, 126, Figs. 86, 88,
180 Ghirlandaio,Domenico,65-67, 164-66,
Cossa, Francescodel, 24, Fig. 174 Figs. 46, 66
Costa, Lorenzo, 147, 166, Fig. 165 Giambologna,132
Gibbon,Edward, 139-40
Coter,Colin de, 198
Cranach,Lucas, 146, 147, 166, Figs. 101, Giotto,28, 132, Fig. 33
GiovanniAngelodi Antonio,132
166, 167, 222, 223
Giovannidi Marco dal Ponte, 173
Crashaw,Richard,48, 58, 60-61, 134
Giulianoda Rimini,145
Crivelli,Carlo, 166
Goethe,JohannWolfgangvon, 72, 144
CyrilofJerusalem,St., 27, 50
Greban,Arnoul,32 n. 30
Dalmata, Giovanni,196, Figs. 182, 242 Gregoryof Nazianzus, St., 157
Danielou,Jean, 156-57 Gregoryof Nyssa,St., 18 n. 18, 134-35
Delf, Dire van, Fig. 241 Gregoryof Tours, St., 135
Demus, Otto, 9, 71 GregoryXIII, Pope, 164
Desiderioda Settignano,132 Guardi, Gian Antonio,76, 176, Fig. 205
DiodorusSiculus,86 n. 87, 186 Guercino,72
DomenicoVeneziano, 176 Guido da Siena, 28, 145, 189, Fig. 158
Dominici,CardinalGiovanni,121
Donatello, 132, Fig. 146 Harcigny,Guillaumede, 196
Donne, John,124 Heemskerck,Maertenvan, 86-91, 183-84,
Duccio, 132, Fig. 164 Figs. 95-98
Duchamp, Marcel, 175 Held,Julius S., 164, 183-84, 190, 194-96
Durandus,William,27-28 Hemessen,Jan van, 39, 183-84, Figs. 49,
Dilrer,Albrecht,132-33, Figs. 102, 224, 227 216, 217
Heraclitus,12
Einem,Herbertvon, 140 Herodotus,186
Eliot,George, 147 Herrick,Robert,110
Erasmus,53 Hibbard,Howard, 140
Eusebius, 139, 143 Holbein theElder, Hans, 42 n. 33, 79
Eyck,Jan van, 132, Fig. 147 Holbein theYounger,Hans, 133
Evelyn,John,159-60 Homer, 3
HonoriusI, Pope, 18 n. 17
Fallopio,Gabriello,117 Honoriusof Autun, 114-15
Fiorenzodi Lorenzo,Fig. 170 Hopper, Vincent,157

220 OCTOBER
Huber, Wolf,134, Fig. 150 Machiavelli,Zanobi, 24, Fig. 173

Hugh of St. Victor,126-27, 130, 156 Mainardi,Sebastiano,Fig. 178
Mile, Emile, 112, 141-42
InnocentIII, Pope, 46 n. 41, 52 n. 49 Malouel,Jean, Fig. 63
Irenaeus,St., 63, 118 Manichaeus,63, 64
Isenbrandt,Adriaen,72, Fig. 78 Mansueti,Giovanni,191
Mantegna,Andrea,32 n. 32, 42, 43, 50-52,
67, 125, 156, 179, 188, Figs. 58, 62, 70,
Jacquemartde Hesdin, 165 197, 211
Jerome,St., 17, 45, 54, 113, 114, 139, 144, Masaccio, 142
163, 183-84 Maso di Banco, 142, Figs. 32, 161
Jordaens,Jacob, Fig. 60 Masolino, Fig. 18
Joyce,James, 107-08, 108 n. 96, 159
Massys,Quentin,84, 123, Fig. 136
JuliusII, Pope, 62, 89, 186 MasterD.S., Fig. 103
JustinMartyr,St., 52, 156 MasterE.S., 42 n. 33, 146
Masterof Heiligenkreuz,Fig. 131
Kantorowicz,Ernst,144 Masterof St. Mark, Fig. 38
Kepler,Johannes,160 Masterof St. Sang, 198
Key, Willem,84, Fig. 91 Masterof St. Sebastian,75 n. 78
Kindt,David, Fig. 233 Masterof St. Severin,Fig. 194
Koch, Carl, 6, 117 Masterof theBanderoles,198
Kollwitz,K~ithe,143 Masterof theBedfordHours, 166
Krug, Ludwig,86, 91, Fig. 94 Masterof theFogg Pieta, 145
Masterof theLifeof theVirgin,131
Lautensack,Hans, 90 n. 90 Masterof theMagdalen, 145, Fig. 163
Lawrence,D. H., 185 MasteroftheRohan Hours, 160-62
Leo I, Pope (St. Leo theGreat), 16 n. 15, Masterof theSt. Lucy Legend, Fig. 234
18 n. 17 Masterof theZebr4kLamentation,Fig. 113
Leo VI, Pope, 27 MasterOswald, 145
Leonardoda Vinci, 123 Matham,Jacob, Fig. 21
Leyden,Lucas van, 147, 166, Fig. 168 MaximilianI, Emperor,194
Limbourgbrothers,196 MaximusConfessor,St., 143
Lippi, Filippino,Fig. 43 Mazzolino, Ludovico, 144
Lippi, Fra Filippo,24, 120, 180-81, Meiss, Millard,32 n. 31, 128, 141-43
Figs. 26, 144 Memling,Hans, 166
Lippo Dalmasio, Fig. 162 Methodius,St., 17, 139, 156
Lippo di Benivieni,Fig. 160 Michelangelo,18-21, 23, 89, 90 n. 88, 120,
Lisner,Margrit,132 121, 124, 125, 132, 140-41, 144, 157-58,
Lochner,Stefan,166 176, 182-83, 190, Figs. 19-21, 218-20
Lollio, Antonio,62, 63 Michelinoda Besozzo, Fig. 28
Lorenzetti,Ambrogio,Fig. 17 Michelozzo,132
Lorenzodi Credi, 147, 166 Milton,John,58, 60
Lotto,Lorenzo,43 n. 34, Figs. 76, 133 Mir6,Joan, 175
Lotz, Wolfgang,140 Molanus,Johannes,27-28
Louis XIII, King, 117 Montagna,Bartolommeo,Fig. 14
Lucian, 147 Montaigne,Michel de, 90 n. 90, 176, 188,
Luini, Aurelio,Fig. 190 194

Morettoda Brescia,96, Fig. 105 Raphael, 124, 126

Reau, Louis, 72
Nardo di Cione, 142, Fig. 36 Reinach,Salomon, 125
Nashe, Thomas, 185 Reni, Guido, 18 n. 19
Newton,Isaac, 160 Ribera,Jusepede, 102, Figs. 115, 143
Nilsson,M.P., 45 Robbia, Andreadella, 120
Noah, 130-31 Robbia, Giovannidella, Fig. 175
Robbia, Luca della, Figs. 209, 210
Oberman,Heiko A., 55 n. 58 Rosselli,Cosimo, 42, Figs. 42, 75
O'Malley,JohnW., 9-10, 55 n. 58, 61-62, Rossellino,Antonio,21-23, 126, 154,
127, 159, 199-203 Figs. 23, 183
Origen,53, 113, 118, 139 Rosso Fiorentino,134
Origo, Iris, 157 Ruskin,John, 175
Orlandi,Deodato, 145
Orley,Barentvan, Figs. 11, 212, 213
Osiris,86 Sadeler,Jan, 197
Sangallo,Giulianoda, 132
Pacchia, Girolamodel, 78 n. 81 Sarto,Andreadel, 16, 23, 65, 75, 79, 100,
Palma Vecchio,Fig. 77 126, Figs. 2, 3
Palmezzano,Marco, 79, 173 Sassetta,Fig. 196
Parmigianino,90 n. 90, 166, 173-74 Savonarola,Girolamo,147, 155
Perinodel Vaga, 78, 166, 173, Fig. 83 Schedel,Hartmann,156
Perugino,79, 173 Schongauer,Martin,23, 42, Fig. 55
Pesellino,Francesco,Figs. 172, 177 Schweitzer,Bernard,123
Photius,10 n. 9, 17, 139 Scorel,Jan van, 84, 166, Figs. 68, 89, 114
Pico della Mirandola, 144 Sebastianodel Piombo,89-90, Fig. 73
Piero della Francesca,42 Sellaio,Jacopo del, 166
Pierodi Cosimo, 38, 120, 121, 126, 191, Seneca, 147
Figs. 61, 171 Sesostris,King of Egypt,90, 186-87
Pilon,Germain,Figs. 117, 239 Shakespeare,William,48 n. 43, 49 n. 44,
Pino, Marco, Fig. 191 144, 185
Pinturicchio, 86 n. 87, 124, Fig. 137 Silvestris,Bernardus,46, 90, 144
139-40 Simonthe New Theologian,143
Plantagenet,Geoffrey,
Simonedei Crocifissi,146
Pleydenwurff, Hans, Fig. 187
SimoneMartini,Fig. 9
Pliny,125
Plutarch,86 n. 87 Solario,Andrea,Fig. 231
Poliziano,Angelo,64 Sodoma, 75, Fig. 203
Pontormo,100, 166, Fig. 189 Stimmer,Tobias, 90 n. 90
Poole, Reginald, 163 Stosz,Veit, 111
Pope-Hennessy, John,21 n. 22, 120, 126, Swift,Jonathan,130
154
Preti,Mattia, Fig. 232 Tennyson,AlfredLord, 184
Pseudo-Bonaventure, 28, 32, 57, 158 Tertullian,17, 63, 139, 158
Puligo,Domenico,Fig. 201 Theodoreof Mopsuestia,134
Thoreau, HenryDavid, 187
Raffaellino
dal Colle, 79, Fig. 87 Titian, 75, 90 n. 90, Figs. 176, 202
Raffaellino
del Garbo, Fig. 200 Trumbull,John, 177

222 OCTOBER
Tura, Cosimo, 188, Fig. 226 Voragine,Jacopo da, 57-58, 61, 156, 163
Turner,J.M.W., 175 Vrelant,Guillaume,Fig. 111
Urbani,Ludovico,75 n. 78
Wentzel,Hans, 112
Wessel, K., 135
Valeriano,Pierio,21, 90 n. 89, 158-59, 186
Vasari, Giorgio,21 Weyden,Roger van der, 21-23, 43 n. 34,
Velazquez, Diego, 160 93, 108, 121, 133, 197-98,Figs. 22, 52,
100, 122, 138, 155, 243
Vergil,126
Wierixbrothers,100
Veronese,Paolo, 6, 23, 75-78, 76 n. 79,
166, Figs. 5, 80, 81, 204, 205 Wirth,Jean, 117
Verrocchio,Andreadel, 40, Figs. 50, 51
Vitale da Bologna,Fig. 24 Zichy,Mihily, 76 n. 79
Vivarini,Alvise,78, Figs. 82, 208 Zoppo, Marco, Fig. 10
Vives, Lufs,45 Zoroaster,125


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Sexuallity of Christ - Steinberg PDF

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The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion

Source: October, Vol. 25 (Summer, 1983), pp. iv+1-198+204-222

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The firstnecessity is to admit a long-suppressed matter of fact: that

* Indicationsof sources are given in the footnotes.Full referencesfor abbreviated

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Fig. 4. Bartolommeodi Giovanni,Madonna

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Fig. 6. AnnibaleCarracciShop, MadonnaandChildwithSaints,1608-09,detail.

theyare satisfiedwithtoo little.For the seeming artlessnessof what I shall call

1. Iliad,I, 501-02; VIII, 370-71; X, 454-55.

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phrase I take fromSt. Augustine2)- whetherthe action appears naturalized on

2. St. Augustinespeaksof"His appearanceas an InfantSpouse, fromhis bridalchamber,

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truthfulrepresentation,became too competentforits own good? Rapt in the

3. Forthemotifofthedead Christtouchinghisgroin,and itssubsequentimitation in recum-

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far from being prurient or frivolous,was to be understood as a record of

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There is somethinghere thatwe are expected to take forgranted- here as

I have learned much fromJohn O'Malley's recentbook, PraiseandBlamein

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"The theologyof the Western Church," writes O'Malley, "has generally

9. Ibid. The followingfromSt. Bonaventure may serve as a standard traditionalformulation:

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Baldung's printcould be at the same time triteand unique; reflectiveof vulgar

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The eternal, by definition,experiences neitherdeath nor generation. If

Fig. 16. Cavaliered'Arpino,MadonnaandChild

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Fig. 18. Masolino,MadonnaandChild,

infinitecredit in heaven. We do not suppose that every painter of a nursing

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of a man."14From the preacheror theologian,no furtheranatomic specification

14. "Made up ofall themembers... ,"writesSt. Augustine(CityofGod,XXII, 18). For Leo

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"A man entirelyvirginal,"says Tertullian. St. Methodius (3rd century)dubs

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Modesty, to be sure, recommendscovered loins; and the ensuing conflict

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Fig. 19. Michelangelo, Risen Christ,1514-20.

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Fig. 20. Anonymouswoodcutafter Fig. 21. Jacob Mathamafter

20. The resurrected,bothmaleand female,shallnotbe ashamedin heaven.This is self-evident

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theyhad been immemorially;Michelangelo's monumental Christ stood newly

21. Valeriano,Hieroglyphica,XXXIV, pp. 245-46- a workfirstpublishedin 1556,but more

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Fig. 23. Antonio Rossellino, Virginwiththe

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These, then, are my threeinitialconsiderations.The firstremindsus that

The candor of Michelangelo's naked Redeemer consummates a develop-

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