Jan van Eyck's Italian Pilgrimage: A Miraculous Florentine Annunciation and the Ghent

Altarpiece
Author(s): Penny Howell Jolly
Source: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte , 1998, 61. Bd., H. 3 (1998), pp. 369-394
Published by: Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH Munchen Berlin

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/1482990

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 PENNY HOWELL JOLLY

Jan van Eyck's Italian Pilgrimage:

A Miraculous Florentine Annunciation and the Ghent Altarpiece

While scholars have never conclusively resolved The SS.Annunziata Annunciation

whether Jan van Eyck travelled to Italy, new evi- and Its Replicas
dence suggests that Jan did make a pilgrimage to
Florence in the name of Duke Philip the Good In the early I5th century, the major pilgrimage
of Burgundy in either 1426 or 1428'. My con- site in Florence was the miraculous Annunciation
clusion that Jan viewed art work in Florence that in the Servite Church of SS. Annunziata (fig. i),
influenced his Ghent Altarpiece, completed in which throughout the century attracted visitors
1432, holds significance for art historians; for from all over Europe2. The feast of the Annunci-
example, it strengthens the case of those who ation was particularly significant in Florence be-
proposed Masaccio's perspectival experiments as cause of the reputed founding of the city on
the source for the di sotto in sui perspective of March 25, the anniversary of that holy event and
Jan's Ghent Adam. But of apparently greater the date that also marked the Florentine new
interest to Jan than this revolutionary style was year. Yet the SS.Annunziata Annunciation won
the late medieval Annunciation at SS. Annunzia- the special devotion of Florentines because, ac-
ta, a fresco believed to have miraculous proper-cording to legend, this particular fresco was not
ties with regard to marriage and childbirth. Byentirely of human manufacture. It was being
>copying<< significant elements of that trecentopainted, supposedly in 1252, by an artist named
fresco and several of its quattrocento transfor-Bartolomeo who fell asleep and awoke to find
mations by artists like Lorenzo Monaco and the Madonna's face miraculously executed by an
Gentile da Fabriano, Jan hoped to retain theangel. The divinely-completed fresco, an example
apotropaic values of the Florentine cult image of an achiropiite, or image >not made by hand<<,
in his Ghent and Washington Annunciations,became one of the most celebrated thaumaturgi-
paintings intended to aid childless couples, spe- cal shrines in Italy, and visiting dignitaries were
cifically, the Vydts and the Duke and Duchess ofroutinely brought to view the fresco. In Jan van
Burgundy. Eyck's day, pilgrims left life-size wax effigies to

I Scholars who accept the possibility that Jan did travel vini, Banchieri Fiorentini e Pittori di Fiandra, Modena
to Italy include, for example, Millard Meiss, >>Nicho- 1984, ioff.
las Albergati< and the Chronology of Jan van Eyck's2 On the SS. Annunziata shrine and its famous fresco
Portraits<<, The Burlington Magazine 94, 1952, 138 see Eugenio Casalini et al., Tesori d'Arte dell'Annun-
and >Jan van Eyck and the Italian Renaissance<, Ve- ziata di Firenze, Alinari 1987; Zygmunt Wazbifiski,
nezia e l'Europa, Atti del XVIII Congresso di Storia >L'Annunciazione della Vergine nella Chiesa della
dell'Arte (I955), Venice 1956, 6o; Lotte Brand Philip, SS. Annunziata a Firenze: Un Contributo al Moderno
Culto dei Quadri<<, Renaissance Studies in Honor of
The Ghent Altarpiece, Princeton 1971, Io8 - II, 17I,
174, and 18o- 181; Elizabeth Dhanens, Van Eyck: Craig Hugh Smyth, ed. A. Morrogh et al., Florence
The Ghent Altarpiece, New York 1973, 03 -109; 1985, II, 533-552; P. Torini, II Santuario della Santis-
Charles Sterling, >Jan van Eyck avant 1432o<, Revue sima Annunziata di Firenze, Florence 1876; II Santu-
de l'Art 33, 1976, 31 and 33; Carol Purtle, The ario di Firenze: Storia e Arte all SS. Annunziata, Flo-
Marian Paintings of Jan van Eyck, Princeton 1982, rence and Milan 1957; and Richard C. Trexler, Public
24, especially nn.29-31; Liana Castelfranchi-Vegas, Life in Renaissance Florence, Ithaca and London
Italie et Flandres, Milan 1983, 86; and Roberto Sal- 1980, s.v. >>Florence, SS. Annunziata<<.

369

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be hung in the church, but the shrine was so
popular that already by 1401 regulations were
enacted to limit such magnificent votive offerings
among Florentines to only the highest ranking
citizens3. The Medici were particularly devoted
to the miraculous Annunciation, commissioning
the tabernacle begun by Michelozzo in 1448 that
still enshrines the fresco today.
The fresco we see today is not the original
from 1252, but the product of a mid-I4th-centu-
ry Florentine artist that was often repainted over
the centuries and is now restored to its I4th- to
I 5th-century state4. Giottesque in composition,
it shows Mary's box-like bedroom, with a low-
backed, intarsia-work bench parallel to the pic-
ture plane and in front of a curtain veiling her
bed area. A glowing Gabriel, arms folded across
his chest, enters through a doorway to our left,
while above him, from outside the room, God
sends the dove of the Holy Spirit through a
round window along five rays of light towards
the seated Mary. Her book, with Isaiah's text in
Latin legible on its pages, rests on a red cushion
on the bench while she looks up towards God
and replies to him, >ECCE ANCILLA DOMINI<<.
Her words retrace the diagonal path of the light
rays, and are written backwards, mirror-fashion,
emphasizing their return movement towards
God. Other features specific to this version of
the famous scene and often repeated in replicas
are the Turkish pile carpet on the floor - an ex-
ceptional element in trecento painting, and possi-
bly a source for quattrocento Florentines like Fra
Angelico - the openwork pattern of the upper
3 Trexler (as note 2), 99.
4 Casalini (as note 2), 78-79 and 81, notes that this
fresco cannot be the original work from I252, but
dates mid-I4th century; what the 13th-century work
looked like is unknown. The fresco seen today was
reworked and modernized in subsequent centuries,
though most of those interventions were removed by
restorers in the post-World War II restoration.
5 Consult Jill Dunkerton, Susan Foister, Dillian Gor-
don and Nicholas Penny, Giotto to Diirer, New Ha-
ven and London 1991, 230 and illustrated 231, re-
garding the Sienese Niccol6's panel, the center of an
altarpiece probably painted for Sta.Maria Nuova in
Florence and which they date from the second half of
370
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part of the bed curtain, and the delicately arcaded
crossbeams on the ceiling.
This thaumaturgical icon was and continues
today to be especially associated with marriage
and child-bearing, a connection that appears in
Florentine culture in multiple ways. Niccolo di
Buonaccorso, for example, in a panel painting
representing Mary's marriage to Joseph done for
the Florentine hospital of Santa Maria Nuova,
added a distinctive Turkish pile carpet beneath
the couple's feet, an almost identical copy of that
in the Annunciation frescoS. Piero de' Medici,
most likely in grateful thanks to the Annunciate
Virgin for the 1449 birth of Lorenzo, his first son
and heir, commissioned a silver chest with pain-
ings by Fra Angelico for the oratory adjacent to
the Chapel of the Annunziata6. Niccolo Machia-
velli, in his comedy Mandragola from about
15 I8, has a husband complain that his wife be-
lieved she would become >pregnant if she vowed
to attend the first mass of the Servi for forty
mornings<<, a clear reference to the popular belief
in the miraculous fresco's powers7. The many
votive images of babies given to the Church
through the centuries further demonstrate the
fresco's association with successful conception,
and still today newlyweds traditionally stop in
the Church to leave their bridal bouquets8.
The demonstrated success of the fresco in Flo-
rence led to its replication throughout the city
and in nearby locales, in hope that its thauma-
turgical properties would also be fruitful and
multiplyg. In the second half of the 14th century
copies of varying fidelity appeared throughout
the I4th century. The authors note that the carpet is
one of the >earliest known representations in a pain-
ting of a Turkish pile carpet<<. That in the SS. Annun-
ziata fresco, which I believe to be Niccol6's source,
would predate it by perhaps several decades. Closely
related paintings of the Marriage by fellow trecento
Sienese artists Lippo Vanni and Bartolo di Fredi omit
this particular detail, so the fact that Niccol6's
commission was for a Florentine hospital may have
been significant. See Hayden B. J. Maginnis, >The
Lost Facade Frescoes from Siena's Ospedale di S. Ma-
ria della Scala<<, Zeitschrift fiir Kunstgeschichte LI,
1988, 180- 194, on this group. He believes they all re-
flect a lost fresco of the same subject from the hospi-
 Akj& I A,

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i. Anonymous Florentine, Annunciation

Florence and neighboring areas,

location typically
to the loc
SS. Annun
on a church's interior facade
interior wall, generall
facades of San M
trine
the north of the entry Florentine
portals, and thusestabli
simil

tal facade in Siena, and Machiavelli, Mandragola,

speculates that it was by
mone Martini, dating fromlucci, New York
before 1957, 26. f
his departure
8 Casalini
Avignon in I336. A much (as note
later Sienese 2), 98-9
artist, Sa
extant from
di Pietro, in his 1449 Marriage the
of the i7th (Rom
Virgin and
swaddled
Pinacoteca Vaticana), repeats thebabies;
SieneseFirenze
hospit
facade type, but again addsdel Touring
a carpet Club Italiano
similar to th
and Hans
at SS. Annunziata (illustrated Belting, fig.
in Maginnis, Likene
3) a
in Niccolb's. Jephcott, Chicago and Lon
6 Casalini (as note 2), 99.
9 On the many replicas ma
7 Act III, scene 2: >... ma pecially
sendole detto da (as
Casalini una sua 2
note v
na che, s'ella si botavaiodiHoward Saalman, mattine
udire quaranta >>Form
prima mesa de' Servi che dori-Capponi Chapel in
la impregnerebbe<<. In S.
N
Magazineed.
col6 Machiavelli, Mandragola, 131, 1989,Bonino
Guido 534- 5
Torino 1964, and English translation from Nicc

371

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 Tr aI o: 2a ull--~i~~

.... ....

t 8#m#ooo o

2. Anonymous Florentine, Ann

tury, the Florentine Umiliat

painters working
Church, and Santa Maria
shrines Novel
along the
great Dominican Gaddi replicated
monastic church i
his
acquired faithful fresco cycle
trecento of
copies
lous work. Painters
nearbysuch
Pratoas Ja
Cath
(fig. 3) and Giovanni del Biond
- even though it w
sive narrative
elements of the formula, as did -
man

II In San Niccol612
inSee Bruce Cole,
Calenzano, neaA
fresco that Construction
Richard of
Offner in his the
Corp
the school and Gaddi's
Jacopo of
di Cionename andf
beginning theuments. of
I380s (TheIt may
Fourteebe
Jacopo di Cione, Gliickstadt
chapel, with its 196foc
pl. XVI). Numerousupon the locationbo
Annunciations
Biondo demonstrateimage in the
varying Servit
degrees
upon the Florentine
mentsprototype.
concerning See,
th
Richard Offner and Klara
are in Steinweg
Giovanni Pog
Biondo (Corpus of lo nel Duomo
Florentine di Pra
Painting
di<, Rivista
pls. XX, XXIII, XXVIII, XXX, d'arte
XXXI14
13 For
pls. XI, XVIII, XXIII, example,
XXIV, and the
XX
S. Maria
the observant visitor dei Servi
to Florence in
find
throughout the city, for example
Church, at
and the ear
in upper
stairs leading to the the Museo dell'O
cloister at
in the small streetrelic of Mary's
shrine girdl
just south o
transept. dan Cassidy, >>A Re

372

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location of the prototype by placing it on the
lower, northern side of the inside facade wallIz.
The Florentine fresco's special properties were
particularly significant here, for the Pratese
chapel housed the relic of Mary's cintola, or
girdle, the other famous fertility relic in Floren- i "i ?: ?
tine territory. Gaddi surely enhanced that relic's
efficacy by replicating the SS. Annunziata fresco,
and his use of the formulaic image - and its per-
ceived success in the eyes of the public - further
:i .... "j~ ....
explains the proliferation of additional copies in
Prato'3. The popularity of the Florentine proto-
type continued into the 5th century, with im- 'AJ

portant examples by Lorenzo Monaco (fig. 5), ii '14

Jacopo Bellini (fig. 7), Gentile da Fabriano

(fig. 6), and even Fra Angelico (figs. 8 and 9), as
well as copies in foreign lands. These later tit,;
?copies< often retain only limited elements of the
original design, incorporated into new composi-
tional types and with expanded iconographical
meaning. Such extensive modifications may part-
ly be due to the medieval and renaissance con-
cept of ?copy??4, but may also reflect the reluc-
tance of this new generation of early I th-cen-
tury artists to replicate such a rigid formula. As 3. School of Jacopo di Cione, Annunciation.
William Hood has hypothesized, the SS. Annun- Calenzano, S. Niccol6
ziata icon was inflexible with regard to its
meaning, and so held a kind of compositional
longer willing so to restrict the meanings of
and symbolic ?tyrrany,, over 14th-century artists
in Florence. It was only about 1425 that artists works, created new types that incorporated
such as Fra Angelico and Lorenzo Monaco, no aspects of the traditional iconography'5.

ers of Florence in the Late Fourteenth Century?,

copies of an Italo-Byzantine Madonna and Child
lieved to have been painted by St. Luke and bro
Gesta 30, 1991, 91-99, with additional bibliography.
14 As Richard Krautheimer demonstrated in his to Cambrai
discus- from Rome. Twelve copies were com
sioned from Hayne de Bruxelles (one is in Ka
sion of the Anastasis rotunda and later buildings
(>Introduction to an ,Iconography of Medieval City, Ar-
Nelson-Atkins Gallery) and three from P
Christus. See Maryan W. Ainsworth and Maxim
chitecture<<<, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes V, 1942, Iff.), medieval copies needP. J.
notMartens,
be Petrus Christus: Renaissance Mast
identical to the original in every way. Rather Bruges,
thereNew York 1994, 15-16.
might be certain specific features, such as 15
theWilliam
number Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco, Lo
of columns in a building, that were replicated 1993, 268-269. There is, of course, a long traditio
faith-
fully. This notion of copy is also evident inartists
the By-modifying sacred images in order to res
zantine world, where miracle-working icons to varying
were needs of individual donors; see Beltin
replicated in order to multiply the numbernote of sites
8), 85. Mikl6s Boskovits, Pittura florentin
where their powers could be manifest. See Belting
vigilia del Rinascimento, z370-I400, Florence 1
222, n. 32, cites a letter from Franco Sacchetti, wr
(as note 8), 440-441 and passim. That 15th-century
inimages
Netherlandish artists still replicated venerated the early I290s, wherein he complains that p
is confirmed by the commissioning in 1454 of seem to want more modern paintings instead of
fifteen

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 "i

? i;

4. Jan van Eyck, Ann

with this and

groupthe shaped patch of light of
rays visible on>co
the
two Annunciations bel
wall behind the Virgin. The first feature, a com-
Jan's Ghent positional one, Altarpiec
suggests that Jan visited the
demonstrates Church of Sta.Trinita in Florence and saw
most cle
with this Lorenzo family Monaco's recently completedof Bartolini
im
its inclusion of three unusual features: the two Salimbeni Chapel, the last major commission by
slim panels inserted between the Virgin and the Don Lorenzo, prior to his death in 1423 or
Angel, Mary's backwards-written reply to God, 1424'6. The Chapel is dedicated to the Annun-

co, Princeton 1989, 128-134.

old, respected icons, and specifically includes the
SS. Annunziata image among the latter. 17 Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, Cam-
bridge, MA 1953, I, 2o8.
16 See, for example, Marvin Eisenberg, Lorenzo Mona-

374

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 ,?

?i.

iVC

se.*

.... . E ~ ... ...

'T

. .. ............ .........

.. . .. . . ... . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . . .

.. . .. .. ... .. . . . . .... .. .... . ...... ...

5. Lorenzo Mo
Florence, St

ciate Virgin,
each an
set
forms the cent
land: a b
has long been
the cent
SS. Annunziata
left, ic
and
turn zo's
may con
have
the earlier Flore
series of
column
nunciation cons
capped while
by a Ja
tr
slightly wider
scape, sep
demed niche.Gabriel
with rainbow-
Scholars have long wondered why Jan inserted
raised, his
these two panels between Mary and Gabriel; lef
responds from
some maintain they were afterthoughts, necessi- t
right of Lorenz
tated by Jan's alterations of his brother Hubert's
to a secondary
original plan for the Altarpiece following his
behind death in the
142617. Whether Jan's four-panel lilie
format
before an
was arcade
a pragmatic necessity or planned choice, the
space from
Italian Annunciation may have influenced a Jan's se

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handling. Lorenzo Monaco's own inspiration the Erythrean Sibyl look down at Mary, the latter
sympathetically putting her hand over her
evidently comes from several of the 14th-century
variants on the SS. Annunziata fresco that in-
womb. Painted on the ceiling of the Chapel
clude an open doorway between Gabriel and
appear additional prophets by Lorenzo Monaco,
Mary instead of, or in front of, the bench and including Malachi, who leans forward and peers
veiled bed (e.g., fig. 2). Jan in turn replaces Don
down into the Chapel below in a pose remarkab-
Lorenzo's vertical tree trunks with a single verti-
ly similar to that of Jan's Micah'9. Finally, typical
cal column and the small window with a niche. of Florentine painters, Don Lorenzo incorpo-
rates a predella into the Altarpiece. Jan, too,
Lotte Brand Philip's reconstruction of the now-
lost frame of the Ghent Altarpiece place threeapparently had a predella as part of the Ghent
pairs of columns between the Virgin Mary andAltarpiece, an element extremely rare in Flemish
the Angel, similar in location to Lorenzo Mona-
altarpieces, and very possibly inspired by Italian
co's columns'8. Further, both Annunciations use
altarpieces, if not this particular one.
three layers of receding space: the front plane A second unusual feature in the Ghent Altar-
that Mary and the Angel inhabit; a secondarypiece that depends upon the SS. Annunziata im-
architectural space, empty of figures; and an ex- ages, although omitted by Lorenzo Monaco, is
ternal, landscape space. Scale is similar, as neitherJan's inclusion of a spoken text written back-
of the Marys could stand without hitting herwards and upside-down. In the SS. Annunziata
head on the ceiling. Jan emphasizes the strong icon, as the dove of the Holy Spirit descends
horizontal of that ceiling by extending it over diagonally along rays from God to Mary, the
Gabriel, while Lorenzo covers only Mary, yetlatter replies - along the same diagonal - with the
both include prophets in the arched areas above. words >ECCE ANCILLA DOMINI, which appear
The three Prophets in Don Lorenzo's frame in- backwards, i.e., ascending from Mary's mouth
teract, the one at the left peering upward, thetowards God in mirror writing. This unusual ar-
other two downward, witnessing the holy event. rangement of Mary's speech is repeated in some,
Jan's Cumraean Sibyl looks up, while Micah and although not all, of the 14th-century replicas, for

18 See Philip's (as note i) reconstruction drawing of the 21 See Roger Ellis, ?The Word in Religious Art of the
altarpiece, opposite her 26. Middle Ages and the Renaissance<<, Word, Picture,
19 This type of figure who leans forward and peers
downward became extremely popular in Florence in
the 1420s, probably most immediately inspired by Do-
natello's remarkable God at the top of the tabernacle
done for his St. George in c. 1415-1417. Jan could
have been inspired by any of a number of examples, as
well as by figures in the frames of many trecento
frescoes who lean out and interact with protagonists in
the main pictorial field. Sterling (as note I), 3',
suggested that Gentile da Fabriano's Prophet Ezekiel
in his Strozzi Altarpiece, located as of 1423 in the
sacristry of this very same church of Sta. Trinita, was
the source for Jan's Micah, while Dhanens (as note i),
io8 - i09, identifies Donatello's relief above St. George
as the source. Regarding the reversed labelling on the
frame of the two Sibyls, see J. de Baets, >De gewijde
teksten van >Het Lam Gods<: Kritisch onderzocht<,
Koninklijke Vlaamsche Academie voor taal- en
letterkunde, Verslagen en Mededelingen, i96i, 549ff.
20 Marcus van Vaernewyck's 16th-century description
of the Altarpiece records a predella with a scene of
Hell. See Philip (as note I), 32.
and Spectacle, ed. Clifford Davidson, Kalamazoo
1984, 21-38, where he, among other things, makes
useful distinctions between painted texts that are
overt (i.e., directly on the surface of the work in an
alternative reality) and covert (painted words that are
part of the represented illusion). In his discussion of
words used as overt symbols (p. 31 i), he discusses mir-
ror writing, citing only two examples: a I5th-century
shrine in the Piazza del Capitolo in Florence (this is
part of the SS. Annunziata family of replicas) and An-
drea Orcagna's Hell (Santa Croce, Refectory) where
one of the monsters quotes Dante's ?Lasciate ogni
speranza<< to the damned. His suggestion regarding
the latter, that the mirror writing demonstrates that
hell is an inversion of heaven, is intriguing, though I
would suggest that it further reveals the sensory and
mundane nature of hell, as the words move physically
and temporally through space. His explanation that
the Annunciation shrine text is inside-out because it
?exposes the world of our ordinary perceptions to be
the topsy-turvy state it really is<< and ?points us
through the painting to a looking-glass world where

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example, several by Giovanni del Biondo and the and speaks out loud the words of the angel, >Ave
school of Jacopo di Cione (fig. 3), but the motif Maria, gratia plena Dominus tecum ... <3.
is rare outside the SS. Annunziata family of The unusual disposition of the text of Mary's
images". communication also creates a sense of temporal
The manipulation of the spoken text within immediacy for the viewer of the fresco by
the context of a painting of the Annunciation has focusing on the process of Mary's speech. As she
profound consequences, for it relates to the replies to God, we actually see her words moving
Florentine fresco's thaumaturgical powers. By through the illusionary space of the event: their
showing the actual words move out from Mary's text is neither seen as written on the surface of
mouth, the acheiropoietic section of the image, the painting, nor is it illusionistically present
the SS. Annunziata fresco first reminds the view- within the scene, as it would be if it were em-
er that this is an authentic surrogate of superna- broidered on Mary's robe24. We become witnes-
tural origin, thus possessing the sensory abilities ses to her spoken vow of acquiesence as she ac-
of Mary herself. This Mary not only performs cepts God and agrees to bear his Son in her
miracles, but she speaks, as the movement of her womb. The SS.Annunziata fresco thus con-
words confirms, and was also believed capable ofsciously imitates a wedding ceremony where the
couple both consent to the union. Edwin Hall's
both sight and hearing. San Bernardino attributes
such abilities to the fresco when he warns the recent exploration of wedding ceremonies in late
Florentines not to sin before the eyes of themedieval Europe clarifies that the central action
Virgin at SS. Annunziata and, critical of femaleof the ceremony that actually constituted the
dress, says, >I tell you that the Annunciation marriage was not the later consummation of the
union, but the expression of mutual consent.
doesn't want to see them dressed like that,<".
This Mary also apparently heard her petitionersThis was to be public, rather than clandestine,
in an actual, aural way, not just supernaturally:and generally took the form of an exchange of
custom at SS. Annunziata dictated that each per-words of consent on the part of both bride and
son, upon leaving the church, kneels before Mary groom25. Here Gabriel functions as a kind of

our reality can be seen... merely as someone else's versus the written word, see Michael Camille, >Seeing
dream<<, I believe is erroneous. See my discussion be-and Reading: Some Visual Implications of Medieval
low. John Sparrow, Visible Words, Cambridge 1969, Literacy and Illiteracy<<, Art History VIII, 1985,
26-49.
does not discuss the issue at all, although Paul Philip-
pot, >Texte et image dans la peinture des Pays-Bas22 Trexler (as note 2), 69, within a larger discussion of
aux XVe et XVIe siecle<, Brussels, Muse'es Royaux des images with sensory attributes; and Belting (as note
Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bulletin 34-37, 1985- 1988, 8), 308, who discusses the distinction between an
75 -86 does offer a useful discussion of Eyckian and image and the person represented.
post-Eyckian works. My exploration, which I could 23 Casalini (as note 2), 79.
24 This is an important distinction made by Philippot
not claim to be exhaustive, reveals that mirror writing
(as note 21), 78, in his consideration of the Ghent An-
is uncommon in trecento and early quattrocento Italy;
upside-down and backwards text is more commonly nunciation, but Ellis (as note 21), 31, discusses the
found, but is the logical result of scrolls held by Ghent text and that in the Florentine copy of the
prophets or saints that wind around, producing the prototype merely as examples of overt symbolism,
effect of some or all of the text being upside-down. i.e., where the words appear directly on the surface of
But this seems fundamentally different from the the work.
SS. Annunziata images that clearly indicate the 25 Edwin Hall, The Arnolfini Betrothal: Medieval Mar-
process of speech. Ellis, 32, in his consideration ofriage and the Enigma of Van Eyck's Double Portrait,
Jacopo Bellini's Brescia Annunciation, described and Berkeley 1994, especially 25 and 32-34. As he ex-
discussed below, does reach this identical conclusionplains there, by the early 13th century the consensua-
lists won out over those who favored consummation,
that the text there implies the process of speech, and
he does note Jan van Eyck's variant on mirror writingand a conservative like Duns Scotus in the beginning
in the Ghent and Washington panels. For an overviewof the I4th even challenged whether deaf-mutes
could possibly receive the sacrament of marriage.
concerning text in medieval art, and the spoken word

377

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divine proxy, speaking for the Deity, but Mary
looks at and replies directly to God above, as his
rays just begin to touch her.
Equally significant, the physicality of the
backwards text reminds the viewer that the An-
nunciation is the very moment of the conception
of Christ, when the Word is made flesh. The
painter affirms that the normally ephemeral
words used by Mary to acknowledge her role as
handmaiden are themselves supernatural and
take on a palpable, physical presence, just as the
Logos miraculously becomes Incarnate within
her womb. Trecento Sienese artists similarly were
interested in manipulating the physicality of
spoken words within the context of the Annun-
ciation, though it is impossible to know if they
inspired the Florentine work or vice versa,
particularly because we are uncertain regarding
the appearance of the original Annunziata fresco
from 1252. In Simone Martini's 1333 altarpiece
for Siena Cathedral (Florence, Uffizi), the first
example of the Annunciation or any narrative
scene used as the main panel of an altarpiece, the
words of Gabriel's speech thrust towards Mary
and seem to push her away from the angel.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, in his 1344 Annunciation
(Siena, Pinacoteca), includes Mary's reply to God
as a frontwards text, but one that parallels the
diagonal descent of the dove as it returns
through the air to God above, thus similar to the
Even though marriage customs varied considerably in
Northern Europe and Italy in the I4th and 15th cen-
turies, both depended upon words of consent.
26 The SS.Annunziata fresco, called ?mid-I4th cen-
tury<, may or may not predate Lorenzetti's 1344
panel, or Simone's for that matter. However, the issue
of priority with regard to depicting text as speech
moving physically within the space of the painting is
complicated by the absence of knowledge of the ori-
ginal Servite painting from 1252, the present fresco's
mid-dugento prototype. Conservator Norman E.
Muller (?Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Annunciation. A
Re-examination,<< Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen
Institutes in Florenz 21, 1977, 1-12) confirms the
authenticity of the text in Lorenzetti's panel, but
notes that the beginning of Gabriel's speech was mis-
restored. Originally the text began further away from
Gabriel's mouth, moving directly in front of and
partly covering the palm, and certainly it would have
378
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Florentine prototype. This variant occurs in a
number of the trecento SS.Annunziata replicas,
so possibly Lorenzetti was stimulated by the
SS. Annunziata icon26.
Among Jan's contemporaries, both Fra Ange-
lico and Jacopo Bellini were inspired by the
SS. Annunziata fresco to incorporate painted text
suggesting the immediate and palpable presence
of the divine dialogue, for example, Fra Angelico
in his Cortona Annunciation (Diocesan Muse-
um), a work probably originally at the Domini-
can monastery of San Domenico in Cortona, and
generally dated about 1432-1434 or possibly
slightly earlier27. While William Hood acknowl-
edges Fra Angelico's dependence upon the
SS.Annunziata icon for the postures of Mary
and Gabriel, he emphasizes Fra Angelico's altera-
tions of the thaumaturgical image. In doing so he
neglects to note several of the defining details of
the icon that Fra Angelico did embrace, in-
cluding the rays of light emitted from Gabriel's
body in a mandorla pattern; the curtain with the
openwork threads at the top of the bed, even
though it and the adjacent bench are repositioned
at an oblique angle; and, most significant, Fra
Angelico's depiction of a spoken text that pal-
pably moves through space. For this final bor-
rowing, Fra Angelico has elaborated on the
SS. Annunziata model, which itself includes only
Mary's backward text moving towards God, by
included the proper Vulgate text with >erit<<, not
>est<<. Once again this demonstrates how the artists of
these 14th-century images physically placed the text
within the scenes depicted.
27 Most scholars date the Cortona Annunciation to c.
1432-1434 and believe that it was originally located
in the Dominican monastic church of San Domenico
in Cortona. For recent opinions, consult Diane Cole
Ahl, >Fra Angelico: A New Chronology for the
1430s<<, Zeitschrift fiir Kunstgeschichte 44, 1981, 146,
as early to mid-1430s; Paul Joannides, >Fra Angelico:
Two Annunciations<<, Arte cristiana LXXVII, 1989,
303, c. 1432; and Hood (as note 15), 100, as c. I1432-
1434. John Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, Ithaca
1974, 14 and 192-193 and Fra Angelico, Florence
1981, I5, argues on the basis of style for a date some-
where between 1428 and 1433, then suggests
c. 1432/33 on the basis of speculation that it might
originally have been the work commissioned by the
creating a holy conversation that moves from left ings, recreates for the viewer the temporal mo-
to right and right to left, with Mary's reply ments surrounding this remarkable exchange.
written backwards and upside-down. In the And Fra Angelico even includes more than the
Cortona altarpiece, Gabriel points upwards with customary >ECCE ANCILLA DOMINI< for Mary's
his left hand towards both the dove and the first reply, adding the >VERBUM TUUM? - ?your
word of his own speech. The inscribed text word<< - even though he omits the intervening
moves forwards from his mouth and curves up- passage. In this painting that physically repre-
wards towards the dove of the Holy Spirit above sents the Incarnation of the Logos, the Word it-
Mary, as though drawn by its own subject: >>The self is paramount.
Holy Spirit shall come upon you? (>SPIRITUS Jacopo Bellini was commissioned by the Ser-
SANCTUS SUPERVENIET IN TE<, Luke 1,35). This vite Church of Sant'Alessandro in Brescia to
non-traditional passage from Luke replaces the paint his Annunciation altarpiece (fig. 7), still in
one more commonly used by painters for Ga- that church today, and documents from 1443 and
briel's greeting, the >>Hail [Mary], full of grace, 1444 record the transport of that work. It substi-
the Lord is with you<< (>>Ave gratia plena, domi- tuted for an altarpiece commissioned originally
from Fra Angelico in 1432 but apparently never
nus tecum?,) of Luke 1,28. Gabriel's words con-
tinue along the lowest line of text in the painting,
delivered28. Both probably would have reminded
the one that moves from Gabriel's mouth to- the viewer of the famous image in the Servite
wards Mary's womb, the same area to which motherhouse of SS. Annunziata in Florence, but,
Gabriel points with his right hand: >>and theas with Fra Angelico's Annunciations, Bellini's
power of the Most High will overshadow you?< references to the thaumaturgical image are rela-
(>ET VIRTUS ALTISSIMI OBUMBRABIT TIBI<). tively subtle. We see intarsia patterns on Mary's
Mary's reply, written both backwards and up- lectern, reminiscent of her bench and seat in the
side-down, returns directly to Gabriel (>Behold,
original; Gabriel's head, but not his entire body,
I am the handmaid of the Lord; [let it be to me
glows; and a Turkish carpet lies beneath Mary.
according to] your word<<; >ECCE ANCILLA Do-
But also like Fra Angelico and the painter of the
MINI [FIAT MIHI SECUNDUM] VERBUM TUUM? Florentine prototype, Bellini stresses the tempo-
from Luke 1,38). This dramatic dialogue, physi-
rality of the angel's message and the physicality
cally represented via three lines of seemingly
of the spoken word. Here Gabriel's words are
animate text, spoken by apparently animate be-
rightside-up and move from left to right, from

Servite church of Sant'Alessandro at Brescia in 1432begun in 1432 for Brescia, while earlier in 1974
and - for an unknown reason - never delivered. (p. 193) he had denied the autograph nature of the
28 Joannides (as note 27), 303-3o8, discusses the cir- Montecarlo altarpiece, believing it painted by Zanobi
cumstances of Bellini's altarpiece, and suggests that Strozzi c. 145o. However, Joannides and Hood both
the documented altarpiece from 1432 by Fra Ange- confirm that the recent cleaning of the Montecarlo
lico that it replaced was the Montecarlo Annunciation work reveals the extensiveness of Fra Angelico's own
(recently restored and today on view in San Giovanni hand. Colin Eisler, The Genius ofJacopo Bellini: The
Valdarno), which for unknown reasons was apparent- Complete Paintings and Drawings, New York 1989,
ly never completed by the painter-monk. This ex- 28, speculates that the Annunciation today in Brescia
planation is consistent with the accepted dating of was perhaps begun by Gentile da Fabriano, with
Fra Angelico's work on the Montecarlo panel, as well whom Jacopo Bellini may have been in Florence in
as with the belief that, although begun by Fra the early I420s. The connections to SS. Annunziata
Angelico and largely autograph, it was finished c. noted here help to confirm that it was Jacopo Bellini
145o by a collaborator, possibly Zanobi Strozzi. who was documented in Florence, working with
Hood (as note 15), 310, n.7 and 321, n. 15, accepts Gentile. Both Keith Christiansen, Gentile da
Joannides' argument that the Montecarlo altarpiece is Fabriano, Ithaca 1982, 4 and 164-166, and Pietro
the missing Brescia work from 1432. John Pope- Zampetti and Giampiero Donnini, Gentile e i pittori
Hennessy, I98I (as note 27), 15, still suggests that the di Fabriano, Florence 1992, 74-75, accept this identi-
Annunciation today in Cortona was perhaps that fication, while Andrea De Marchi, Gentile da

379

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 i

7-

?1? i.i;

!i i, i
:_8 il

IV

?? j 006m

6. Gentile da Fabriano, Annun

the angel towards Mary,

that same but Bell
theme (
places them inwithin the context
the temporal o
ants of the SS. An
utterance, so the angel's first w
tury artists. Lik
Mary first: ,plena gratia ave, is t
order. Thus the lico,
physicality of th
and Jacopo B
the viewer's features of theof
sense famed fresco.
the He includes
immeno
image of God the Father; there is no bench
utterance are characteristics of withth
pillow and book,
original model that no oriental carpetin
appear or curtained
wor
tists copiedbed; slavishly
and he even alters Mary's
who and Gabriel's
and by
postures. But Jan does retain the sense of the
tury innovators who only selecti
the SS. Annunziata fresco.
temporality of Gabriel's and Mary's conversa-
tion, and reminds
Returning to Jan's Ghent us of the Incarnation
Annunci of the
and looking as Logos, probably
well at because
his he understood
Washing the dis-

Fabriano, Milan 1992, 153, believes the identification DOMINI<< are also largely identical either way. In
is possible. some of the copies, I have been unable to discern
29 It is difficult to know why some artists wrote the text whether the text is upside-down or not.
simply backwards, in mirror writing, as in the proto- 30 Panofsky (as note 17), I, 138.
typical fresco, while others, like Jacopo di Cione, Fra 31 Christiansen (as note 28), 131, attributes the Vatican
Angelico and Jan van Eyck, additionally inverted the panel to a follower of Gentile, while more recently
text. My own difficulty in determining whether this Zampetti and Donnini (as note 28), 1o7, note its close
particular text is upside-down leads me to suggest relationship to the autograph Quaratesi predella
that some artists may have misread the SS. Annun- panels, and De Marchi (as note 28), 172, attributes it
ziata fresco: the word >ECCE<< is identical right side to Gentile himself. In addition, the Collection of
up or upside- down, and the letters in ,ANCILLA Barbara Johnson Piasecka in Princeton includes what

380

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tinctive text to be significant for the Florentine
fresco's thaumaturgical properties regarding mar-
riage and childbearing. In both his Ghent and
Washington Annunciations, the traditional text,
>>Ecce ancilla domini<, is written both backwards
and upside-down29. By this positioning, the
viewer becomes a witness to Mary's active ac-
ceptance of her new role vis vis God, as the
Word is made Flesh. And I agree with Panofsky's
suggestion that the upside-down text is oriented
towards God, reading from above3o; in fact, his
attentive presence, not actually painted by Jan, is
implied by the words' heavenly orientation.
Thus, while the Ghent Annunciation is most
dependent compositionally upon Lorenzo Mo-
naco's panel within the SS.Annunziata group,
Jan must have been familiar with others in this
family of Italian images that made use of the
physicality of the spoken word.
A third feature in Jan van Eyck's Ghent An-
nunciation, the pool of light on the wall in the
secondary space behind Mary, shaped like the
double lancet window through which it travels,
intimates knowledge of yet another artist work-
ing in Florence in the later 1420s, Gentile da
Fabriano, and again raises the possibility that Jan
encountered paintings by Fra Angelico. An An-
nunciation (Rome, Vatican Collections; fig. 6),
attributed to Gentile during his Florentine peri-
od of c. 1422-1426, obviously derives from the
SS. Annunziata fresco (fig. I)3'. Retaining many
of the features of its more famous prototype, it
also introduces a new motif that will reappear in
some later members of the SS. Annunziata family
of images. As in the original icon, God's rays
pass through a small, multi-lobed oculus, but
De Marchi identifies as a nearly identical, but weaker
copy of the Vatican original from Gentile's shop (see
his fig. 91).
32 De Marchi (as note 28), 172, n. Ioi. Pisanello also
makes use of the Turkish carpet.
33 Pope-Hennessy (as note 27), 1974, 194, posits that
the Prado painting was designed by Fra Angelico and
executed by his workshop in c. 1445, but recent
scholars have re-evaluated this supposition. Diane
Cole Ahl, ?Fra Angelico: A New Chronology for the
420os<<, Zeitschrift fiir Kunstgeschichte XLIII, I980,
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--- -r........ - -: .. . ~ ??: .... . .. . - - ??--?I .... .. ???'*;?-- ?;;. ......... .. ....
r, ..
i ? :ii
l i i'ii
1 41-
;ff
ZL
L -ALL,. , A . MLa
7. Jacopo Bellini, Annunciation. Brescia,
S. Alessandro
Gentile imprints the shape of that window on
Mary's womb via a pattern of light rays. The
light thus acknowledges the reality of Christ's
conception already within Mary. This same detail
reappears in a loosely derivative work by Pisa-
nello, his Annunciation at San Fermo in Vero-
na32, and a similar motif is in Fra Angelico's
Prado Annunciation in Madrid (fig. 8). Now
generally recognized as autograph and dated in
the late I420s, this latter painting was done for
the Dominican monastic church in Fiesole, just
on the outskirts of Florence, in the years im-
mediately following Gentile's stay in Florence33.
There, too, a remarkable reflection of light ap-
pears on the wall in the secondary space behind
374-378, sees it as autograph from the later 142os,
and attributes its luminary effects to study of Gentile
da Fabriano's Strozzi Altarpiece of 1423; Castel-
franchi-Vegas (as note i), I9, dates it about 1429 and
notes a resemblance to the lighting in the Ghent
Altarpiece; Hood (as note 5), 268, states that it has a
?strong claim<< to being autograph and on 3 io, n. 7,
agrees with Cole Ahl and others who date it in the
late 1420os, and on 321, n. I5, calls it autograph and
dates it c. 1429/30.
381
 . .... . .....j

Ac ? oN-tLXOi0

.. ? jL;l -ilk

8. Fra Angelico, Annunciation. Madrid, The Prado Museum

iIlk

lipi

;kl
z:

? I~yit7 jvc

9. Fra Angelico, Annunciation. Cortona,

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the Virgin Mary, shaped like the rectangular
window through which the light shines. Jan
seems to conflate these two related handlings, or
Al%~

perhaps saw a third image that did, and adds his

own modifications. He places the pool of light
on the back wall, as Fra Angelico had, but shapes
it more distinctly and locates it immediately
adjacent to Mary's womb in the foreground, thus
reminiscent of the Vatican image. He then adds
two new touches, for his rays first catch the edge
of the window frame before hitting the wall, and
- in a challenge to the viewer's willingness to V? !Jw: --!LLH':

believe in the absolute veracity of Jan's painted

world - he omits the shape of the trefoil opening
of the window at the top of the lancets. The in-
complete reflection reminds the viewer of the as
yet incomplete Trinity, the promise of which
momentarily will be fulfilled when Mary's con-
NitL~~U~~
sent reaches God and the Christ Incarnate then
fills her adjacent womb34. UNW

This discussion of sources for three unusual el-

ements in Jan's Ghent Annunciation has focused
on images that, with the exception of Jacopo Bel-
lini's altarpiece, painted in the 1440s after Jan's 71

death, were located in and around Florence by

the late I420O and early 1430s (although it does
remain uncertain which, if any, of Fra Angelico's
74A

Annunciations were on view prior to 1432). But

individual works that together include all three
elements just discussed in the Ghent Altarpiece
were completed as early as the mid-142os: Lo-
renzo Monaco's Altarpiece, completed prior to JLi
iW-

his 1423 or 1424 death, with its compositional

and spatial configurations, on view in Sta. Trinita;
the mid-I4th-century prototype at SS. Annunzi-
ata with the spoken text of consent written back- L~

wards, and various of its trecento replicas; and "

Gentile's Vatican panel of c. 1422-1426 with the 7,D

distinctly shaped pool of light. Is it possible that '? x?'ft

Jan visited Florence during this very tight owin-
4W, 4-4,?,

?LS&
aw,

dow of opportunity,, that is, arriving late

enough to view these newly produced paintings

34 Philip (as note i), 87, suggests that the double re- Io. Jan van Eyck, Annunciation.
flection from the triple window indicates the two-
fold nature of Christ.
Washington, D. C., The National Gallery of Art

383

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by contemporary artists, yet leaving him time to servir<<)36. A separate account records Jan's pres-
complete the Ghent Altarpiece by May of 1432? ence in Tournai in October, along with the
And if he did, why would this family of images Duke's ambassadors who had just completed a
so intrigue him, so that specific elements from it trip to Barcelona and Valencia. All accepted vins
reappeared not only in the Ghent Altarpiece, but d'honneur, Jan on the feast day of the patron
in the Washington Annunciation of c. 1434- saint of painters, St. Luke (October 18), and the
1436? rest on October 20. Spanish archives confirm
that Burgundian ambassadors had arrived in
Barcelona in late July, reached Valencia in early
Jan van Eyck's Travels
August, and then departed for the lowlands some
The suggestion that Jan van Eyck traveled to days previous to October 15, following unsuc-
Italy before 1432 is not at all improbable, parti- cessful marriage negotiations with Alfonso V of
cularly when one examines archival evidence. Aragon37. The only question here is whether Jan
Documents indicate that Jan traveled on at least traveled elsewhere and coincidentally met up in
four missions on behalf of the Duke between Tournai with the Burgundian group returning
1426 and 1429. Two of these trips, the second (tofrom Spain; scholars, however, have routinely ac-
Spain in 1427) and the last (to Portugal and Spain
cepted that Jan did travel to Spain.
in 1428-1429), are identified by correlating re- There is no question at all about Jan's partici-
corded payments to Jan for extraordinary but pation on the ambassadorial mission that left for
non-specified services for the Duke with inde-
the Iberian peninsula on 19 October 1428 and re-
pendent records of ambassadorial voyages35.
turned in December of 1429. Once again, the
ducal register of payments for 1428 is secretive
Both trips were attempts to remedy the twice-
widowed Duke's heirless status following the
about Jan's objective; Jan is paid for the voyage
death on I July 1422 of his first wife, Michelle of
he is currently making with the Lord of Roubaix,
?dont il [the Duke] ne veult aucune d6claracion
France, and of Bonne of Artois, in September of
1425. Jan received ducal payments totalling 120
estre faicte<<38. However, a contemporary account
livres in July 1427 (for good and agreeable ser-
of the entire expedition confirms that Jan and the
vices >de son mestier et autrement?) and again in others successfully negotiated with King John I
August (again for good and agreeable services,
of Portugal for a marriage between his daughter,
the infanta Isabelle, and Philip39. That record also
but also >pour le aidier et soustenir I avoir ses
reveals Jan's special role in these ambassadorial
n6ccessitez, afin plus honnorablement il le puist

35 On the 1427 trip to Spain see Cesar Peman y Pemar- information that he received from M. Luis Tramoye-
tin, Juan van Eyck y Espania, Cadiz 1969, 11i, 29- 30, res Blasco via A. Van de Put (presumably from the
and 33-52, and Anne Simonsen Fuchs, >>The Nether- former's >>El pintor Luis Dalmau<< in Cultura espa*io-
lands and Iberia. Studies in Netherlandish Painting la VI, 1907, 565ff.).
for Spain: 1427-1455<<, Ph.D.Diss., University of38 De Laborde (as note 36), II, i, 251, No.858, and
California at Los Angeles 1977, 9. For the 1428/29 Weale (as note 36), xxxv-xxxvi.
trip to Portugal and Spain, see Peman y Pemartin,39 Reprinted in Weale (as note 36), lv-lxxii, from Re-
30-32 and 52-99, and Simonsen Fuchs, io-Ii. gistre 132 de la Chambre des Comptes, fol.clvij-
36 Leon De Laborde, Les Ducs de Bourgogne, Preuves, clxvj, in the Brussels State Archives.
40 Weale (as note 36), lix-lx, and see Penny Howell
II, ii, Paris 1851, 390, No.4942 and 392, No.4954,
and in W. H. J. Weale, Hubert and John van Eyck, Jolly, >>More on the Van Eyck Question: Philip the
Their Life and Work, London and New York 1908, Good of Burgundy, Isabelle of Portugal, and the
xxxiii - xxxiv. Ghent Altarpiece<<, Oud Holland ioi, 1987, 242-243-
37 Weale seems to be the first to ascertain this and sup-41 Weale (as note 36), lxii.
42
pose that Jan had also traveled through Spain with the De Laborde (as note 36), II, i, 225, No.74I, and
unnamed ambassadors. See Weale (as note 36), 11, but Weale (as note 36), xxxi-xxxii. There may be yet a
note that he corrects his account on page 209, citing third pilgrimage taken prior to 14 July 1426. Weale,

384

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proceedings. While in Portugal, Jan painted two
approval portraits of the potential Duchess, one
sent back to Philip by land, the other by sea40.
Awaiting the Duke's approbation, Jan and the
others made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compo-
stela, returning to Lisbon and finalizing the mar-
riage contract in July, with Jehan de Roubaix
acting as the Duke's proxy and betrothing Isa-
belle ?par parolle de present? on July 2 54'. Prep-
arations were made and the group began their re-
turn on October 8.
But of particular interest here are at least two
trips taken by Jan in 1426 and 1428, again to
distant but unspecified destinations. In 1426, be-
ginning less than a year following Bonne's death,
documents in August and October confirm Jan's
presence on a pilgrimage in the Duke's name to
secret, faraway places that are to remain un-
named: >... pour faire certain pelerinage que
MdS pour lui et en son nom lui a ordonn6 faire,
dont autre d6claration il n'en veult estre faite,
comme sur ce que par icelui S, lui pouoit estre
deu a cause de certain loingtain voiaige secret,
que semblablement il lui a ordonn6 faire en cer-
tain lieux que aussi ne veult autrement d6-
clarer...,, [26 August 1426]42, and >... certains
loingtains voyaiges secrez que mon dit seigneur
lui a piqCa ordonn6 faire en certains lieux dont il
ne veult autre d6claracion estre faicte...,< [27 Oc-
tober 1426]43. For these he is paid a total of 45I
livres 5 sous, far more than the 120 livres extra
xx, normally an extremely reliable source, states this,
but does not cite any documentation.
43 De Laborde (as note 36), II, i, 242, No. 814; Weale (as
note 36), xxxiii.
44 De Laborde, II, i, 251, No. 858; Weale, xxxv-xxxvi.
45 Weale, xx, suggests that the pilgrimage that he be-
lieves took place prior to 14 July 1426 concerned the
Duke's recent ill health, while later trips had to do
with marriage negotiations. Dana Goodgal, >>The
Iconography of the Ghent Altarpiece<<, Ph. D. Diss.,
U. of Pennsylvania 198I, 44-45, offers that the un-
specified trips had to do with Ducal war efforts
against Holland.
46 De Laborde (as note 36), II, i, 339, No. II135 and 350,
No. i186; Weale (as note 36), xxxix and xliv-xlv.
Goodgal (as note 45), 45, notes that the payment
registers are missing for 1429, 1430, and 1433.
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pay he received the following year, 1427, when
he almost certainly traveled to Spain. Then, in
1428, Ducal receipts recompensed 16o livres to
Jan not only for the then current trip he was on
with the Lord of Roubaix to Portugal and Spain,
but also as payment for additional, already com-
pleted trips: o... en recompensacion de certains
voyaiges secrez que par l'ordonnance et pour les
affaires d'icellui seigneur il a faiz, et du voyaige
qu'il fait presentment ...<<44. The exact nature of
these >certain distant, secret voyages, already
completed is unknown, but, like the other docu-
mented trips from this period, they likely in-
volved pilgrimage duties and/or the heirless
Philip's negotiations for a wife45. It is significant
that Jan's closely-spaced voyages begin in 1426,
the year following Bonne's death, and appear to
end - at least temporarily, although the accounts
are not complete - with Philip's successful mar-
riage to Isabelle of Portugal in January of 1430.
In subsequent years, Jan is paid 76 livres for
?plusieurs journees, carried out for the Duke
and Duchess in 1434, but for only one final
extensive trip involving ?voiaiges loingtains et
estrangeres? where he accomplished ?matieres
secretes, for a fee of 360 livres in 143646. Some
scholars believe this final expedition may have
had to do with Philip's desire to launch a crusade
in the Holy Lands47.
Thus it is certain that Jan van Eyck was
traveling extensively during the i420s. That seve-
47 Jan was originally given 720 livres for the trip, but a
later hand indicates he used only 360. The trip must
have been anticipated as a distant one, for in 1435
Jehan Avantage was paid 456 francs for a trip to Flo-
rence, De Laborde (as note 36), II, i, 343, No. II57).
Sterling (as note I), 29, asserts that Jan voyaged to the
Holy Lands in 1426, stopping in Italy along the way.
Duke Philip was seriously considering launching a
Crusade against the Turks, and might have sent Jan
and others ostensibly on a pilgrimage, but one which
allowed them to secretly consider military matters.
As Philip (as note I), i8o-I92, had earlier suggested,
arguing in favor of the trip, Jan painted a mappa
mundi for the Duke, now lost, but described admir-
ingly by Bartolommeo Fazio in his De Viris Illustri-
bus of c. 1456 as having all the distances in it accurate-
ly portrayed. Maps of this type generally were
385
ral or all of the trips might be to the Mediter-
ranean is not outlandish or even unlikely, given
the large reimbursements and travel habits of the
court. Ducal accounts in Lille confirm that mem-
bers of Philip the Good's court regularly took
distant voyages at the Duke's command, some-
times for political or economic purposes, and
other times as religious pilgrimages in the Duke's
name. Rome is mentioned particularly often in
the accounts. For example, we learn that in Sep-
tember of 1423 the Duke bought six tapestries
from Giovanni Arnolfini of Lucca, living in
Bruges, to be taken to Rome and presented to
the Pope, while accounts from 3 October 1423 to
3 October 1424 indicate that Philip's counsellor
and procurer at the court of Rome delivered
to the Duke >ung chierge benoit<<48. Quentin
Menart was paid for horses lost on a trip from
Burgundy to Rome, with a return to Flanders in
142549. Ambassadors and merchants were repeat-
edly paid for travel to and from Italy on behalf
of the Duke, almost always to the papal court
but also to Lucca and Florence5o, and not a few
of these dealings had to do with marital issues. In
1425 Philip sent money to the Pope for the dis-
pensation regarding his marriage to Bonne of
Artois (since Philip and Bonne were nephew and
aunt, probably consanguinity prohibitions were
a problem)5', and in late 1426 paid 3925 livres for
negotiations at the papal court regarding the con-
tested marriage between John, Duke of Brabant
and Jacqueline of Bavaria52. The Lord of Roubaix
frequently assisted Philip in his affairs, traveling
in 1426 to Rome and, on a different trip in that
same year, making a pilgrimage to the Holy Se-
pulcher in Jerusalem at ducal expense53. Roubaix
also was part of the 1428- 1429 expedition to
Portugal that successfully arranged Philip's final
marriage, serving, as noted above, as the Duke's
proxy in the betrothal ceremony in Lisbon.
The archival references regarding payments to
various members of the court who make pilgrim-
ages for the Duke, ?en son nom?, are certainly
records of pilgrimages by proxy54. Peculiar
though it may seem to us today, in the i 5th cen-
tury the practice of paying another person to
undertake what was often a long and arduous
pilgrimage - although the proxy did travel under
circumstances that were equivalent to those of
the person represented - was seen as a viable way
for a busy ruler like Philip the Good to regain
good health or demonstrate piety. Because merit
was clearly a transferable commodity, professio-
nal pilgrims were available for those in need -
Queen Isabelle of France (died 1435) hired them
- and one could even accumulate merit for
people who were already deceased.
At least Jan's 1426 voyage involved a pilgrim-
age in the name of the Duke, but this may have
been a common function of Jan's travels, carried
out along with other diplomatic duties, just as his
trip to Portugal in 1428-1429 involved both
marital negotiations and a pilgrimage to Santiago
de Compostela. Jan's participation in these pil-

(Laurens Treine, a Lucchese merchant residing in

centered on a view of the city of Jerusalem, and could
have been an additional reason for the trip to the Bruges, travels for the Duke to Lucca in 1428,
Holy Lands; see also Sterling (as note I), 69-77. On for which he is paid I5o livres); 261, No.90o8
traveling to Jerusalem in general at this time, see (Maistre Robert carried >>certaines choses<< to
Maximiliaan P. J. Martens, >>New information on Rome); and 343, No. II 57 (Jehan Avantage is paid
Petrus Christus's biography and the patronage of his 456 livres in 1435 to go to Florence to see the Pope
Brussels Lamentation?, Simiolus 20, 1990/1991, es- [Eugenius IV]).
pecially 13-14. 51 De Laborde, II, i, 208, No.70I; Richard Vaughn,
48 In De Laborde (as note 36), II, i, 196, No. 64 and 198,Philip the Good, New York 1970, 8; and see Hall (as
No. 672. note 25), 26-27, regarding consanguinity laws.
49 De Laborde, II, i, 225, No. 743. 52 De Laborde, II, i, 208, No.701 and 244-245,
5o De Laborde, II, i, 201, No.686 (ambassadors are No. 827. Regarding Jacqueline of Bavaria's marital
sent to the papal court in Rome and to Venice); complexities, see Vaughn (as note 5I), 32ff.
224-22 5, No. 740 (Henry Goedhals and the Lord of 53 De Laborde, II, i, 225, No. 740 and 234, No. 772.
Roubaix are sent to the Pope in Rome); 247, No. 831 54 Jonathan Sumption, Pilgrimage: An Image of Medie-

386

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grimages by proxy would have been particularly in the 1420s was held by Alfonso I of Arago
valued due to his remarkable ability to record with whom Philip had already negotiated
what he witnessed at the pilgrimage sites; Philip Spain in 1427, the duchies of Savoy and Mil
would be able to see the site or relic, just as were the most likely to provide marriageab
though he were there, by viewing the replica daughters57. It seems more likely one of the tr
painted by Jan after his return. Indeed, several was to Rome, where Philip's ambassad
extant paintings by or associated with originals traveled frequently to negotiate with the P
by Jan relate to famous pilgrimage shrines. The and others, and its purpose may have been
Turin and Philadelphia St. Francis panels include regard to marriage agreements and/o
accurate topographical views of the Franciscan pilgrimage by proxy. In fact, the entry in
pilgrimage site at La Verna (near Florence in cen- Lille archives that records Jan's secret pilgrima
tral Italy); the Berlin and Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1426 is preceded immediately by the ent
Heads of Christ both seem to be replicas of lost recording Henry Goedhals' and the Lord
originals by Jan (according to their copied in- Roubaix's Roman journey, and followed, t
scriptions, from 1438 and 1440 respectively) that entries later, by that listing the payment
themselves were based on the vera icon relic in Quentin Menart for lost horses during a trip
St. Peter's, Rome; and various works include ar-Rome. Florence may have functioned as a sto
chitectural views of pilgrimage sites in Jerusa-ping point on the trip south specifically beca
lem5 5. of the SS. Annunziata icon, and additiona
If Jan traveled to Italy in either 1426 or 1428 because of the proximity of La Verna, wh
on a mission regarding the Duke's urgency to St. Peter's, with the vera icon, would have b
marry and produce an heir, it is unlikely that
one of several sites visited in Rome. Philip's
Florence was his final destination. No cestral pride may also have played a role, fo
Florentine family would have had theduring
properthe later Middle Ages Florentines ha
social credentials to qualify a daughter as the many a legend regarding their pas
invented
Since at of
next Duchess of Burgundy56. An examination least the time of Giovanni Villani in th
the genealogical charts of the early 15th-century
I4th century, Charlemagne was identified
the medieval re-founder of Florence, the sa
rulers of Northern Europe, e.g., Burgundian,
Netherlandish, Valois, Plantagenet and
Charlemagne, of course, who was Philip t
Lancastrian, suggests that few rulers on the
Good's own illustrious ancestor and politi
Italian peninsula provided progeny of hero. In fact, the Church of Sta. Trinita, co
appropri-
taining
ate lineage. Besides the Kingdom of Sicily, Lorenzo Monaco's Annunciation altar
which

val Religion, London I1975, especially 295-301,

56 On pro-
6 October 1425, just following the death of
Bonne by
vides this information regarding the pilgrimage of Artois, Jehan Gueniot worried about the
proxy, and the concept is also discussed in Matthew
Duke's again widowed state in a letter to Philip's aunt
Botvinick, >>Painting as Pilgrimage: Traces ofCatherine,
a Sub- Duchess of Austria. He laments that there
text in the Work of Campin and his Contempora-
are only >>five marriageable young women, hearty and
handsome...
ries<, Art History 15, 1992, 13- 14. De Laborde (as Robert of Bar's daughter; the two sisters
note 36), II, ii, 386, No.4922, records another
of thepil-
king of Navarre; the king of Portugal's daugh-
ter; Dame
grimage done for the Duke, this time to Notre and a noble English lady.<< He then requests her
de Hal in Hainault. assistance in considering other possibilities, as quoted
in Vaughn (as note 5i), 55.
55 Sterling (as note I), 29, observes that the rocky cliff in
the middle ground of Jan's Turin Stigmatization re- 57 Joanna, Queen of Naples as of 1414, remained heir-
flects specific knowledge of the pilgrimage site. On less until her death in 1435; following a dispute with
the vera icon consult Belting (as note 8), 428-430. Rend of Anjou, Alfonso I of Aragon became Alfon-
Sterling, 28ff., summarizes the scholarship that so V of Naples.
identifies views of Jerusalem in Eyckian works.

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piece, was said to have been founded by Charle- Portugal in December of that latter year. This
magne himself58. means only about seventeen months remained
until his completion of the Ghent Altarpiece for
the Vydts. He must have largely or even entirely
Thaumaturgical Properties of the
painted the exterior of the Altarpiece during this
Ghent Altarpiece
time, for only following the return of the suc-
If it is possible that Jan visited Florence in 1426 cessful ambassadors with Philip's bride - already
or 1428 during a trip to Rome, and saw the betrothed by proxy, and then married to Philip
SS. Annunziata fresco in Florence, why would he on 7 January 1430 - could the dominant themes
have returned to these Italian motifs several years of spoken consent, marriage, and the advent of a
later in his Ghent Altarpiece and the Washington ducal ruler be relevantly integrated with the
Annunciation? I proposed in 1987 that the pro- narratives of Mary and Christ, and the needs of
gram on the exterior of the Ghent Altarpiece the childless Joos Vydt and Elizabeth Borluut.
(fig. i i) intimately links the divine and secular Focusing specifically on the motif of Mary's
realms by relating the conception and arrival of spoken consent, an aspect of the fresco that
Christ to, first, the childless donors' desire for an demonstrated Mary's authentic presence in the
heir and, second, to the long-awaited arrival of image, Jan hoped to transfer the magical proper-
an heir for Philip of Burgundy and his wife ties of the thaumaturgical prototype to the lives
Isabelle of Portugal59. The Erythrean Sibyl, her of the Duke and Duchess, as well as those of the
hand on her womb and her gaze on the Virgin donor Vydts.
Mary in the Annunciation below, has a carefully- The Duke's choice of ?Josse? for his new son's
edited banderole reading ?the most high king name certainly flattered the commissioner of the
will come, certainly in the flesh, for future gene- altarpiece, Joos (Jodocus or Josse) Vydt, but was
rations?; she has been identified as a portrait of particularly appropriate if the Duke believed his
Isabelle on the basis of an inscribed I7th century son's successful conception and birth to have re-
drawing after Jan's lost betrothal portrait. Of sulted from a pilgrimage by proxy to Italy.
course, not coincidentally the Altarpiece was St.Josse was both a member of royalty, for he
dedicated on the same day, 6 May 1432, and in was the son of a king of Brittany, and also
the same church where Philip's and Isabelle's son famous as having been a pilgrim to Rome. He is
and potential heir Josse was likely baptized, the probably represented in the Ghent Altarpiece by
same church, in fact, where Philip himself was the youthful, beardless saint in red holding a
invested as Count of Flanders in September of knobbed walking staff just behind St.James the
1419. Greater in the Holy Pilgrims panel (fig. 12)60.
These same circumstances occasioned the con- Josse's red garb possibly is meant to remind the
text for Jan's use of elements from the SS.An- viewer of his royal status, an aspect of the saint
nunziata prototype and replicas. Following a se- that must have particularly appealed to Philip the
quence of at least four closely spaced voyages Good. Thus, if Isabelle's pregnancy were believ-
between 1426 and 1429, Jan returned at last from ed the result of a pilgrimage to Rome, with a stop

58 Eve Borsook, Companion Guide to Florence, 2nd ed.,
London i973, 197.
59 See n. 40 above.
6o Some have suggested that the figure with the scallop
shell that I identify as St.James may be St.Josse, e.g.,
Ludwig Baldass, Jan van Eyck, New York 1952, 271,
and Dhanens (as note I), 70, but Josse (or Jodocus)
is more often depicted as a young, beardless saint
with pilgrim's hat, staff, and sometimes a book
or crown. While he is hatless in the Ghent
Altarpiece depiction, his staff there is identical to
that in Israhel van Meckenem's engraving from
the later I5th century, and similar to ones seen
in other images. Consult the Lexikon der Christ-
lichen Ikonographie, ed. E. Kirschbaum and W.
Braunfels, VII, Rome et al. 1974, 70-71, which

388

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 Ilt~?~l~i~

??'i :

?i~i~il6Ec;?
;S '?

nt,~
:f/
:!t~Al I ?I~:i

?; ~B
C.

''
3~;~WIIYl~t?~lr~l~a~~A~ii~tCiab~%Eil~i~i

".' I.fi"':' ' :?? ' ? : ?r:-r. ?~~u~-*??~~ ~"'?' ?'?-

~E ii

i" 1 ~c~x
i' r93 il? ~e~-,e~a\?~i~ir
: i i .?~ Ilftl'FrPI I r. -? b~[lP!IP~ I1 u17r

i; It" ?i ;5WEilS J i

:5 I? ;d
II*"

ii'
3j i

..
* .

1i. Jan and Hubert van Eyck, the Ghent Altarpiece, Exterior.
Ghent, St. Bavo

at the SS.Annunziata shrine in Florence along

spectives6'. St.Josse's inclusion among the
the way, the choice of St. Josse as their newborn
grims (fig. I2) echoes St. Anthony's particip
son's patron saint is logical from several
in theper-
adjacent Hermits panel (fig. 13), the

illustrates van Meckenem's engraving and lists other

realized she was pregnant by late August of I431.
examples. Philip's choice for his son's name was entirely inde-
6i The Holy Pilgrims panel might have been painted pendent of the Church's calendar of feasts, for Josse's
during Isabelle's pregnancy, in hopeful anticipation of feast day is December 13, with secondary honorings
a son, but this is not necessary since St.Josse was on June i i and July 25. May 6, the date of the child's
relevant for the donor, Joos Vydt. Assuming a normal baptism, is the feast of St.John at the Latin Gate,
28o-day term pregnancy, Isabelle would have con- which honors the attempted martyrdom of the Evan-
ceived Josse in mid-July of I431, and should have gelist in Rome.

389

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 saint of Philip's and Isabelle's first son, who had
died while still a toddler only three months prior
to the birth of Josse; he may still have been alive
% ?"'
when that panel was painted6'. Unfortunately,
the Duke and Duchess's second success with re-
gard to progeny was even shorter-lived, for Josse
died in Ghent when only fifteen days old. Philip,
ILIs who had not been present for the birth, joined
Isabelle, and together they made pilgrimages to
St.Josse at Montreuil-sur-Mer and to Boulogne
before arriving in Saint-Omer on 9 August
i: 143263. On August 22 of that same summer, there
? " "fA*
is a record of the Duchess paying for an image of
Josse by a goldworker, and still in I434 there is a

ducal payment for >une ymage de saint Josse,

for a set of paternoster beads64.
These circumstances of a new marriage, con-
ception, and birth offer a reasonable context for
Jan's references to the Florentine thaumaturgical
image in his Ghent Annunciation. Similarly, and
supportive of Carra Ferguson O'Meara's thesis
?"4
that the Washington Annunciation was produced
in conjunction with the 1433 birth in Dijon of
Alit ??P.. Philip's and Isabelle's third son and the Duke's
P?
actual heir, Charles the Bold, Jan's repetition of
'l L." " ~~P ~ B~ . ,.. the upside-down and backwards text in that
f.w Annunciation is also understandable65. But the
exterior of the Ghent Altarpiece (fig. i i) demon-
strates more extensive interest in the healing and
salvational power of the spoken Word, expanding
beyond the symbolism of the Florentine proto-
type. The prophets and sibyls as a group all
depend upon speaking the Word, as each was
inspired by the Deity, and certainly these
,zz

particular and unusual seers were selected by Jan

because each is associated with predicting the

62 Anthony was born in Brussels on 30 December 1430,

and died at 13 months of age on 5 February 1432, fol-
lowing an illness.
63 See Jolly (as note 40), 252, n.28, and Amaury de La-
grange, ,Itineraire d'Isabelle de Portugal(, Annales
du Comit eflamand de France XLII, 1938, 14.
64 De Laborde (as note 36), II, ii, 209, No. 4003 and II, i,
12. Pilgrims, from the Ghent Altarpiece. 342, No.I15i1.
Ghent, St. Bavo 65 >Isabelle of Portugal as the Virgin in Jan van Eyck's
Washington Annunciation(, Gazette des Beaux-Arts
97, 1981, 99- 10o3-

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advent of a saviour-king66. Yet Zacharias, for ex- ..... ~ ........ ::" r.. ... i.
ample, was also invoked for healing, as his name
was associated with blood charms because of his *RM?

martyrdom67. He appears to play a particularly

1 .
significant role on the exterior of the Ghent Al-
tarpiece, especially with regard to the childless-
I'"
ness of the elderly commissioners, Joos Vydt and : .i

Elizabeth Borluut, as well as that of the aging

Duke and Duchess.
The prophet Zacharias was erroneously identi-
fied with the Zacharias who was the father of
John the Baptist, and this identity furthers his
connections with divine healing and the power of
speech. Zacharias' son John, of course, was a
child conceived miraculously after his wife Eliza-
beth was well beyond childbearing years68. As
Jacopo da Voragine relates the story in his opof
Golden Legend under June 24, Gabriel appeared
to the childless Zacharias while in the Temple, ..

and announced that his prayer had been

answered. When Zacharias, >>giving thought to
his advanced age and the barrenness of his wife,
doubted the angel's words<<, he called for a sign
from God. As punishment, he was struck dumb.
It was only with John's eventual birth that
Zacharias regained the power of speech. The
Vydts' identification with that holy couple - the ?ii

wife's name in both cases is Elizabeth - would be

entirely appropriate, given that they had been
married and without progeny for about thirty-
four years when the altarpiece was painted, as
well as particularly resonant because of the dedi-
cation of the Church in which the altarpiece was
located to Saint John the Baptist69. The Duchess
Isabelle - Isabelle is another form of the name
Elizabeth - was also unusually advanced in years
AMU-

"AIN,.

"1?
'. ..
66 Regarding Jan's unusual choice of prophets and
sibyls, see Jolly (as note 40), 238ff.
67 A. A. Barb, >St. Zacharias the Prophet and Martyr: A
Study in Charms and Incantations,, Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes ii, 1948, 35-67.
68 Barb (as note 67), 45 -46 and passim.
69 Goodgal (as note 45), Ioy - io6, believes Joos attained
his majority in about 1395, and that he and Elizabeth I3. Holy Hermits, from the Ghent Al
married around 1398. Joos survived until 1439, and Ghent, St. Bavo
Elizabeth until 1443, but they remained childless.

39'

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at the time of her marriage, and may also have
identified with Elizabeth, mother of John. Con-
trary to custom, Isabelle and Philip were only
about six months apart in age when they mar-
ried, she just one month shy of thirty-three, and
he already thirty-three. Thus, Isabelle was thirty-
five when Josse was born in Ghent, and thirty-
six when she successfully delivered Charles the
Bold, her last child. Zacharias' and Elizabeth's
story would thus have been relevant to the ducal
couple, as well.
Both Johns, depicted as statues below on the
exterior of the altarpiece, have well known con-
nections with the Word, the power of speech,
and healing that do not require extensive retel-
ling here. John the Baptist, who by baptizing
offers the ultimate >cure?, stands in the niche
alongside Joos Vydt. Functioning not only as the
patron saint of the church, but of the city of
Ghent as well, he appears on the same side as his
?father< above, and turns towards the suppliant
donor while pointing at the lamb he holds. Of
course this gesture indicates that he is speaking
his ubiquitous ?Ecce agnus dei<. John also de-
monstrated special responsiveness to speech, for
he leapt for joy inside Elizabeth's womb when
she heard Mary's salutation at the visitation, and
he was called >the voice,<70. John the Evangelist's
special relationship to the Word is undeniable,
but it is less well known that he was efficacious
with regard to cures, especially poisoning, as we
70 Jacopo da Voragine lists this sobriquet among others
in his entry for June 24; certainly it is based upon the
opening reference to John in the Gospel of Mark as
>>the voice of one crying in the wilderness<< (1,3)- John
the Baptist was also invoked in healing charms. See
Barb (as note 67), 53ff.
71 Patrick Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature in
Western England, 6oo-8oo, Cambridge 1990, 302-
303-
72 R. Lightbown, Medieval European Jewelry, London
I992, 96-100oo, 206-208, and passim, discusses the
prophylactic and talismanic properties of jewels, and
includes extensive bibliography.
73 Regarding hermits and their wilderness abodes that
symbolically become paradise, see Penny Howell
Jolly, >>Crosscurrents in the Mid-Trecento: French
Medieval Ivories and the Camposanto, Pisa<<, Gazette
des Beaux-Arts, November I991, s.6, v. ii8, 166-
392
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are reminded by his attribute of a cup with
serpents. In a tradition that goes back at least to
Anglo-Saxon England, John spoke a prayer
before drinking the poisoned cup and experi-
enced no ill effects, and that charm - though re-
peatedly edited and reworked - included the
phrase ?give ... ears which may hear thy
word<<7'
Jewels and coral were understood to promote
healing and/or function apotropaically, and cer-
tainly this is their role in the waters surrounding
the base of the fountain of life in the Adoration
of the Lamb on the interior of the Ghent Altar-
piece7l. Jan includes there clear rock crystals (or
diamonds), red and other colored jewels, with
the waters of life washing over them before
flowing, newly fortified with healing powers, to
the corners of the world where salvation is made
possible for all. A smaller number of clear stones
and coral line the pathway trodden by St. An-
thony and the others in the Holy Hermits panel
(fig. 13), although jewels are oddly absent from
the Pilgrims, Knights, and Just Judges panels sur-
rounding the Adoration of the Lamb. Jan's parti-
cular association of hermits with these apotro-
paic stones may be because hermits achieved
spiritual healing while living in dangerous and
rocky wildernesses, where, if triumphant, they
successfully transformed those wild abodes into
paradisic landscapes73. Thus these gems also
mark the transformation of what appears to be
167. See also Peter Eikemeier's discussion of jewels in
a stream bed and on land surrounding Christ in the
Wilderness, while John the Baptist and a donor look
on, in his >>Dieric Bouts Johannes der Tdiufer weist
auf Jesus hin: >Siehe, das Lamm Gottes< (Ecce agnus
dei)<<, in Dieric Bouts Johannes der Tiiufer weist auf
Jesus hin: Siehe, das Lamm Gottes< (Ecce agnus dei),
Munich I99o, 13-14.
74 Lightbown (as note 72), 98. It is also the case that by
the early 16th century, the French royal family turned
to the miraculous tunic of the Virgin Mary, located
since the 9th century at Chartres Cathedral, for as-
sistance with pregnancy and childbirth; however,
there is no indication of that practice in the early 5th
century, and I have found no records of any connec-
tion between that pilgrimage site and the Duke and
Duchess of Burgundy. On Mary's tunic, consult F de
Mdly, >>Les Chemises de la Vierge<<, Mmoires de la
an earthly landscape into a heavenly one. But the the original source for our entry at or prior to
proximity of a particularly large crystal and piece 1441, during the rule of Philip. This item is a
of coral near St. Anthony's staff, and the prayer >>most beautiful surplice<< supplied to the shrine
beads held in his hands, suggest a special purpose by the Duke of Burgundy. But of greater
for their inclusion here. Depending on when the significance for our purposes here are two
panel was painted, the stones could refer either records of gifts made by the Duchess herself in a
to the successful conception and subsequent register that covers 1430 until 1447. There,
birth of the ducal heir Anthony in December of recorded on 22 July 1432, just months after the
1430, or to attempts to cure his illness a year birth and death of Josse, is an unspecified
later. Many stones were believed to assist in heal- offering >>dal fattore di madama di Borgogna<<,
ing, but some were specifically acquired by cou- and in the inventory dated 16 May 1439 is listed
ples in the belief that they could assist during the >>uno braccio col-gomito d-ariento di-madama
dangers of childbirth; for example, in 1455 Duke di borgogna<<76. Charles the Bold also made an
Philip is recorded as owning an unmounted, offering to SS. Annunziata, although it was an
large >strange stone<< that was credited with evocation rather a votive offering made in
assisting in deliveries74. conjunction with the fateful Battle of Nancy in
While I know of no connection between the 1477. As Richard Trexler describes it, Charles
Vydts and the Florentine shrine, documentary attempted to >buy<< the favor of the Florentine
evidence exists that both the Duke and Duchess
protector, and thus turn the Annunziata Mary
of Burgundy were familiar with SS. Annunziataagainst >>her<< Florence in favor of his claims.
and made votive offerings to it, as did their son, While Charles was unsuccessful in his bid for
Charles. Notations of two gifts from the DukeMary's favor, losing not only the battle but even
of Burgundy are added to the SS. Annunziata in-his life, he was obviously familiar with the
ventory of 1422, written in later hands75. Thesignificance of the shrine for the Florentines,
first records >>a blue velvet chasuble, brocaded in perhaps because family tradition had told him
gold and embroidered with the arms of the that the Annunciate Mary had assisted his own
Duke of Burgundy.<< The second is added in a parents to conceive and bear him77.
hand that Eugenio Casalini identifies as I6th- Jan's official travels in 1426 or 1428, whether
century, but the item is followed immediately by or not they involved marriage negotiations, may
a paragraph in that same hand that makes have included a pilgrimage to the shrine of the
reference to 20 April 1441 and may help to date Annunciate Virgin in Florence. If so, he surely

societe archeologique d'Eure-et-Loire 9, 1889, 1o7- blioteca Marucelliana, Florence). Isabelle's family in
I 18, who traces the use of the tunic in relation to Portugal also gave gifts to the shrine. An archival
conception and childbearing back to only i531, account from about i765 records the sale of items
although it is used to enhance military conquest as given by the Medici and of thirty silver lamps given
early as 1389. Gail McMurray Gibson, ,St.Margery: by King John of Portugal (Casalini, 1987, 98). The
The Book of Margery Kempe<, Equally in God's latter would be either Isabelle's father (died 1433) or
Image: Women in the Middle Ages, ed. J. B. Hollo- her great-nephew (died 1495)-
way, J. Bechtold, and C. S. Wright, New York 1990, 77 Trexler (as note 2), 7, n. 20, who does not cite the
especially I55ff., discusses the role played by relics source of his information regarding Charles' votive
and talismans in ensuring conception and childbirth, statue. As Trexler notes, Luca Landucci, in his Diario
and mentions the Chartres tunic, erroneously calling Fiorentino dal 145o al i516, continuato da un Anoni-
it the tunic worn by Mary at the Annunciation, rather mo fino al 1542, trans. A. De Rosen Jervis, London
than at the birth of Christ. 1927, 13, explains that the Burgundian Duke died
75 Eugenio Casalini, Un inventario inedito del secolo because his enemies went into battle with a banner of
XV, Florence 1971, 92 and 99 (ff. 3r and 7r). the Annunciation blessed at SS. Annunziata. Landucci
76 Giulia Brunetti, ,,Una vacchetta segnata A.<<, Scritti di cites this as yet another of the miracles performed by
storia dell'arte in onore di Ugo Procacci, I, Milano the Nunziata.
1977, 232 and n. 53 (from Ms. B VIII, 23 in the Bi-

393

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saw innovative art by the young Florentine Ma-
saccio demonstrating Brunelleschi's newly inven-
ted one-point perspective. Very likely it impres-
sed him, but - perhaps due to the efficacy of
Jan's own empirical perspective - apparently did
not offer solutions that Jan chose to pursue. I do
suspect that Jan's use of di sotto in sit perspective
for Adam's foot, a change from its original posi-
tion, did derive from Masaccio, perhaps from the
lost St. Ivo or St. Paul; Jan did not return to this
device in later paintings for the simple reason
that no extant work by him involves a large-scale
human figure placed above the head of the view-
er78. While we may never know exactly what Jan
saw by Masaccio, and what he thought about this
artist whom art historians today see as the most
innovative in the city, we should recognize that
there were other impressive painters in Florence.
Certainly among the most admired paintings in
town were those by Lorenzo Monaco, only re-
cently deceased. Similarly Gentile da Fabriano,
not a native, but a visiting luminary who was
particularly noteworthy for his ability in lighting
effects, seems the likely inspiration to both Jan
and Fra Angelico for their experiments during
the late 1420os and early 1430s in painting pools
of reflected light. What Jan might have seen by
his young contemporary Fra Angelico is un-
known, although if Jan were in Tuscany in 1428
rather than 1426, it is possible that the Prado
Annunciation was already painted and in nearby
Fiesole. However, it may be that both artists
drew upon similar sources, independently ac-
knowledging the powerful fresco from SS. An-
nunziata as well as the innovations by Gentile da
Fabriano. Finally, it is interesting that Jan, optical
innovator and illusionist ars nova painter, who
sought new means of creating images able literal-
ly to transform the beholder, was himself en-
chanted by the thaumaturgical acheiropoietic
fresco at SS. Annunziata.

78 Giorgio Vasari records in his Lives of 1568 that Masa-
ccio painted a fresco in the Badia in Florence of
St. Ivo standing that simulated statuary, and one in
the Carmine of St.Paul, seen from below (see Paul
Joannides, Masaccio and Masolino: A Complete Cata-
logue, London 1993, 442 and 447-448; both were
destroyed during remodellings, the former in about
1625, and the latter in about I675). Scholars have
hypothesized that these lost works were sources for
later images of di sotto in sit figures by, for example,
Andrea del Castagno (in his series of Famous Men
and Women, Uffizi, Florence, and in the Mascoli
Chapel, San Marco, Venice), Domenico Veneziano
(Sts.John the Baptist and Francis, Santa Croce, Flo-
rence), Paolo Uccello (fresco of Jacopone di Todi),
Francesco del Cossa (Allegory of Autumn, Berlin,
Dahlem Museum), Ercole Roberti (St. Anthony,
Rotterdam), and Giuliano da Maiano (Amos and
Isaiah, Sacristy door, Florence Cathedral). Vasari also
describes a panel by Masaccio in the Rucellai Palace
with life-sized figures of a male and female nude,
probably an Adam and Eve (see Joannides, Masaccio
and Masolino, 450). Paul Coremans, L'Agneau My-
stique au laboratoire. Les Primitifs Flamands, Ant-
werp 1953, 98, discusses the original position of
Adam's foot (and see his pl. III, 3 for an x-ray). The
only other extant work by Jan that could be termed
>monumental< is the Canon van der Paele Madonna
(Bruges, Groeningen Museum, 1434-1436), but the
viewing point is not from below the figures.

Photo credits: 1,2,3,5,7,8,9 Alinari, Art Resource, NY. - 4, 11, 12, 13 Copyright IRPA-KIK, Bruxelles. - 6 Scala/Art
Resource, NY. - io Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington.

394

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