ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Holly Flora for her continued guidance throughout this process; without her mentorship and sage editorial advice this thesis would not have been possible. I would also like to extend my sincerest gratitude to the other two members of my committee, Dr. Susann Lusnia and Dr. Anne Dunlop, for their invaluable comments in helping shape this work.
I am indebted to all of the members of my graduate cohort, especially Julia
O’Keefe, Allison Caplan, and Jordan Mintz for entertaining my endless array of questions and encouraging me throughout every step of this process. I would like to thank
Dr. Robin Jensen and Victor Sebastian Judge for revolutionizing the way I think about art and its relationship to religious studies. I must also extend my heartfelt gratitude to David
Hoch for encouraging me to apply to Tulane, for continuing to bless me with his infinite knowledge and wisdom, and for keeping my spirits high when times were low.
I would like to dedicate this thesis to my beloved parents. Thank you for your unwavering support and always encouraging me in whatever I do. While my mother taught me so many life lessons during her time on earth, I believe the most important virtue she instilled in me is perseverance, and for that I will be forever grateful. It seems
! ""! fitting to conclude these acknowledgements by singling out my father. Dad, we’ve been through this journey together. You are the most selfless man I know and you are my hero.
Thank you for challenging me and helping me realize my potential. Words cannot express how lucky I am to be your son.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS…………………………………………….. ii LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………….... vi INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………….. 1 CHAPTER 1: The Interior Altars of Invisible Women: Envisioning the Eucharist in the Passion Frescoes at Santa Maria Donna Regina…………………………………………………... 10
Eucharistic Adoration and the Limitations of Sensory Experience
The Poor Clares’ Infrequent Reception of the Eucharist
CHAPTER 2: Constructing an Interior Monstrance: The Eucharistic Dimension of Performative Vision…………………………………….. 30
MS 410 and the Pastoral Care of Clarissan Nuns
The Imitatio Mariae: Images of Maternal Compassion
Contemplating the Humanity of Christ
Transcending the Limitations of Enclosure through Imaginative Mobility
Constructing an Interior Monstrance: The Concept of Ocular Communion
CHAPTER 3: “[S]he took the bread into [her] holy and venerable hands…”: The Priestly Presentation of the Virgin in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Ital. 115…………………………………... 45
The Virgin as Celebrant: A Model for the Priestly Office
The Christ Child in the Eucharist
! "#! The Conflation of Manger and Altar: A Eucharistic Reading of MS Ital. 115’s Infancy Narrative
The Presentation in the Temple Sequence: The Presiding Virgin and the Elevation of the Literal Host
The Wellesley College Panel: An Image of Motherhood and Priestly Action
Gendered Viewing and Clarissan Response
CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………. 67
FIGURES……………………………………………………………….. 71
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………. 104
BIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………… 108
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, View from the nuns’ choir facing the apse Figure 2 Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, Longitudinal view of church interior Figure 3 Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, View from the altar toward the nave and nuns’ choir at western end of church Figure 4 Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, Schematic layout of frescoes Figure 5 Fresco, Northern Wall of Nuns’ Choir, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, Communion of the Apostles Figure 6 Fresco, Northern Wall of Nuns’ Choir, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, Derision and First Stripping of Christ; Denial of Saint Peter; Christ before the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas; the Flagellation Figure 7 Fresco, Northern Wall of Nuns’ Choir, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, First Judgment before Pilate and Christ before Herod Figure 8 Fresco, Northern Wall of Nuns’ Choir, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, Second Judgment before Pilate; Crowning of Thorns; Second Stripping of Christ; Way to Calvary Figure 9 Fresco, Northern Wall of Nuns’ Choir, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, Third Stripping of Christ and the Ascent of the Cross Figure 10 Fresco, Northern Wall of Nuns’ Choir, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, Detail of Third Stripping of Christ Figure 11 Photograph, Procession of the Consecrated Host Figure 12 Fresco, Northern Wall of Nuns’ Choir, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, Crucifixion Figure 13 Fresco, Northern Wall of Nuns’ Choir, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, Detail of Crucifixion Figure 14 Photograph, Priests lying prostrate during the solemn liturgy of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday Figure 15 Fresco, Northern Wall of Nuns’ Choir, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, Deposition and Lamentation Figure 16 Ms. Corpus Christi College 410, Oxford University, folio 135 verso, Ascent of the Cross Figure 17 Ms. Corpus Christi College 410, Oxford University, folio 136 verso, Crucifixion Figure 18 Ms. Corpus Christi College 410, Oxford University, folio 137 recto, Crucifixion
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Figure 19 Ms. Corpus Christi College 410, Oxford University, folio 137 verso, Crucifixion Figure 20 Ms. Corpus Christi College 410, Oxford University, folio 139 recto, Crucifixion (Swoon of the Virgin) Figure 21 Ms. Corpus Christi College 410, Oxford University, folio 140 recto, Crucifixion Figure 22 Attributed to Jean Le Noir, Psalter and Hours of Bonne of Luxembourg, folios 330 verso and 331 recto, The Wound of Christ Figure 23 Ms. Corpus Christi College 410, Oxford University, folio 142 recto, Deposition Figure 24 Attributed to Giotto, Upper Church of the Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi, Miracle of the Crib at Greccio Figure 25 Ms. ital. 115, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, folio 12 recto, The Virgin Thanks God after the Annunciation Figure 26 Ms. Hessische Landesbibliothek 1, Wiesbaden, Ecclesia and the Dowry Offering Figure 27 Breviary of Aldersbach, Staatsbibliothek Münich, CLM 2640, folio 15 verso, Christ Child in the Eucharist Figure 28 Ms. ital. 115, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, folio 19 verso, Nativity Figure 29 Ms. ital. 115, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, folio 19 verso, Detail of Nativity Figure 30 Ms. ital. 115, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, folio 33 verso, Presentation in the Temple Figure 31 Ms. ital. 115, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, folio 34 recto, Presentation in the Temple Figure 32 Ms. ital. 115, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, folio 34 verso, Presentation in the Temple Figure 33 Ms. ital. 115, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, folio 35 recto, Presentation in the Temple Figure 34 Christ Mounting the Cross and the Funeral of Saint Clare, tempera and silver leaf on panel, Davis Museum, Wellesley College Figure 35 Detail of Christ Mounting the Cross and the Funeral of Saint Clare, tempera and silver leaf on panel, Davis Museum, Wellesley College Figure 36 Guido da Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, Panel Painting Figure 37 Guido da Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, Detail of Saint Clare Wielding the Monstrance Figure 38 Church of Santa Chiara, Naples, View from the nuns’ choir facing the altar Figure 39 Church of Santa Chiara, Naples, View of nave interior Figure 40 Church of Santa Chiara, Naples, Plan
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Introduction
The world being dead to them, they were dead to the world, and becoming unseen by all, after their vocation they laid over their eyes and faces a thick veil like a shroud… Enclosed in this cloister of salvation, or rather buried alive in this sepulchre, they waited to change a temporary prison for the freedom of eternity, and to change this burial for resurrection. - Peter the Venerable, De Miraculis 1.22, (ca. 1135) 1
By the thirteenth century, Eucharistic devotion had reached a crescendo of adoration among medieval Christians. Contemporary sources recount how worshippers attended mass only for the moment of elevation, racing from church to church to see as many consecrations as possible.2 This religious fervor was sparked by the belief that spiritual benefit could be gleaned from the mere sight of the consecrated Host, as the totality of Christ’s body was believed to be present at the moment of consecration. As the priest raised the transubstantiated wafer above his head, the assembled congregation was granted the momentary luxury of gazing upon God. This awe-inspiring vision was believed to unify the gathered people, but nuns could not participate directly in this powerful experience. In the fourteenth century, following Pope Boniface VIII’s !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1 Jane Tibbets Schulenberg, “Strict Active Enclosure and its Effects on the Female Monastic Experience (500-1000),” in Medieval Religious Women I: Distant Echoes, Cistercian Studies Series, 71 (Kalamazoo, 1984), 87-114. Peter the Venerable compared the severity of claustration at the cluniac convent of Marcigny to a perpetual prison, which inmates entered willingly. 2 Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 55. ! #!
Periculoso (c. 1298), nuns heard Mass while hidden in private choirs, without a view of the altar.
The Poor Clares’ affiliation with the order of Saint Francis would have further entrenched the sisters in a system of enclosure, as their mendicant brothers practiced an itinerant lifestyle of public preaching, relying exclusively upon the charitable donations of others. Itinerant observance of holy poverty would have been an unfeasible option for
Franciscan nuns,3 as friars insisted upon the perpetual confinement of their Clarissan sisters, thus creating a system in which spiritual tasks were divided along gender lines.
While the friars focused their peripatetic ministry upon preaching and converting non- believers to Christ (vita activa), their female counterparts were to serve the order by living a life of enclosed prayer and contemplation (vita contemplativa).
Although these women would have been prevented from physically seeing the elevation of the consecrated Host, this study will articulate how interactive engagement with devotional art functioned to restore the vision of the cloistered viewer, thus providing her with a privileged seat in which to observe the sacred mysteries. This research will explore how Franciscan nuns in fourteenth century Italy would have encountered the Host via works of art inside and outside of their enclosed choir. The
Passion cycle decorating the nuns’ choir of the Neapolitan Church of Santa Maria Donna
Regina (ca. 1318-1320) will illustrate how Eucharistic vision could occur during the public recitation of the liturgy, while two illustrated manuscript copies of the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3 Holly Flora, “A Book for Poverty’s Daughters: Gender and Devotion in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Ital. 115,” edited by Susan Karant-Nunn, in Varieties of Devotion in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance Vol. 7, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 76. The fear of women receiving monetary charity stemmed from anxieties associating the taking of actual money with the base and sinful practice of prostitution. ! $!
Meditationes vitae Christi (Oxford Corpus Christi College MS 410, ca. 1350 and Paris
Bibliothèque Nationale MS Ital. 115, ca. 1340-1350) will demonstrate how devotional books could provide an avenue for Eucharistic veneration in the privacy of the convent.
These works have been selected for this study because of their Italian origin, their close proximity in date, and their commission for a Clarissan audience.
In attempting to gain an understanding of Eucharistic devotion in late medieval
Europe, Caroline Walker Bynum and Miri Rubin’s historical surveys on the sacrament serve as indispensible resources. While Rubin’s approach is more concerned with tracing the historical evolution of the liturgy, Bynum’s work concentrates on women’s extraordinary devotion to the Eucharist and the manner in which food or fasting offered females a means of control in a patriarchal society.4 Although Bynum and Rubin do not explore the limitations of enclosure in the context of their research, they do allude to a plethora of Eucharistic visions that occur during this period by documenting ecstatic experiences that provide the female contemplative with a sense of tangibility denied to her on the basis of gender and vocation. This thesis will build upon Bynum and Rubin’s ideas by suggesting that ocular communion can occur within an environment of perpetual claustration, as the devotional image functions in an intercessory capacity, providing the nun a means of access to gaze upon the literal Host.
Caroline Bruzelius’ research on the architecture of Clarissan convents in Italy and the evolution of the nuns’ choir over the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
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%!Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). See also Caroline Walker Bynum, “Women Mystics and Eucharistic Devotion in the Thirteenth Century,” in Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991), 119-150.! ! %! provides a window into how an enclosed viewer would have experienced the Mass.
While her study focuses specifically on two convents in Assisi (San Damiano and Santa
Chiara) and two churches in Naples (Santa Maria Donna Regina and Santa Chiara), these worship spaces all represent a calculated attempt to render the nuns invisible to the laity.
Although the nuns’ choir effectively shields the sisters from the public eye, it impedes their direct line of vision to the altar, thereby forcing them to devise an alternative means in which to envisage the Eucharist. While Bruzelius’ assertion that the nuns could experience the liturgy ‘through the ear’ is aptly noted, this study will propose another form of participatory devotion that transcends the limitations of the corporeal senses, providing the nun imaginative access to the altar, and allowing her to observe the sacred mysteries from a privileged perspective without jeopardizing her cloistered existence.
This study defines performative vision as a mode of contemplation that extends far beyond the faculty of sight, as the reader is invited to enter imaginatively into the biblical scene, and observe the events as though she were physically present.5 Illustrated copies of the Meditationes lend themselves to this form of interactive devotion, as they are replete with miniatures placed in direct conversation with the devotional text, thus allowing the nun an opportunity to engage in a cinematic viewing experience. This exercise requires an advanced form of literacy in which the viewer utilizes both mediums
(text and image) to construct an indelible image within her own imagination. Cathleen
Fleck and Alexa Sand’s work on female literacy in conventual and aristocratic communities during this period not only attests to the difficulty associated with this
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&!For a discussion on the dynamics of performative readings of illuminated manuscripts, buildings, and sculptures, see Elina Gertsman, ed. Visualizing Medieval Performance: Perspectives, Histories, Contexts (United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2008).! ! &! devotional endeavor, but also to the crucial role that memory plays in linking text and image.6 In both scholars’ estimation, the image can serve as a mnemonic trigger to aid the viewer in recalling the biblical narrative. It is precisely this recollection of previously acquired information that allows the viewer to enter into the image with her mind’s eye and sustain the narration as though she were present.7
This mode of participatory devotion was shaped by advisory relationships between friars and the nuns under their spiritual care. The Meditationes, the textual source of inspiration behind the Donna Regina Passion frescoes and the miniatures contained in MS 410 and MS ital. 115, was written by a Franciscan friar for the spiritual edification of a Poor Clare. The opening folio of MS. ital. 115 captures this teacher – pupil relationship as saint Cecilia is shown receiving instruction from a tonsured male dressed in the garb of a Franciscan friar. This full-page miniature establishes Cecilia as a model for the Clarissan reader to emulate, as the female saint willingly submits to the spiritual council of her clerical supervisor. During a time when noble women were guided through devotional texts by male confessors, the descriptive nature of the Meditationes coupled by the author’s imperative commands to exercise compassion serve as a substitute for the physical presence of the friar. The cinematic nature of MS 410 and MS
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6 Cathleen Fleck, ““’To exercise yourself in these things by continued contemplation’: Visual and Textual Literacy in the Frescoes at Santa Maria Donna Regina,” in The Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina: Art, Iconography and Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Naples, edited by Janice Elliott and Cordelia Warr (United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2004), 109-128. See also Alexa Sand, “Vision, Devotion, and Difficulty in the Psalter Hours ‘of Yolande of Soissons,’” Art Bulletin 87.1 (March 2005), 6-23.
7 See Lina Bolzoni, The Web of Images: Vernacular Preaching from its Origins to St. Bernardino da Siena, (United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2004). Bolzoni proposes a complementary method in which the descriptive nature of public preaching allows the listener to recall previously stored images to help supplement the worship experience. Bolzoni’s method differs from Sand’s theory above, as the mnemonic procedure recalls a mental image instead of a textual narrative. ! '! ital. 115 are integral resources for the pastoral care of Clarissan communities because they instruct the cloistered pupil where to focus her gaze and illuminate ideal behaviors, which allow the novice to ascend to higher levels of devout contemplation. The
Meditationes thus allows the friar to advise from a distance, as he is able to articulate favored ideologies through the interplay of text and image, while continuing his primary mission of public preaching in uninterrupted fashion.
In addition to the descriptive nature of the Meditationes, the textual account is filled with instructional asides, in which the cloistered reader is adjured to weep on command, to feel compassion, and to interact with the primary cast of biblical characters.
Holly Flora asserts that while these exhortations are didactic in nature, they provide the nun an opportunity to embark on a virtual pilgrimage and experience certain liberties that would have otherwise been prohibited to cloistered women. Flora’s theory that the
Meditationes offers a meditative outlet for the nun to practice virtual poverty through her interactive devotion has inspired the course of this research, as this study is concerned with how performative vision functions in a Eucharistic context.8 The interior seeing and feeding that occurs here is quite similar to the concept of virtual poverty, as the participatory nature of the Meditationes allows the female reader to live the vita activa through her vita contemplativa, rectifying what she is denied from experiencing corporeally by restoring her vision within the confines of her imagination.
While Adrian Hoch touches on this alternative method to envisage the Eucharist, her treatment of the topic focuses only upon four Lord at Table images, which bookend
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8 Flora 2003, 61-84. ! (! the introduction and conclusion of the Donna Regina Passion sequence.9 This thesis will seek to highlight how Eucharistic connotations pervade throughout the entirety of the
Donna Regina Passion cycle, as Christ’s body becomes a mobile monstrance for the female contemplative’s unrestricted adoration. While the Donna Regina Passion frescoes serve as visual aids to assist the nuns in their quest to re-envision the Eucharist, these images were employed specifically during the public recitation of the Mass or when the sisters would reconvene in their choir for the singing of the Divine Office. Given that the nun’s exposure to these images was limited and mainly occurred during the performance of the liturgy, paraliturgical activity occurring outside the worship space must also be examined in order to render a complete portrait of Clarissan spirituality. Paraliturgical texts, such as the Meditationes, serve to fill the void that occurs upon exiting the choir by providing the nun a portal in which to engage in private ecstatic experience. The spiritual sustenance gleaned from meditating on the miniatures of MS 410 or MS ital. 115 allows the female to commit these images to memory and recall them during her auditory participation in the Mass. This cerebral process illustrates how private devotion seeps into the public worship arena, as the nun is equipped with a mental image to pair alongside her hearing of the liturgy.
One recurrent theme that will be addressed throughout this study is the manner in which the Virgin is shown performing actions quite similar to those of a priest. Mary is cast into the role of celebrant in each of the works that will highlight this discussion,
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9 Adrian Hoch, “The ‘Passion’ Cycle: Images to Contemplate and Imitate amid Clarissan Clausura,” in The Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina: Art, Iconography and Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Naples, edited by Janice Elliott and Cordelia Warr (United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2004), 129-153. Hoch’s Eucharistic reading concentrates on the following four Passion episodes: the Last Supper (P1), the Communion of the Apostles (P2), the Supper at Emmaus (P14), and Christ Appearing to His Disciples at Supper (P15). ! )! which suggests that a distinct ideology may have been at work in the context of Clarissan spirituality. While relatively little work has been done on the priesthood of the Virgin,
Anne Clark explores Mary’s sacerdotal identity by labeling her as a model for priestly activity.10 Although Clark’s research is grounded in feminist theology, her exegesis of
Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias (c. 1151) proposes an idea in which virginity provides the nun spiritual access to the ministry of the altar without holding the public office associated with the title. In applying Clark’s theory to the visual analysis of Clarissan art, this research does not attempt to suggest that these images operate in a subversive manner by campaigning for the ordination of females to the priesthood, but rather provides the nun a visual means in which to imaginatively attend the celebration of the Eucharist.
The opening chapter will focus on the Clarissan community of the Neapolitan
Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina and the manner in which their strict claustration prohibited them from visually observing the liturgical celebration of the Mass. This chapter will seek to demonstrate how the Donna Regina Passion frescoes, which adorned the walls of the conventual worship space and were commissioned solely for the nuns’ visual consumption, served as intercessory portals offering the cloistered community an alternative means to envisage the Eucharist. While the Donna Regina study aims to reconstruct how the nuns might have experienced the Mass from their enclosed choir loft, the following chapter will transition from the public to the private sphere of worship, concentrating specifically on paraliturgical devotion in the convent. This section seeks to demonstrate how illustrated manuscripts, such as MS 410, are essential to the pastoral
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10 Anne Clark, “The Priesthood of the Virgin Mary: Gender Trouble in the Twelfth Century,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 118:1 (Spring 2002), 5-24. ! *! care of nuns, since they provide religious instruction to the female initiate, while eliminating the need for the physical presence of a male advisor. The Passion sequence of
MS 410 functions quite similar to the frescoes at Donna Regina, as the permeable quality of each miniature provides an avenue for communion with the body of Christ. The final chapter will examine a series of Eucharistic images in which the Virgin is shown performing the actions of a priest. This chapter will explore the concept of gendered viewing and will speculate how a Clarissan viewer might have interpreted these revolutionary images. By proposing a Eucharistic reading of two infancy sequences contained in MS ital. 115, this study will propose that a nun’s imitatio Mariae not only grants her mystical access to the restricted area of the altar, but also provides her with an imaginative window in which to observe and participate in the sacred drama of the Mass.
The main objective of this thesis is to draw attention to one major limitation of enclosure, specifically how Clarissan communities were able to overcome their visual obstruction to the altar by engaging in the devotional practice of performative vision. By entering into the image with her mind’s eye and sustaining the narration of the biblical episode as though she were present, the nun is able to visualize spiritually what she is denied from seeing corporeally. Sensory experience is thus restored in the cerebral confines of the brain, as devotional images become intercessory conduits of connection, bridging the gap between the sponsa and her sacrificial bridegroom. ! "+!
Chapter 1 The Interior Altars of Invisible Women: Envisioning the Eucharist in the Passion Frescoes at Santa Maria Donna Regina
In 1298, a watershed moment occurred in the course of female spirituality when
Pope Boniface VIII instituted a universal decree requiring the strict enclosure of nuns from every order throughout the Latin Church. Separation from the world had always been the intention of monastic practice, but the rise of the mendicant orders produced new anxieties about the enclosure and spiritual care of women. Following Boniface’s edict, nuns were to remain invisible to the outside world in an effort to protect themselves from potential exposure to the carnal temptations of sin. They were prohibited from leaving their convent under any circumstances or would face the threat of excommunication; while new legislation was enacted controlling authorized clerical access to the communities for the administration of the sacraments.1 This newly enforced separation of the sexes presented further complications for convent churches that continued to offer services to the public. In order to accommodate both public and private populations, the worship space needed to be subdivided in a manner that maintained required gender separation, while also allowing both parties the opportunity to participate in the liturgy. While the invention of the nuns’ choir provided an architectural solution to
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1 Elizabeth Makowski. Canon Law and Cloistered Women: Periculoso and Its Commentators, 1298-1545, (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1997), 1-8. ! ""! conceal the consecrated females from the public eye, it presented a difficult challenge to the nuns’ ability to effectively participate in the liturgy of the Mass.
The fresco depicting the Miracle of the Crib at Greccio (Fig. 24) in the Upper
Church of the Basilica of San Francesco at Assisi (Attributed to Giotto, ca. 1297-1300) provides a window into the liturgical space surrounding the altar and the manner in which women were relatively excluded from the Eucharistic celebration. A screen divides the public sector of the church from the private area surrounding the high altar, as this sacred space is populated solely by male clerics who are shown either chanting or solemnly observing the miracle. The artist provides the viewer with a perspective from behind the altar facing the nave of the church, as the elevated pulpit and hanging crucifix face the gathered lay community. The door opening in the white rood screen reveals a clustered group of female congregants who are barred from entering the male dominated worship space. While this fresco demonstrates the gender separation required during the performance of the liturgy, it is essential to note that even the perspective provided to the female laity would not have been shared by a conventual community. Clarissan nuns would have been prohibited from congregating in the front of the nave during the public recitation of the Mass, since they would have been sequestered in a remote and enclosed location, seemingly light years away from the miraculous event. While cloistered women would have desired to focus their gaze upon the altar, their vow to remain invisible to the world would have prevented them from visually observing the Eucharistic drama.
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This chapter will examine how the nuns in the Clarissan community of Santa
Maria Donna Regina engaged with the frescoes decorating their choir during the celebration of the Mass. The Clarissan community of Donna Regina would have been subject to the rules and limitations of strict enclosure, as the church was reconstructed in the wake of Boniface VIII’s 1298 ruling after being damaged by an earthquake in 1293, and was probably developed in compliance with the pope’s wishes.2 Although the church was not consecrated until 1320, Caroline Bruzelius asserts that the complex could have been operational four years earlier, citing records in which indulgences were issued to pilgrims visiting the church in 1316 and an inventory population of forty-six nuns residing in the convent by 1319.3
The Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina presents an extraordinary example in which a luxurious and large-scale image program was commissioned exclusively for an enclosed Clarissan audience under the direction of female royal patronage. Queen Maria of Hungary, the wife of King Charles II of Anjou, is believed to have overseen the reconstruction of the church and helped negotiate a transaction in 1307 to fund the rebuilding project through the sale of wine and produce.4 In her study of the architectural context of Donna Regina, Bruzelius contends that the frescoes in the nuns’ choir, attributed variously to Pietro Cavallini or his workshop, were most likely painted before the consecration of the church (c. 1318 to 1320) in order to avoid violating the strict
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2 Caroline Bruzelius, “The Architectural Context of Santa Maria Donna Regina,” in The Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina: Art, Iconography and Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Naples, edited by Janice Elliott and Cordelia Warr (United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2004), 82. 3 Ibid., 79. 4 Ibid., 79. ! "$! enclosure placed upon the female conventual community.5 While these frescoes were purposefully intended for the nuns’ spiritual edification, the grandiose décor of Donna
Regina must not be viewed as the standard norm for Clarissan conventual decoration, as
6 not all convents possessed the affluent funding to commission such fine works of art. !
While the required separation enforced upon the nuns prevented them from having a direct line of vision to the high altar from their elevated choir (Fig. 1), this study will propose that the Clarissan sisters transcended this limitation of enclosure by contemplating the Passion frescoes around them. By visually accessing the images of
Christ’s Passion, the enclosed viewer is mystically transported to the altar of Golgotha in her own imagination, and is provided with an unobstructed view to witness the sacred drama of Mass from a privileged perspective. This research will attempt to reconstruct how the nuns would have experienced the liturgy of the Mass from their enclosed choir loft, capturing how the obstruction of their corporeal senses forced a different means of
Eucharistic participation, which could only be achieved through the devotional practice of performative vision. This chapter will conclude by presenting a visual exegesis establishing the Donna Regina Passion cycle as a repudiating commentary on the limitations of enclosure, as it infuses the Virgin and her female companions with an increasing degree of agency as the narrative unfolds, culminating in the priestly presentation of the Virgin in the final episodes of the image sequence.
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5 Ibid., 81. 6 Jeryldene Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality: The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 39. Quoting the observations of Jacques de Vitry, Wood states that some nuns were destitute and at times literally faced starvation. Thus monetary donations in the thirteenth century were more likely spent on food, clothing, and other essentials than on works of art. ! "%!
The elevated nuns’ choir at Donna Regina is located at the western end of the church and extends outward to occupy approximately two-thirds the length of the nave.
While this spacious gallery would have housed the cloistered community, the lay population would have congregated in the back of the nave underneath the choir, and would have focused their attention toward the polygonal apse at the eastern end of the church (Figs. 2-3). Meanwhile, the apse area surrounding the altar would have been reserved for the Franciscan clergy and the celebration of the Mass.
Upon entering the choir loft through a spiral staircase leading directly from their cloister, the nuns of Donna Regina would immediately come face to face with the Passion cycle frescoes decorating the northern wall of the church. This visual confrontation cannot simply be dismissed as mere coincidence, but rather a purposeful attempt to create a focal point for the nuns to direct their devotional gaze. The Passion cycle is comprised of seventeen narrative scenes, beginning in the far left corner of the northern wall with the Last Supper, and unfolding in a horizontally stacked fashion toward the polygonal apse at the eastern end of the church (Fig. 4). Given the fact that the Passion cycle terminates slightly before the balustrade separating the nuns’ choir from the public domain of the church, it is necessary to conclude that these iconographical vignettes were intended solely for the eyes of the Clarissan viewers. Although the screen originally located at the edge of the balustrade has since been destroyed,7 this railing acts as a shielding device on its own, guarding the conventual space from the male gaze of the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7 Although Bruzelius, Fleck, and Hoch all concur that a choir screen would have been implemented along the balustrade of the upper gallery to render the nuns invisible to the lay population of the church, none of these scholars include estimated dimensions or reconstructed drawings to provide insight as to what this partition might have looked like. While this information is still unknown, all visitors of Donna Regina contend that a viewer would have to stand at the edge of the choir’s balustrade to view the altar, which makes the architecture of the conventual space a method of disguise in and of itself. ! "&! clergy. Bruzelius describes the consequences resulting from such stringent enforcement of enclosure by stating, “But to be ‘dead to the world’ meant further to become invisible, entombed, and withdrawn not only from the public, but also from the clergy, and therefore also from some of the sacraments.”8 While the metaphors of death and burial do apply here in terms of the voluntary practice of asceticism, it is imperative to note that the
Clarissan sisters of Donna Regina were not confined to a claustrophobic choir of darkness, but were provided with a rather privileged space of worship.
The sheer size of the nuns’ choir is visually striking as it measures four bays in length and extends to occupy approximately two-thirds the length of the nave. The contrast of light between the elevated choir and the lower story of the nave is also noteworthy, as light pours into the upper gallery from all different directions, while the covered portion of the nave is dimly lit by a series of small rounded windows on the north façade of the church.9 Considering the spacious size of the nuns’ choir at Donna
Regina and the concentration of light filtering in to illuminate its private decorative program,10 it is safe to assume that the designers of the church considered the nuns to be the privileged audience, especially given the ex novo nature of the church’s construction.
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8 Caroline Bruzelius, “Hearing is Believing: Clarissan Architecture, ca. 1213-1340,” Gesta 31:2 (1992), 83. 9 Janice Elliott and Cordelia Warr, eds. The Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina: Art, Iconography and Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Naples, (United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2004), 3-4. 10 For a detailed discussion on luminosity and its effects upon visual experience, see Michael Camille, “Before the Gaze: The Internal Senses and Late Medieval Practices of Seeing,” in Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw, ed. Robert S. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 197-223. Camille proposes a model of seeing based upon the intromission theory of vision in which the likeness of an object is initially perceived by the external sense of sight and is then cognitively processed by the internal senses mapped upon the brain of the viewer. In Camille’s hypothesis, the likeness of an object is in a continuous state of movement as it enters the body through the eyes, is assigned a proper judgment, and is then imprinted forever upon the memory of the viewer. This argument echoes the theory proposed by Roger Bacon, who argued, “We must!understand that vision is not completed in the eyes…! There must be something sentient besides the eyes, in which vision is completed and of which the eyes are ! "'!
Eucharistic Adoration and the Limitations of Sensory Experience
Before delving into the Passion sequence of Donna Regina, it is important to consider how the nuns in the choir loft might have experienced the Mass. Although a screen would have divided the private worship space of the nuns from the clerical and lay sections of the church, thereby rendering the liturgy invisible to the Clarissan community residing in the upper choir, Bruzelius contends that this barrier would not have prohibited the nuns from engaging in an auditory participation of the Mass.11 While Bruzelius’ assertion that the enclosed female viewer could experience the liturgy ‘through the ear’ is aptly noted, her argument must be slightly amended for the purposes of this research. The nuns would have been able to hear the liturgy of the Word as a lector read select passages from the Holy Scriptures aloud, which would have been followed by the singing of a responsorial Psalm, but the liturgy of the Eucharist would have not provided the same degree of participatory involvement. In her book, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The
Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, Caroline Walker Bynum describes how during this time the priest would celebrate the Mass with his back to the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the instruments that give it visible species.” This form of perception is one that involves both the external and internal senses as the likeness of the object is received by the viewer and is then interpreted over a series of successive stages. Camille encapsulates this model of visuality by stating, “Intromission, by contrast, placed the world of nature and the world of art on the same footing, as objects of sense, bringing the outside world within.” It is precisely this “bringing of the outside world within,” which appeals most relevantly to this discussion, as the paintings decorating the nuns’ choir at Donna Regina allow the enclosed sisters to participate in an ocular communion. Camille delineates how this visual reception occurs by offering the words of Roger Bacon, who describes how the likeness of an object moves by stating, “The air first receives the likeness of an object and then moves it, actualized by light, to the external coat of the eye. The likeness moves through successive and contiguous coats or ‘curtains’ until the movement reaches the innermost coat behind which the common sense is located.” Given Camille’s argument that a painting emanates a luminosity of its own, the wealth of light projecting upon the elevated choir loft at Donna Regina aids the enclosed viewer in receiving the likeness of the object. In light of the nuns’ dilemma of witnessing the liturgical celebration of the Mass, it must be noted that the cloistered sisters were the privileged audience of these paintings and could glean spiritual benefit through their intimate communion with these images.
11 Caroline Bruzelius 2004, 82. ! "(! congregation (ad orientem), reciting the words of consecration in an inaudible whisper, while the people engaged in all sorts of personal devotions (or daydreaming) loosely connected with the ceremony.12 Bynum’s preceding conclusion must be fleshed out further as it forces historians to reevaluate how the Clarissan community would have experienced the Eucharistic liturgy. While assuming the celebrant recited the words of consecration over the elements in a faint inaudible manner, there is no possibility the nuns would have been able to hear these words from their elevated choir loft, as this prayerful supplication was reserved for God alone.13 Here the exclusive nature of the liturgy stands as another hurdle to the nuns’ participation in the Mass, as the faculty of hearing also becomes an unfeasible option of experience in addition to their inability to gaze upon the sacred stage of the altar.
The faculties of taste and touch can also be dismissed as alternative options of sensory experience for the nuns, as the architecture of the nuns’ choir at Donna Regina does not allow for a procession towards the high altar for the nuns to receive the blessed sacrament. There is also no evidence to suggest that there was a small opening in the apse that could potentially be used for the passage of the consecrated Host to the sisters.14
While it is possible that the church could have been periodically closed to the public for the celebration of a private Mass for the sisters, all services incorporating the laity would have barred the nuns from the physical reception of the Eucharist. The Poor Clares would !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
12 Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 56. 13 While the inability to hear the prayer of consecration could also be extended to the laity residing in the lower nave of the church, it is essential to note that these congregants could still focus their gaze upon the priest and the altar, which would not have been an option for the nuns residing in the choir. 14 Bruzelius 1992, 84. Bruzelius notes that in the coro di Santa Chiara at San Damiano, located to the right of the altar, a small opening was made in the back of the apse wall to facilitate the hearing of the service. While this aperture did not permit the viewing of the Mass, the opening in the grille could have been used for the passage of the consecrated Host to the enclosed sisters. ! ")! have entered and exited the choir through the same passageway leading from the cloister, and would have been kept at a lengthy distance from the Eucharistic celebration. Thus the essential question becomes: How could the enclosed nuns participate in the liturgy of the
Mass when the sensory faculties of sight, hearing, taste, and touch were barred to them on the basis of gender?15 Bynum alludes to a potential solution by stating, “The more church architecture, liturgical practice, and priestly power contrived to make the elements seem distant, the more some people luxuriated in them in private, ecstatic experiences.”16 For the Clarissan community of Donna Regina, active participation in the Mass was an unfeasible option due to the manner in which the nuns’ physical senses were inhibited by the limitations of enclosure. Private ecstatic devotions provided an outlet for the enclosed viewer to transcend her corporeal senses by engaging in an interior seeing and feeding within the confines of her imagination. In the vita contemplativa of the female viewer, the bonds of segregational enclosure dissolve, as the Passion images serve as intercessory portals leading to communion with the body of Christ.
The designers behind the layout fresco program must have been aware of the nuns’ visual obstruction to viewing the Eucharist, which would explain their decision to open the Passion sequence with two scenes illustrating the Lord breaking bread with the apostles.17 While the Last Supper scene is in very poor condition and hardly discernible,
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15 The ability to smell must be eliminated from this list of obstructed senses, as the nuns would have presumably been able to smell the burning of incense from the choir. 16 Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 59. Also see Jeffrey Hamburger, “Art, Enclosure, and the Cura Monialium: Prolegomena in the Guise of a Postscript,” Gesta 31:2 (1992), 122-123. 17 See Donal Cooper and Janet Robson, The Making of Assisi: The Pope, the Franciscans and the Painting of the Basilica, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013) 1-15. Cooper and Robson contend that friars could have served as advisors to artists working on the design of the fresco program at the Basilica of San Francesco. Select friars with impressive academic backgrounds, significant social status, and extensive political connections frequently held these positions. Given that the Franciscan vow of poverty prohibited ! "*! the following episode documenting the Communion of the Apostles (Fig. 5) shows Christ and several of his apostles standing around a semi-circular cenacle table.18 A textile covering has been stretched across the surface of the table mimicking an altar cloth, while four round loaves of bread are placed on top of the cenacle in a cruciform arrangement.
Although the restored sixteenth century ceiling has cut off the top of the fresco painting, the viewer can only assume Christ’s central location at the head of the table, as the gathered apostles fixate their eyes upon this seat of power. Here Christ is presented as the original celebrant of the Mass as he offers his own body and blood for the spiritual nourishment of his beloved brethren.
In returning to the Clarissan audience of these frescoes, who would have gazed upon this image for prolonged periods of time in the privacy of their enclosed choir loft, one can only imagine the reaction sparked within the nuns, as their visual obstruction was remedied and they were provided with an opportunity to gaze upon the consecrated Host.
The manner in which the semi-circular cenacle is pushed up against the picture plane also aids the female viewers in their virtual pilgrimage, allowing them to feel as if they too are invited to the Eucharistic banquet.
The Poor Clares’ Infrequent Reception of the Eucharist !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! friars from handling money directly, ‘suitable and faithful’ laymen were appointed to handle monetary transactions on their behalf. 18 See Adrian Hoch, “The ‘Passion’ Cycle: Images to Contemplate and Imitate amid Clarissan Clausura,” in The Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina: Art, Iconography and Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Naples, edited by Janice Elliott and Cordelia Warr (United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2004), 142-145. Hoch argues that Donna Regina’s Communion of the Apostles is one of the earliest known Western examples of this episode, as it was originally of Eastern origin. This Passion narrative is based off a series of passages found in the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 26: 20, 26-28; Mark 14: 17, 22-24; Luke 22: 13-15, 19-20. ! ! #+!
Research suggests that the conventual community at Donna Regina would have waited a considerable amount of time before they were provided with an opportunity to physically receive communion. Clarissan convents were by no means self-sustaining entities, as they depended upon their Franciscan brothers for the institution of the sacraments and these clerical visits undoubtedly took a backseat to the order’s chief mission of public preaching. One must also keep in mind how differently the Eucharist was practiced during the late medieval period. Access to the Eucharist and the physical ingestion of Christ’s body was not offered as a daily gift, but was treated with such an acute degree of reverence that infrequent reception became the prescribed norm. Miri
Rubin captures the tenor of Eucharistic veneration present in medieval society by stating, the Eucharist “was not simply accessible, and was not frequently to be consumed.
Communion was taught as an annual duty, which could be taken perhaps thrice a year on the major feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, but only after due penance and preparation.”19
While Rubin’s preceding statement speaks to the restricted Eucharistic access faced by the laity, this obstacle would have been further complicated by the limitations of enclosure, as the Franciscan order required papal approval before entering the convents and needed the accompaniment of at least two clerical advisors to safeguard them from acting upon carnal desires toward members of the opposite sex.20 The fear of falling to the desires of the flesh was a mutual concern shared by the Clarissan sisters and their
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19 Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 147-148. 20 Klaus Schreiner, “Pastoral Care in Female Monasteries: Sacramental Services, Spiritual Edification,” in Crown and Veil: Female Monasticism from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Centuries, edited by Jeffrey Hamburger and Susan Marti (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 227, 238. ! #"! founder, as Jeryldene Wood describes how Saint Clare instituted certain requirements to fortify the strict observance of enclosure during her tenure as abbess at San Damiano, believing that “sequestration protected the nuns from physical and psychological dangers alike, that is, from actual molestation and from secular temptations that could be prompted with contact from outsiders.”21 Given this mutually held desire for a strict separation of the sexes, the images thus serve as intermediaries between the friars and their Clarissan pupils, as they articulate Franciscan doctrine and offer a means to virtually participate in the liturgy without violating carefully constructed gender boundaries.
The frescoes at Donna Regina would encourage the enclosed viewer to immerse herself in a form of continued contemplation, which would allow her to be mystically transported to the setting of Christ’s Passion. This is a cerebral pilgrimage that occurs within the imagination of the cloistered viewer, thus allowing her to engage in an outer- body experience that surpasses the limits of time. The Meditationes Vitae Christi, argued to be the written source of inspiration behind the frescoes in the nuns’ choir,22 defines the process of performative vision, as the Franciscan author instructs his Clarissan reader to enter imaginatively into the scene and to feel as though “you are present in those places !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
21 Wood, Women Art, and Spirituality, 37. Wood continues by describing how Clare established requirements concerning the number of locks and bolts for the entrance to the convent, the curtains preventing even a glimpse of the women behind the grille of the parlatorio, as well as strictures concerning visitation privileges. For a discussion on protecting one’s vision, see Camille 2000, 206. Camille’s argument forces scholars to contemplate how forfeiting control of one’s senses can also be seen as another defense mechanism against falling into lascivious behavior. Augustine, for instance, contended that “the senses were dangerous open doorways reaching out to embrace cupidity, bridges between world and body that have to be strictly guarded.” By willingly submitting themselves to a life of perpetual enclosure, Clarissan nuns also renounced complete control of their vision. The enclosed sisters only saw what the presiding clerical authority wanted them to see, which resulted in an ocular filtration separating the sacred from the profane. By rendering themselves invisible to the lay population and sacrificing their view of the altar, the nuns of Donna Regina engaged in an asceticism of vision, in which their eyes only encountered the holy images surrounding the worship space. 22 Hoch (2004), 129. Emile Bertaux is credited as the first scholar to propose this argument in his 1906 study on the fresco program of Donna Regina.! ! ##! as if the things were done in your presence, as it comes directly to your soul in thinking of them.”23 The frescoes at Donna Regina provided the Poor Clares with a privileged vantage point to witness the sacred drama of the Passion.
The fresco cycle necessitates a prolonged and penetrative gaze, as multiple episodes occur within a single frame and are densely populated with a host of characters ranging from Christ’s tormentors to members of his mourning entourage. The nuns would have been instructed to begin their contemplation by meditating on the humanity of
Christ, which is embodied most clearly in his Passion. Therefore, it is no mistake that the
Clarissan community would have immediately confronted the Passion frescoes upon entering the choir, as this image sequence marked the beginning of their contemplative journey.24 The enclosed nature of the choir would have enhanced the nuns’ meditation, providing them with an isolated atmosphere free from distraction, as they communed for hours upon hours with these paintings. Given the artists’ decision to condense multiple episodes within an individual frame, navigating through the image sequence becomes a rather painstaking process. Cathleen Fleck argues that this devotional endeavor required an advanced level of visual and textual literacy on the part of the female viewer, thus requiring her to move back and forth between the inscriptions bordering the images and the frescoes themselves in order to understand the complicated chronological and spatial
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23 Isa Ragusa and Rosalie B. Green, eds., Mediations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, trans. Isa Ragusa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 387. 24 The author of the Meditationes outlines three levels of contemplation to his Clarissan reader in her path to spiritual ascension by stating, “There are three kinds of contemplation… Two are for the perfect: they are the contemplation of the majesty of God and the contemplation of the celestial court. The third is for beginners, those who are not perfect in the contemplation of the humanity of Christ, on which I write for you in this little book. And therefore you must begin from this if you wish to climb to the highest,” (Ragusa and Green, Meditationes, 260).! ! #$! progression of the episodes.25 Fleck’s astute observation is very convincing, especially as the viewer moves from the Communion of the Apostles to the much more crowded frames below.
A prime example attesting to the difficulty in reading the Donna Regina images can be found in the sixth scene of the Lord’s Passion, as four different episodes are simultaneously conflated under one architectural roof (Fig. 6). While the inscriptions to this frame are illegible due to damage and deterioration, the episodes appear to read from right to left, beginning with the Derision and First Stripping of Christ, then moving to
Christ’s appearance before Annas and Caiaphas, followed by the Denial of Saint Peter, and culminating in the Flagellation in the far left corner of the building. While each one of these episodes deserves its own proper consideration, the viewer must also notice the weeping women located on the far right-hand side of the picture frame. These grief- stricken women have been barred from entering the palace of the high priest and are thus isolated from the action occurring inside. The viewer is left to imagine how the female entourage would have presumably heard the torments from outside, but would have been unable to be physically present with Christ in his hour of travail. The vision of these women is obstructed in a manner remarkably similar to the Clarissan sisters of Donna
Regina, as both party’s eyes are shielded on the basis of gender.
Before delving deeper into the Passion cycle, it is essential to pause and consider the degree to which this female mourning party and their ocular obstruction would have
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25 Cathleen Fleck, “’To exercise yourself in these things by continued contemplation’: Visual and Textual Literacy in the Frescoes at Santa Maria Donna Regina,” in The Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina: Art, Iconography and Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Naples, edited by Janice Elliott and Cordelia Warr (United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2004), 113-114. ! #%! captivated the cloistered viewers. The nuns would have fixated upon the Virgin and her female entourage, as Mary would have been the prescribed target of their reverential gaze and a template to emulate in their own daily devotions. The Poor Clares of Donna Regina would have been instructed by their Franciscan brothers to model themselves after the
Virgin, as she is the epitome of perfect obedience and the ideal exemplum to follow in living the contemplative life. The author of the Meditationes prescribes this imitatio
Mariae to his enclosed reader as he states:
Therefore one must remain firm in action, and silent, following the example of Mary, however and how often one is beseeched, and by her example let the Lord reply and act, so that all things are committed to most worthy providence.26
In returning to the frescoes with this Marian emphasis in mind, it is safe to assume that the Clarissan audience would have been enthralled by the Virgin’s presence in these
Passion scenes. They would have gravitated to the Virgin, who presses her hand against the palace door in an attempt to gain entry, and would have empathized with her visual obstruction.27 As the Passion cycle continues in the following two frames, it is striking to observe how the disconnection between the Blessed Mother and her son continues, as the
Virgin is able see Christ, but is unable to embrace him. The repetition of the front façade of the high priest’s palace on the left side of the frame suggests that the narrative is to be read from left to right, as Christ is pulled by a rope tied in a noose around his neck toward the palace of Pilate (Fig. 7). Meanwhile the Virgin observes this inhumane cruelty from a
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26 Ragusa and Green, Meditationes, 275. 27 While some scholars have identified Mary as the woman who sits against the outer door of the high priest, I concur with Adrian Hoch’s proposition that the Virgin is the woman standing against the door, attempting to gain entrance to the setting of her son’s trial. See Hoch (2004), 134.! ! #&! distance, as she and her accompanying entourage reside deep in the background. While an exchange of glances seems to occur here between mother and son, the outstretched hands of the Virgin evidence a yearning for physical embrace, which is prohibited due to the tormentors surrounding Christ on all sides. As a result, one sensory impediment is substituted for another, as the Virgin’s veil of sight is replaced by her inability to touch.
The distance between the two figures continues in the following three episodes, as
Christ exits Pilate’s palace and ascends the hill to be tried by Herod, then returns to the palatial quarters where he is crowned with thorns and sentenced to death before embarking upon the road to Calvary (Fig. 8). Throughout this sequence, the Virgin retains the role of sorrowful observer as she witnesses the monstrosities from three to four rows deep in the crowd.28 While privileged access to Christ is secured on the basis of power, viewers cannot disregard the manner in which the crowd is separated by gender.
In these opening scenes, male characters always reside in close proximity to Christ, while the mourning women observe rather helplessly from afar. The Virgin’s distance from
Christ in these scenes does not relegate her to a passive bystander, as her disposition evolves from one of controlled sorrow to a histrionic display of despair. These gestures of raw emotion intensify the closer the Virgin moves toward Christ, thus presenting her as a lightning rod of compassion to be emulated as she shortens the spatial gap between her and her son.
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28 The distance between Christ and the Virgin remains in line with the devotional text, as the author of the Meditationes states, “These women who cannot draw near follow at a distance,” and continues by stating, “His sorrowful mother not approach Him or even see Him, on account of the multitude of people,” (Ragusa and Green, Meditationes, 328; 331-332). ! #'!
A critical moment occurs in the ninth frame of the Passion cycle as Christ is ordered to remove his garment for the third time (Figs. 9-10). Here the physical distance between the Virgin and her son has been virtually eliminated, as Mary stands directly behind Christ while he bends forward to disrobe. Before the centurion is able to pull off the sleeves of Christ’s mantle, the Virgin has already concealed his nudity with the veil from her head. This conflation of two separate actions (clothing and disrobing) presents the Virgin fulfilling the roles of mother and priest simultaneously, as she acts swiftly to save her son from further embarrassment, while also preparing his body for impending sacrifice. The Virgin’s priestly role can be explored further by noting the manner in which she clothes Christ, as she wraps the linen garment around his waist, but refrains from touching his bare skin. By clothing Christ’s body in this cautious manner, the Virgin evokes the posture held by a priest in the procession of the consecrated Host. Before elevating the monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament, the priest leading the procession would need to wrap the vessel with the linen of his outer vestment, as he would have been strictly prohibited from touching it with his bare hands (Fig. 11). In approaching Christ’s body with this same reverential treatment, the Virgin mirrors the liturgical rite performed by the priest, thereby clothing the consecrated Host as it is in the process of movement.
The processional quality of the Passion sequence comes to a halt in the adjacent episode depicting Christ’s Ascent of the Cross (Fig. 9), as the viewer is presented with an elevation scene. Here Christ’s body is raised on a rectangular platform braced by four men, while several executioners thrust seven support staffs into his right oblique area to balance his body in its ascent. A centurion surmounted atop the horizontal beam of the ! #(! cross also engages in this torment by pulling Christ upwards by his hair and the point of his beard. The means by which this elevation occurs is rather striking, especially when considering the executioners’ employment of the rectangular platform, which must be acknowledged as an iconographical innovation on the part of the Donna Regina artists.
Unlike preceding Italian compositions illustrating this Passion theme, Christ does not ascend the cross here by climbing a ladder, but is forcibly raised to the instrument of his death.29 As a result, the Clarissan viewer is graced with an image showcasing the elevation of the consecrated Host, thus restoring a sight once obstructed by the limitations of enclosure.
By entering into this scene via her vita contemplativa, the Clarissan nun is able to escape the bonds of enclosure and its sensory obstructions, as she is imaginatively carried to the original altar of Christ’s Passion. The once insurmountable distance between the nuns’ choir and the high altar is thus rectified, as the final destination of this pilgrimage is the hallowed ground on which the atoning sacrifice was originally performed. Once arriving at Golgotha in her contemplative reverie, the enclosed viewer’s imitatio Mariae instills her with an extraordinary degree of agency, providing her with the opportunity to not only gaze upon the consecrated Host with unobstructed vision, but also affording her the priestly license to participate in the sacrifice itself. During a time when women were excluded from the area around the altar and strictly prohibited from touching the liturgical vessels or altar cloth unless they had been left for them to clean, an interactive !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
29 For a detailed discussion on this Passion theme in late medieval Italian art, please see Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 145-157. In Derbes’ survey of several late duecento examples of the Ascent, the ladder is normally reserved for Christ alone, as he is either shown being prodded by his executioners in his ascent or willingly embraces this climb on his own accord. While the Donna Regina composition does include a ladder, it appears to be intended solely for use by the Roman centurions, as it is braced against the posterior side of the cross. ! #)! devotion that provided imaginative access to restricted spaces and offered tangible interaction with forbidden objects would have seemed quite revolutionary.
Given that the area around the altar was reserved exclusively for the male clergy, it is essential to note the manner in which the Donna Regina frescoes challenge this misogynistic precept. In the Ascent of the Cross and the Crucifixion, the Virgin and her female entourage no longer reside deep in the background, but are now located almost directly beneath the cross. Their close proximity to Christ in these episodes suggests that they are the privileged audience of the sacrificial event. The highly dramatic poses that the Virgin exudes in these frames articulate an emotional agony so great that it induces fainting. What is especially noteworthy about the Donna Regina Passion cycle is the repetition of the Virgin’s swoon.30 The Virgin swoons three times throughout the image sequence beginning with the Way to Calvary (Fig. 8), then in the Ascent of the Cross
(Fig. 9), and finally in the Crucifixion (Fig. 12). The repetition of this pose is a clear deviation from the textual account, as the author of the Meditationes writes of this event occurring only once at the moment when Christ’s side is pierced by the lance of the
Roman centurion, Longinus. While the reoccurrence of the swoon creates a focal point for the nun to direct her empathetic gaze, the female viewer would have noticed the drastic change in the Virgin’s swoon at the Crucifixion. Instead of falling backward into the arms of the Magdalene and her female attendants, the Virgin falls forward to the ground extending her arms forward to brace her fall (Fig. 13). The headlong descent of this posture carries a priestly connotation, as the Virgin mimics the pose of priests who
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30 For a detailed exploration into the symbolism behind the Virgin’s swoon, see Amy Neff, “The Pain of Compassio: Mary’s Labor at the Foot of the Cross,” Art Bulletin 80.2 (1998), 254-273. ! #*! lay prostrate before the altar during the celebration of the Passion of the Lord on Good
Friday (Fig. 14).31
The Lamentation (Fig. 15) presents a wonderful conclusion to the contemplative journey of the Clarissan nun, as the Virgin holds the deceased body of Christ in her arms.
The intimacy of this episode is undeniable as Mary braces Christ’s head in her lap, while pressing him closer to her chest by wrapping her left arm around his waist. As the Virgin stares into the lifeless eyes of her son, the meditation reaches its climax, as the viewer is graced with an image in which to adore the consecrated body of the Lord. This closing scene restores the sensation of touch within the mind’s eye of the cloistered viewer, as she is able to grasp the body of her beloved in an imaginative embrace, thus concluding the Passion drama with the reception of the body of Christ.
For the Clarissan community of Santa Maria Donna Regina, these images serve as intercessory portals, which serve to aid the nuns in transcending the limitations of enclosure by providing the necessary spiritual sustenance until they are able to receive the Host in the flesh. By visually accessing the Passion frescoes and engaging in the contemplative practice of performative vision, the cloistered nun is able to embark on a virtual pilgrimage to the original altar of Golgotha, and is provided with an unobstructed view to witness the sacred drama of the Mass like never before.
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31 The pose of prostration the Virgin exudes shares a remarkable similarity to a miniature in which Saint Dominic lies prostrate before an animated crucifix, which spews blood from the wound in Christ’s side. This image is found in a fifteenth-century illustrated manuscript of Saint Dominic’s De modo orandi, which was a treatise written by the founder instructing novices of the order on private prayer and meditation. William Hood argues that Dominic’s “De modo orandi rests on the clearly articulated notion that specific states of mystical consciousness can be stimulated by deliberately assuming bodily postures.” Dominic contended that the act of prostration could provoke a feeling of compunction within the devotee. See William Hood, “Saint Dominic’s Manners of Praying: Gestures in Fra Angelico’s Cell Frescoes at S. Marco,” Art Bulletin 68.2 (1986), 198. ! $+!
Chapter 2 Constructing an Interior Monstrance: The Eucharistic Dimension of Performative Vision
While the previous chapter focused on how performative vision functions during the public recitation of the liturgy, this chapter will explore how the devotional exercise continues as the setting shifts from the public to the private sphere of worship.
Paraliturgical devotion can be broadly defined as any form of worship that occurs outside the context of the liturgy. Communal reading within the convent or a nun’s own personal engagement with illustrated devotional manuscripts falls into this category of religious observance, since the female contemplative is able to glean spiritual fruit that builds upon the canonical truths communicated within the liturgy. Illustrated devotional manuals like the Meditationes vitae Christi aided the pastoral care of nuns because they provided a visual portal through which nuns might commune with the sacrificial body of Christ.
Oxford Corpus Christi College MS 410 is an illustrated manuscript copy of the
Meditationes Vitae Christi, made in the middle of the fourteenth century (c. 1350) for a
Franciscan nun. The manuscript is extensively illustrated throughout, and its illuminated miniatures are placed in direct conversation with the devotional text. This consistent text- image pairing creates a fluid partnership, in which both mediums work in concert with one another to allow the reader to engage in the edifying practice of performative and empathetic vision. While the iconographical program of MS 410 is comprised of 154 ! $"! illustrations, this chapter will concentrate upon the series of miniatures illustrating the sixth and ninth hours of the Passion of Christ. By providing a window into the pastoral care of fourteenth century Franciscan nuns, this study will seek to highlight how MS 410 would have been employed to aid its female reader in responding to the difficulties associated with her infrequent celebration of the Eucharist. Careful analysis of the iconography will illustrate how the devotional practice of performative vision provided the cloistered nun the opportunity to visually consume the consecrated Host. Her participation in the imitatio Mariae would have allowed the reader to construct an interior monstrance within the confines of her imagination.
Performative vision is a mode of participatory meditation that extends far beyond the faculty of physical sight. The author of the Meditationes instructs his female reader to dwell upon the provided miniatures with the whole light of her mind, and by the eyes of her watchful heart.1 This devotional exercise requires a prolonged and penetrating gaze,2 with the Clarissan reader being implored to enter imaginatively into the Passion narrative, and “heed all these things as though [she] were present.”3 After her mystical arrival at
Golgotha, the reader’s participation is again prompted by textual cues commanding an
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1 Isa Ragusa and Rosalie B. Green, eds., Mediations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, trans. Isa Ragusa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 317. 2 See Thomas Lentes, “’As far as the eye can see…’: Rituals of Gazing in the Late Middle Ages,” in The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, edited by Jeffrey Hamburger and Anne- Marie Bouchè (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 362. Also see Cynthia Hahn, “Visio Dei: Changes in Medieval Spirituality,” in Visuality Before and Beyond The Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw, edited by Robert S. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 174. Lentes and Hahn discuss a similar theory called the extramission theory of sight. Hahn describes the theory by stating when a viewer visualizes an object, a ray emits from the eye and travels beyond to encounter its visual object, the ray is then shaped by that visual object, and finally returns to the eye. Lentes discusses a manner of gazing where images penetrated the eye and were then engraved upon the interior, imago Dei, of the viewer. In both summations, there appears to be this clear sense of ocular consumption as the viewer gazes upon the visual object. 3 Ragusa and Green, Meditations, 320.! ! $#! empathetic response. The nun is repeatedly adjured to weep and feel compassion for
Christ in his hour of travail.4 By engaging in this affective devotion, the female reader is assured that she will receive “new compassion, new love, new solace, and then a new condition of sweetness that would seem to her a promise of glory.”5
MS 410 and the Pastoral Care of Clarissan Nuns
MS 410 is rightly understood as a devotional book designed to provide instruction for the prayer life of a cloistered reader, as the border of the first folio shows saint Francis exposing the wound in his side to a female figure dressed in the habit of a Franciscan nun, who turns to him with her hands clasped in supplication.6 Now that the question of audience has been established, attention must be directed to the pastoral care of the convents and the manner in which the friars attended to the spiritual needs of their female counterparts. Although convents were physically separate from the monasteries of the male clergy, they were by no means autonomous, self-sustaining entities. Nuns were completely dependent upon their male brethren in receiving certain spiritual necessities, since their gender excluded them from exercising priestly duties, such as the celebration of Mass and the sacrament of reconciliation. Flora touches upon the dilemma of male sacramental dependency by stating, “The frequency of advisory visits by the friars seems to have varied greatly from convent to convent, and in some places friars only saw the nuns a few times a year for the necessary performing of sacraments.”7 The evidence of infrequent visitations forces one to speculate what might have been the cause of such !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4 Flora, The Devout Belief of the Imagination, 46. 5 Ragusa and Green, Meditations, 317. 6 Holly Flora, “Empathy and Performative Vision in Oxford Corpus Christi College MS 410,” Ikon: A Journal of Iconographic Studies (vol. 3, 2010): pg. 2. 7 Flora, The Devout Belief of the Imagination, 42. ! $$! behavior and the answer is two-fold: (1) catering to the spiritual needs of the nuns was seen as a distraction to the friar’s mission of preaching, and (2) both parties were extremely sensitive to prolonged contact with members of the opposite sex and viewed interspersed visits to be a safeguard tactic against falling prey to the desires of the flesh.
Klaus Schreiner alludes to both of the aforementioned concerns by noting that although saint Francis assured the Clarissan nuns of his intention to look after them with loving care, this did not prevent him from admonishing his brothers in the Regula Bullata
(c. 1223) to not enter the convents unless they received permission from the pope.8 Once receiving authorization to enter the convent, priests were to be accompanied by two deacons while performing confession, which was conducted in public and in plain sight of all the other nuns to defend against malicious gossip.9 Thus an advisory visit to a convent was by no means a simple task, since it required papal approval and/or at the least an accompanying entourage. In light of these obstacles, an illustrated manuscript could thus address the needs of both the friars and their enclosed sisters. The instruction provided within the book could satisfy the nuns until a more convenient time presented itself for the friars to visit, while the rich image program offered its female reader food for contemplation until she was able to ingest the literal Host.
The Imitatio Mariae: Images of Maternal Compassion
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8 Klaus Schreiner, “Pastoral Care in Female Monasteries: Sacramental Services, Spiritual Edification,” in Crown and Veil: Female Monasticism from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Centuries, edited by Jeffrey Hamburger and Susan Marti (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 238. 9 Schreiner 2008, 227. ! $%!
The author of the Meditationes repeatedly exhorts his Clarissan reader to pattern her devotions after the Virgin.10 Mary is presented as the female role model for nuns to follow in living the contemplative life, since she is the ideal embodiment of moral virtue, guiding the viewer along the path of holiness. By emulating the Virgin in her private devotion, the cloistered pupil is taught integral lessons on silence, obedience, charity, love of poverty, and compassion.11 In tandem with this moral instruction, the intimate bond shared between mother and son establishes Mary as the primary intercessor to
Christ. By becoming the focal point of the reader’s gaze, the Virgin eases the viewer’s imaginative insertion into the biblical scene, and ameliorates the limitations associated with her cloistered vocation. This virtual pilgrimage allows the nun to travel beyond the walls of the convent to experience a variety of roles and emotions. A nun’s imitatio
Mariae allows her to conquer her corporeal obstruction by providing a path in which the novice can be led to a spiritual vision of the sacred mysteries.
The iconographic program of MS 410 depicting the sixth hour of Christ’s Passion is comprised of twelve miniatures. Both sides of each folio contain text-image pairings to spark the imagination of the viewer. This analysis will focus on the specific miniatures in which the Virgin plays a dynamic role through her empathetic action and outward display of emotion. The manuscript presents the movement of the Virgin throughout the image sequence. She is shown clothing Christ with the veil from her head, titling her head downward, wrenching her arms in agony, swooning into the arms of her fellow maidens, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
10 Ragusa and Green, Meditationes, 275. 11 Flora, Devout Belief of Imagination, 44. See also Holly Flora and Arianna Pecorini Cignoni, “Requirements of Devout Contemplation: Text and Image for the Poor Clares in Trecento Pisa,” Gesta 45.1 (2006), 66. Flora and Cignoni cite the following passage from the Meditationes to describe the virtue of silence: “Learn by this example to remain silent and to love taciturnity, as this virtue is great and very beneficial… For a loquacious virgin is an odious thing” (Ragusa and Green, Meditationes, 17-18).! ! $&! and receiving the lifeless body of her son at the Deposition. These actions are coupled by the artist’s deviation from the equipoise composition, in which the Virgin and John the
Evangelist stand flanking opposing sides of the cross. While the traditional arrangement is shown in the miniature on folio 137v , the illustrations on folios 137r and 140r depict the Virgin to the right of the cross alongside the Beloved Disciple. Alterations in the
Virgin’s location are coupled by continuous changes in posture, since Mary is shown standing, fainting, or sitting to either side of the cross. In essence, the Virgin is able to gaze upon the crucified body of Christ from multiple vantage points. This prismatic array of perspectives would have been quite appealing to an enclosed reader who considered the gift of sight to be an invaluable commodity.
This affective devotion provides the chaste reader an opportunity to experience motherhood and the pain of compassion associated with the loss of a child. The participatory nature of the Meditationes commands the cloistered viewer to enter into the scene and share in the Virgin’s emotional agony. Here the exhaustive nature of the text enhances the contemplative experience by describing every minute detail of the Lord’s
Passion. The devotional text thus becomes a counterpart to the partnering image, with both mediums working together to catalyze the mind’s eye of the viewer. Folio 135v illustrates this point precisely by capturing Christ’s Ascent of the Cross (Fig. 16). Christ is shown in the center of the miniature climbing the ladder, which is braced against the cross. An executioner straddles the crossbeam and aids Christ in his ascent by bracing his left arm, while two centurions wearing chainmail hoods observe the action from behind.
The scene is set against a red backdrop, decorated with blue and yellow geometric designs arranged in a checkered pattern. The diminutive cross pales in comparison to the ! $'! size of the figures on the left side of the composition. In folio 135v, the artist has purposefully directed the nun’s attention to the action that is occurring between the
Virgin and Christ. Here the cloistered viewer is graced with a maternal image of the
Virgin clothing Christ with the veil from her head.12
The clothing of Christ in the miniature is balanced by the textual narrative, which captures the mood of the scene by stating,
Now for the first time the Mother beholds her Son thus taken and prepared for the anguish of death. She is saddened and shamed beyond measure when she sees Him entirely nude: they did not leave Him even His loincloth. Therefore she hurries and approaches the Son, embraces Him, and girds Him with the veil from her head.13 While the nudity of Christ symbolizes another level of suffering in the form of humiliation, a Poor Clare would have understood the image to exemplify the central tenet of her order – the vow of poverty. Renunciation of the world and entrance into a life of poverty was a pledge that was to be taken willingly, thus mirroring Christ’s Ascent of the
Cross.14 A cloistered nun would have noticed Christ’s affixed stare upon the upper rung of the ladder, his outstretched right arm, and his straddled stance, while he climbed the terrain of Golgotha without being prodded from behind. Contemplating Christ’s nudity and willing ascent would have reminded many sisters of their own renunciation of a life of nobility, hearkening back to the moment when they disrobed themselves of societal expectations and entered a life of prayer and meditation.
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12 While this maternal response conceals the naked body of Christ, it also hearkens back to nativity imagery where the Virgin wraps the Christ child in swaddling clothes. 13 Ragusa and Green, Meditations, 333. 14 Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 155. ! $(!
The enclosed reader could also imagine herself in the guise of the Virgin clothing
Christ’s body with the veil from her head. By engaging in such empathetic vision, a nun’s imitatio Mariae would present an opportunity to prepare the body of Christ for sacrifice.
This dynamic ability is a perfect example of living the vita activa through one’s vita contemplativa, since the reader is able to sense the weight of suffering shared between mother and son, while also assuming the newly expanded role of priest. Klaus Schreiner discusses the limitations placed upon nuns in the preparation of the Mass by quoting the words of Peter Abelard (c. 1079-1142) who stated, “Neither the nun fulfilling the duties of sacristan, nor any other nun should be allowed to touch the relics or the altar vessels or the altar cloth, except if they have been left to them to clean.”15 By entering into the scene of folio 135v with her mind’s eye, a nun would be able to transcend these restrictions and assume a priestly role.16 Here the Virgin’s posture evokes the pose that would have been held by a priest in the procession of the consecrated Host. Before elevating the monstrance for procession, a priest would need to wrap the vessel with the linen of his outer vestment because he would have been strictly prohibited from touching it with his bare hands. The Virgin’s clothing of Christ in folio 135v mirrors this liturgical
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15 Schreiner 2006, 234. 16 For an expanded discussion on the priestly presentation of the Virgin, see Flora, The Belief of the Imagination, pp. 101-115. Flora notes a miniature from the fourteenth-century Italian manuscript, Ms. Ital 115, in which the Virgin performs the circumcision of Christ (fol. 24v). The performance of this sacrificial rite was normally restricted to priests, but here the Virgin clearly assumes the priestly role. A similar example is also shown in MS 410, as three unidentified women of the Virgin’s entourage perform the circumcision of Christ, while the Virgin reclines in a manger in the miniature above (folio 15v). Although it is impossible to identify the woman performing the circumcision, the fact that a female is wielding the knife is very significant. Flora points out another priestly portrayal of the Virgin in the presentation in the temple (Ms. Ital 115, fol. 34v), where the Virgin carries the Christ child in procession, then kneels and places him on the altar, thus mirroring the priest’s presentation and elevation of the Host. For information on the Virgin’s priestly role in relation to the Eucharist, see Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 142-147. Rubin compiles a list of Eucharistic prayers and hymns, which liken the Virgin to an oven for the breaking of bread, thereby making her a worthy receptacle for the consecrated Host and the initial celebrant of the Eucharist. ! $)! rite, since both examples illustrate a covering of the Blessed Sacrament, while it is in the process of movement.
Contemplating the Humanity of Christ
The eight miniatures that follow the Ascent of the Cross are all images of Christ’s
Crucifixion. The attention paid to this particular episode showcases a novel feature of the manuscript. The reader is confronted with eight illustrations in succession of Christ’s crucified body. The frequency of this image signifies that the advisors of the manuscript desired to communicate a didactic message to the cloistered viewer, while she is encouraged to contemplate the humanity of Christ. The contemplation of the Christ’s human nature would have been prescribed for cloistered females, since they were considered novices in matters of spiritual discipline and their fallen nature was thought to preclude them from understanding visions of the majesty of God.17 This intention is echoed throughout the iconography, with the physicality of Christ being emphasized of throughout each the corresponding miniatures. The Virgin’s veil once used to clothe
Christ’s nude body in folio 135v now sags beneath his pelvic region in folios 137 through
141, exposing his pubic region to the eye of the reader.18 While Christ’s genitals are not shown in any of the images, his corporeal nature appears undeniably pronounced.19 Here
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17 Flora, The Devout Belief of the Imagination, 45. 18 For a discussion on the medieval taboo involving the nudity of Christ with modern comparisons to illustrate proper modes of viewing, see Corine Schleif, “Christ Bared: Problems of Viewing and Powers of Exposing,” in The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art, ed. Sherry C.M. Lindquist (United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 252-278. 19 For an in-depth inquiry into the human nature of Christ and the manner in which it is emphasized in late medieval iconography, see Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicage Press, 1996), pp. 287-297. For a reply to Steinberg, see Caroline Walker Bynum, “The Body of Christ in the Late Middle Ages,” Renaissance Quarterly 39.3 (1986), pp. 399-439. Bynum contends that portraying Christ as an androgynous being makes him equally accessible to both sexes.! ! $*!
Christ’s loincloth reveals as much as it conceals, thus inviting the viewer to gaze upon his sacrificial body.
Transcending the Limitations of Enclosure through Imaginative Mobility
The movement of the Virgin throughout the Passion sequence suggests a mystical encounter with Christ.20 In folio 136v (Fig. 17), she stands to the left of the cross with her hands clasped in prayer. The positioning of the Virgin’s hands along with her concentrated stare direct the viewer’s attention upon Christ’s body, while a stream of blood and water spews forth from the wound in his side. In folio 137r (Fig. 18), the
Virgin has moved to the right of the cross and is shown with her head tilted to the side, and resting upon the shoulder of John the Evangelist. Although the Virgin is unable to gaze upon the horror above, the placement of her feet behind the hillock suggests that she would have had to walk behind the cross in order to embrace John, thereby presenting another angle of perspective. The Virgin soon returns to her original location in folio
137v (Fig. 19) with her arms outstretched in the orans position. Here the blush once present in her cheeks has now all but faded, with the pallor of the Virgin’s skin alluding to her forthcoming swoon in folio 139r (Fig. 20).21
The Virgin’s alternating location and continuous movement throughout the image program is especially striking when considering the vow of enclosure. In her article,
“Time and Space: Liturgy and Rite in Female Monasteries of the Middle Ages,” Gisela !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
20 For a recent study examining the concept of movement as a crucial component in the experience of art and architecture, see Meaning in Motion: The Semantics of Movement in Medieval Art, edited by Nino Zchomelidse and Giovanni Freni (Princeton: Princeton University, 2011). 21 For more information on the Virgin’s swoon, see Amy Neff, “The Pain of Compassio: Mary’s Labor at the Foot of the Cross,” Art Bulletin 80.2 (1998), pp. 254-273. Neff interprets the Virgin’s swoon to be an hour of travail that parallels the Passion of Christ. Here the Virgin experiences the pangs of childbirth, which she eludes in the Annunciation, as she gives birth to the salvation of mankind at Calvary.!! ! %+!
Muschiol points out that enclosed structures, such as a nuns’ choir or an elevated gallery, were designed to satisfy ecclesiastical legislation, mandating the exclusion of women from the area around the altar.22 If one understands the celebration of the Eucharist to be the continual reoccurrence of the sacrifice performed at the Crucifixion, then the altar thus becomes the mount of Calvary, since Christ’s body is again broken and shed for all.
The nun’s engagement in performative vision allows her to break free from the bonds of enclosure through her imitatio Mariae, transporting her to Golgotha in the confines of the imagination, and allowing her free reign to observe the action from multiple perspectives.
Constructing an Interior Monstrance: The Concept of Ocular Communion
The emphasis upon Eucharistic piety is further evidenced by the premature appearance of Christ’s side wound in folio 136v. This detail is a deviation from the textual account of the Meditationes, as the side wound does not occur until after the ninth hour of the Lord’s Passion, when Longinus pierces Christ’s side with his lance. Instead of introducing this attribute in folio 140r (Fig. 21), which illustrates the actual moment of the piercing, the artist of MS 410 elects to draw attention to it from the beginning of the sequence. After the side wound is introduced in folio 136v (Fig. 17) it appears to be a consistent attribute of suffering in the succeeding five miniatures leading up to The Final
Blow in folio 140r. Caroline Walker Bynum elaborates on the fascination with Christ’s side wound in the Later Middle Ages by stating, “Utilizing and heightening themes found in Cistercian, Carthusian, Franciscan, and Dominican (male) piety, women prayed to be
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22 Gisela Muschiol, “Time and Space: Liturgy and Rite in Female Monasteries of the Middle Ages,” in Crown and Veil: Female Monasticism from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Centuries, edited by Jeffrey Hamburger and Susan Marti (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 199. ! %"! incorporated into Christ’s body through the side wound,” since this was considered to be the entrance into Christ’s heart.23
A miniature in the Psalter and Hours of Bonne of Luxembourg (Fig. 22), a French
Book of Hours dated to the mid-1340s, attests to the popularity of this devotional motif.
Here the viewer is brought face to face with a monumental depiction of the side wound of
Christ.24 The wound spans the entire length of the miniature in folio 331r, and is surrounded by the arma Christi, which pale in comparison to the enormity of the open wound. The journey toward the heart of Christ would have been the ultimate desire for the Clarissan viewer, judging by how nuns considered themselves to be his bride and yearned for a heightened sense of intimacy with their beloved sponsus.
While the side wound was believed to be a portal leading to the heart of Christ, the stream of blood and water that spewed forth from it had a vivifying force of its own.
When the craving for experiencing Christ intensified, the reader of MS 410 would have been able to enter the miniature through her imagination and visualize the Eucharistic elements on display. Seeing the stationary body of Christ in repetitive fashion would have enabled the nun to construct an interior monstrance to aid in suppressing the pangs of hunger. In following Bynum’s proposition that “to eat God was to take into one’s self the suffering flesh on the cross,”25 one could argue that this is precisely what occurs in the
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23 Caroline Walker Bynum, “Patterns of Female Piety in the Later Middle Ages,” in Crown and Veil: Female Monasticism from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Centuries, edited by Jeffrey Hamburger and Susan Marti (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 181. 24 For a discussion on the female response to images of Christ’s side wound, see Flora Lewis, “The Wound in Christ’s Side and the Instruments of the Passion: Gendered Experience and Response,” in Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence, edited by Jane H.M. Taylor and Lesley Smith (London: The British Library, 1997), pp. 204-229. 25 Bynum, Holy Feast, 67.! ! %#! exercise of performative vision, as the contemplative visually ingests the sacrificial body of Christ and is satiated with compassion.
The climax of the image program comes in the miniature on folio 142r with the
Deposition of Christ (Fig. 23). Here the deceased body of the Lord is lowered into the arms of the Virgin. While the miniature does not take the form of a traditional pietà composition, since Christ’s feet remain affixed to the cross, the sense of intimacy remains undeniable. The Virgin embraces her son by pressing his outstretched arm to her face and kisses his forearm in lamentation. In the Deposition, the arc of the Eucharistic vision comes to its conclusion with the Virgin physically receiving the consecrated body of the
Lord into her arms.26 The performative experience thus begins with the Virgin assuming a priestly role in the Ascent of the Cross (fol. 135v), then develops into one of empathetic adorer in the miniatures documenting his Crucifixion (fols. 136v, 137r, 137v, 139r, and
140r), and concludes with the physical reception of the Host in the Deposition (fol. 142r).
By engaging in the practice of performative vision, the cloistered reader would have been able to witness the narrative unfold from an intimate perspective. Bynum articulates how spiritual sustenance was thought to gleaned from ocular devotion by stating, “… it is [a] small wonder that medieval mystics considered sounds and sights as crucial to the Eucharistic banquet as eating, or that they sometimes felt they “ate” or
“received” with their eyes or in their minds and hearts.”27 This statement is crucial on two different levels, since it calls attention to the sensory functions that would have been at
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26 A cloistered nun would have found the Virgin’s physical reception of Christ’s body to be very striking, as “women had been prohibited since the days of the early Church from receiving [the Eucharist] in their bare hands.” Bynum, Holy Feast, 56. 27 Bynum, Holy Feast, 61. ! %$! the nun’s disposal, while also serving as contemporary evidence that such a connection was thought to be possible.
In building upon of the notion of imaginative feeding, the infrequent visits by the friars must be joined by the fear of overindulgence in the sacrament, since both factors contributed to the nuns’ sporadic reception of the Eucharist. After the ruling at the Fourth
Lateran Council, many “theologians feared that frequent reception might lead to loss of reverence, to carelessness, even to profanation of the elements.”28 Performative vision could thus have been utilized to defend against going through the motions, thereby forcing the contemplative to actively engage with image and text. The construction of an interior monstrance necessitates such involvement, because the miniature serves as mnemonic trigger for the reader to recall the narrative, while the descriptive nature of the text assists the mind in visualizing the detailed aspects of the image.
The cloistered recipient of MS 410 would have welcomed the active quality of performative vision because it presented an opportunity to engage in the vita activa through her vita contemplativa. Her imaginative insertion into the role of the Virgin allows her to transcend the limitations of enclosure, removing the screen of visual obstruction, and granting her free mobility to survey the events of the Passion with her mind’s eye. This perspective allows the nun to construct a monstrance within the confines
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28 Bynum, Holy Feast, 58. One applicable example comes in the figure of Margaret of Cortona, who frantically begged her confessor for frequent communion, but when given the privilege by Christ, abstained out of terror of unworthiness. See also Caroline Walker Bynum, “Fast, Feast, and Flesh: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women,” Representations, 11 (1985), pp. 11-12. Bynum states that voluntary abstinence from the Eucharist might have been influenced by the antiquated belief that overconsumption was dangerous because it excited lust. Gluttony was thus linked with sexual desire, while abstinence was connected with preserving chastity. ! %%! of her imagination, thus providing her a sense of autonomy, while she is able to visually ingest the consecrated Host in her own private devotion. ! %&!
Chapter 3 “[S]he took the bread into [her] holy and venerable hands…”: The Priestly Presentation of the Virgin in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Ital. 115
In the fourteenth century, ecclesiastical mandates prohibited women from the area surrounding the altar and outlawed them from touching the liturgical vessels and vestments unless they had been left for them to clean. Women were forbidden from approaching the sacerdotal office because their fallen nature was thought to have precluded them from becoming worthy mediators of the salvific sacraments. Given that medieval Christian philosophy identified women as ‘imperfect’ novices in matters of spiritual discipline,1 images of a female performing priestly duties would have been especially captivating. While the previous chapters explored alternative methods in which cloistered nuns experienced the Eucharist in an environment of perpetual enclosure, this chapter will concentrate on the priestly presentation of the Virgin in images commissioned for a Clarissan audience and the intercessory role Mary plays in restoring a nun’s spiritual vision of the Eucharist. By engaging in the practice of performative vision and emulating Mary in the context of her interactive devotion (imitatio Mariae),
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1 Flora, Devout Belief of the Imagination, 45. Flora touches on the medieval sentiment that a woman’s fallen nature precluded her from advancing to higher levels of spiritual enlightenment attainable only by men. While men could potentially contemplate the majesty of God or the celestial court of heaven, women were encouraged to contemplate the humanity of Christ.
! ! %'! the Clarissan nun gains imaginative access to the sacred area of the altar, as the Virgin presents the body of Christ for her unrestricted gaze.
This chapter will examine a series of Eucharistic images in which the Virgin performs actions quite similar to that of a priest. The earliest known illustrated manuscript of the Meditationes Vitae Christi, traditionally known as Paris Biblothèque
Nationale MS. Ital. 115 (ca. 1340-1350), will serve as the principal work of discussion, especially considering how the Virgin is presented as a priestly model throughout select sections of the image program. While the Nativity and Presentation in the Temple sequence of MS ital. 115 will form the major portion of this study, the Virgin’s clothing gesture in the Wellesley College panel (ca. 1290) will serve as a visual counterpart to the priestly actions depicted in the Infancy narrative of the Paris manuscript. I will begin by introducing a Eucharistic reading of MS ital. 115’s Nativity of Christ (fol. 12r and fol.
19v), then will transition to the parallel between a priest’s elevation of the Blessed
Sacrament and the celebrant status of the Virgin in the Paris manuscript’s Presentation sequence (fols. 33v-35r). I will conclude by examining how the Virgin’s clothing gesture in the Wellesley panel mirrors the liturgical rite performed by a priest in the procession of the consecrated Host.
MS. ital. 115 and the Wellesley College panel have been chosen because of their
Italian origin and their probable commission for a Clarissan audience. Assuming these works were intended for the eyes of a cloistered viewer, this chapter will explore the concept of gendered viewing and how a conventual community would have interpreted these extraordinary images. These images are designed to provide the nun an imaginative window in which to observe and participate in the ministry of the altar. By emulating the ! %(!
Virgin in her private devotions, a nun is granted mystical access to the restricted area of the altar, and is able dwell there without forfeiting her cloistered existence.
As previously discussed, in order to participate in the liturgical proceedings,
Clarissan nuns employed devotional images in their quest to re-envision the Eucharist.
Visual substitutes included frescoes painted to adorn the walls of their choir and full-page miniatures found in paraliturgical texts intended for the nuns’ private meditation. MS. ital. 115 falls into this latter category of devotion, since the manuscript’s images might prompt the cloistered viewer to mentally image the Eucharist outside the public recitation of the Mass. The contemplation that occurs outside of worship could be remembered during the performance of the liturgy, and thus even if devotional manuscripts were not used in the choir, their images would inform the nuns’ experiences there.2
MS ital. 115 contains a fluid interplay between textual narrative and image exhorting the female reader to enter into the biblical scene with her mind’s eye and witness the sacred drama as though she were present. While the locus of a nun’s contemplation would focus upon Christ, her vision would also be directed to the Virgin and the manner in which she engages with her son through highly dramatic and maternal gestures. Here the Virgin is presented as the ideal model of empathetic piety, since her interaction with Christ restores a sense of tangibility within the mind of the enclosed viewer. While a nun’s sequestered state would have prevented her from witnessing the
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2 See Lina Bolzoni, The Web of Images: Vernacular Preaching from its Origins to St. Bernardino da Siena, (United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2004). Bolzoni proposes a mnemonic method in which the descriptive language of public preaching allows the listener to recall previously stored images to help enrich the worship experience. ! %)! elevation of the consecrated Host, her interactive devotion vivifies an image in which the
Virgin presents Christ for her unrestricted gaze.
The Virgin as Celebrant: A Model for the Priestly Office
Before delving further into the iconography of MS ital. 115, a selection from
Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias (c. 1151) serves to illustrate how medieval writers connected Mary to the office of the priesthood. While Hildegard’s theology does not attempt to question ecclesiastical doctrine by arguing for the ordination of all females to the priesthood, she does allude to an exception in which women could theoretically gain access to the ministry of the altar without holding the public office associated with the title.
Hildegard presents the Virgin as a model for priestly activity by comparing her response to the Annunciation with the manner in which a priest invokes God during the consecration of the elements. This parallel can easily be understood by envisioning both of these moments as an embryonic stage in which the Lord is humbly petitioned to catalyze the miraculous birth. In her study of the priesthood of the Virgin, Anne Clark notes that Hildegard’s visions are filled with comparisons relating the confection of the
Eucharistic elements to the creation of Christ’s body in the Virgin’s womb.3 By drawing this parallel between two isolated events, Hildegard highlights the humble response of the
Virgin as a template for priestly emulation by stating, “Just as Mary responded to the words of the angel with a faithful invocation to God, and this resulted in the creation of the Lord’s body, so the priest is to turn in faith and to invoke God to effect the creation of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3 Anne Clark, “The Priesthood of the Virgin Mary: Gender Trouble in the Twelfth Century,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 118:1 (Spring 2002), 14. ! %*! the Lord’s body in the Eucharist.”4 As the Virgin responds “behold the handmaiden of the Lord: be it done to me according to thy word,”5 she submits herself to become the tabernacle to house the body of her beloved son. Mary’s turning to God in faithful service is emblematic of the call to the priesthood, since both parties offer themselves to become the exclusive mediators of salvific sustenance.
Now that this complex parallel has been established, I will now turn to what qualifies the Virgin for participation in the ministry of the altar. Hildegard begins her exposition on this issue by prohibiting women from the office of the priesthood, as she claims that females are “an infirm and weak habitation, appointed to bear children and diligently nourish them.”6 Hildegard bolsters her argument by offering the following agricultural metaphor to demonstrate female unworthiness for the priestly office:
A woman conceives a child not by herself but through a man, as the ground is plowed not by itself but by a farmer. Therefore, just as the earth cannot plow itself, a woman must not be a priest and do the work of consecrating the body and blood of My Son.7 According to this methodology, sexual reproduction can only yield fruit stained by the sin of Adam, since the fallen nature of the biological parents is passed onto their offspring at the moment of conception. Therefore, in order to generate a substance free from the pollution of sin, the impregnated provider requires a virginal birth. While Hildegard’s
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4 Ibid., 14. Quoting from Scivias II, 6, 15. 5 Luke 1:38. 6 Clark 2002, 14. Here Clark is quoting from Scivias II, 6, 76. 7 Ibid., 14. Hildegard also employs an agricultural image to describe the birth of Christ by stating, “Likewise, the flesh of my Word was dry – without the foulness of human pollution from which the human race springs up in the embraces resulting from the desires of a man and woman. My Only-Begotten was not born in this way, but came forth into the world as the greenness of integrity – as an interwoven blade begets a grain of corn. For as a stalk of corn grows without marrow and brings forth dry grain in the purity of its spike, so also the blessed Virgin conceived without the strength of any man and gave birth to my Only- Begotten in the simplicity of innocence” (Scivias II, 6, 26). ! &+! prohibition against female ordination lies in accord with the orthodox beliefs of the late medieval Church, she proposes that a life of virginity can provide an exception to the rule by stating, “A Virgin betrothed to my Son will receive Him as Bridegroom, for she has shut her body away from a physical husband; and in her Bridegroom she has the priesthood and all the ministry of my altar, and with Him possesses all its riches.8 Anne
Clark is quick to clarify the preceding concession by arguing that Hildegard is not advocating for an upheaval of traditional church doctrine, but is rather granting consecrated virgins a kind of spiritual access to the priesthood without attaining the office and the ordained liberties associated with the title.9
In proposing a life of virginity as a form of access to the priesthood, Hildegard presents the Virgin as the ideal template of emulation for the female reader. Mary is the model exemplum to illustrate Hildegard’s theology because her Immaculate Conception provides her with immunity from the stain of original sin. The miraculous nature of her birth liberates her from the negative effects of the post-lapsarian condition, thereby gracing her with a spotless womb in which to house and give birth to the pure body of
Christ. Hildegard’s genius lies in her recognition of the parallel between the Incarnation and the re-birth of Christ’s body upon the altar, since both instances result in the miraculous generation of an undefiled substance, which can only proceed from a chaste womb.
In applying this philosophy to the life of a cloistered nun, her clerically prescribed imitatio Mariae allows her to identify with a holy figure that shares her virginal identity.
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8 Clark 2002, 15. Quoting from Scivias II, 6, 76. 9 Ibid., 15. ! &"!
By emulating the Virgin in the context of her interactive devotion, the enclosed viewer is granted spiritual access to the ministry of the altar. One prime example of this idea of
Eucharistic access can be seen in a miniature illustrating the sixth vision from the second part of Hildegard’s Scivias (Fig. 26).10 This highly complex image is divided into two registers and is to be read in a counter-clockwise fashion, beginning with the top scene and moving downwards to the bottom portion of the miniature. In the northern register, the hand of God focuses the viewer’s attention upon the crucified body of Christ, which hangs lifeless upon the cross as two streams of blood and water spew forth from the wound in his side. The female figure standing to Christ’s left immediately grasps the viewer’s attention, as she is painted in a yellowish hue mimicking gold, while dressed in royal garb and adorned with a crown to further evidence her regal status. The queenly figure’s interaction with the blood exiting from Christ’s side is quite stirring, as a projectile current of blood and water washes over her face, while she holds a chalice to collect the downward stream of Christ’s blood. Here the woman’s possession of the sacred chalice is quite revolutionary, especially in light of Gratian’s Decretum, which prohibited consecrated women from touching the sacramental vessels under any circumstances.11 The priestly quality of the image is magnified further in the lower register of the miniature, as the Ecclesia figure places the chalice upon the altar, thereby echoing the liturgical duty performed by a male officiant during Mass.12
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10 The miniature is originally from the Wiesbaden, Hessische Landesbibliothek, MS 1; a manuscript most likely made under Hildegard’s direction and has been missing since 1945. 11 Decretum, Dist. XXIII, c. 24. 12 Although the female figure in the miniature is labeled as the personification of the Church (i.e. Ecclesia), analogies to Mary leap from the page. One obvious similarity between the two figures is the location of Ecclesia in the upper register of the miniature, as she inhabits a space normally reserved for the Virgin in Passion iconography. While there may seem to be a degree of disparity between the two figures in the ! &#!
The textual account of Hildegard’s vision recounts that the “shining woman” is betrothed to Christ and receives His body and blood as a marriage gift. The presence of the chalice serves as a symbol of the woman’s dowry, which she soon returns to the altar by offering it as a humble sacrifice to God. At this particular juncture of the vision, there seems to be a disparity between text and image, since Hildegard notes that a priest approached the altar after the dowry was returned and began celebrating the Eucharist.
The striking feature within the miniature, however, is the manner in which the priest has been omitted from the transubstantiation of the elements. As the heavenly flame descends upon the dowry offering, the priest is no longer present at the altar, since the only witness to the Eucharistic mystery is the betrothed female spouse who kneels in prayerful attention. Here the priest’s absence not only represents a deviation from the textual account, which places a male officiant at the scene,13 but also casts the Ecclesia figure into the powerful role of celebrant. This crossing of gender barriers would have been especially captivating to a cloistered community, which considered itself to be mystically betrothed to Christ, as the nuns would have gazed upon an image of their dowry, offering them tangible interaction with the body and blood of their divine spouse.14
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lower portion of the image, the manner in which the Virgin hovers above Ecclesia’s head as she kneels before the altar draws the viewer’s attention to the mutual bond they both share. Ecclesia directs her gaze upon the Virgin in the floating Nativity scene because “Mary’s swoon at the foot of the cross gives birth to the eternal Church, which is renewed and reborn daily in its sacraments,” (Neff 1998, 265). Thus both figures mirror one another in their ecclesial motherhood, as the fruit of their womb provides the essential nourishment for salvation. 13 See Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, trans. Bruce Hozeski (Santa Fe: Bear & Company Press, 1986), 127. In the passage describing the transubstantiation of the dowry offering, Hildegard recounts that the miracle occurs in the midst of male priest by stating, “While the priest was singing the praise of the all-powerful God – holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts – and was thus beginning the mysteries of the Eucharist, a flame of inestimable brightness suddenly descended from the opened heaven upon the offering,” (Scivias II, 6). 14 For an in-depth discussion on the nuptial union shared between the Sponsus and Sponsa, see Susan Smith, “The Bride Stripped Bare: A Rare Type of the Disrobing of Christ,” Gesta, Vol. 34, No. 2 (1995),! 126-146. In her article, Smith states that the nuptial process must first begin with the purgation of the! ! &$!
The Christ Child in the Eucharist
Another avenue to the altar came through the image of the Christ Child, which was widely considered to be a visual substitute for the Eucharist in late medieval spirituality, since this period was inundated with a plethora of Eucharistic miracles documenting the apparition of the Holy Infant in the consecrated Host. These miraculous visions can be found in the written accounts of numerous female visionaries. For example, Ida of Louvain (ca. 1212-1262) saw the Child in the Host and occasionally played with him as if he were her own baby, while Mary of Oignies (c. 1177-1213) envisioned the Child in the priest’s hands bathed in pure light and marvelous beauty.15
The whimsical quality of these visions is contrasted by apparitions of a more somber nature, such as the account provided by the Franciscan tertiary, Blessed Joan Mary de
Maillé (c. 1332-1414), who described her ecstatic experience by stating that she “saw the suffering Christ Child in the elevated Host with blood pouring from the wounds that pierced his hands, feet, and sides.”16 Judging by the fact that each vision comes from a different religious order and location, it is reasonable to conclude that the parallel between the Christ Child and the consecrated Host was a popular belief among women.17
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Sponsa, which disrobes the individual soul from its perverse will and vices, thereby allowing it to be wooed by the pursuing Sponsus. 15 Elina Gertsman, “Signs of Death: The Sacrificial Christ Child in Late-Medieval Art,” in The Christ Child in Medieval Culture, edited by Mary Dzon and Theresa M. Kenney (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 75. 16 Ibid., 75. 17 Gertsman states that this Eucharistic miracle was not a belief held only among females, but rather became so firmly rooted in the minds of both medieval men and women that Thomas of Aquinas discusses the apparition of the Christ Child in the Tertia pars of his Summa Theologicae (q. 76, a. 8). For a further discussion of Aquinas’ understanding of the miracle, see Gertsman 73. ! &%!
A miniature from the Breviary of Aldersbach (c. 1260, Fig. 27) illustrates the
Christ Child – Host parallel in pictorial form, as the viewer is provided with the intimate perspective of an elevation scene. A tonsured priest is shown in profile as he raises the consecrated Host above his head with his back facing the two gathered witnesses (ad orientem), who kneel and clasp their hands in prayerful adoration. The acolyte in top left corner of the frame signals the Eucharistic miracle by ringing a bell to mark the moment when the sacramental elements become the true body and blood of Christ. These minute details, however, pale in comparison to the apparition of the Christ Child, who emerges from the consecrated Host and uses it as a springboard in his ascension to God the Father.
The vertical movement of the Christ Child continues as he is received into the hands of
God, who emerges from a numinous cloud in the top right corner of the miniature with his arms extended in a gesture of willful embrace. In her visual analysis of the image,
Elina Gertsman makes an acute observation by stating, “This is a communal miracle, shared not only by the participants of the Mass, but also by the beholder of the image.”18
Gertsman’s commentary could not be more fitting given the manner in which the right façade of the altar is pushed up against the picture plane, thereby inviting the viewer to join the two kneeling parishioners in witnessing the Eucharistic miracle.
The Conflation of Manger and Altar: A Eucharistic Reading of MS ital. 115’s Infancy Narrative
Now that the parallels between Mary and the priesthood and the Christ Child and the Eucharist have been established, I will now discuss how these sacramental themes
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18 Gertsman 2012, 73. ! &&! provoke a new interpretation of the Infancy scenes in MS ital. 115. The Virgin is first presented as a model for priestly activity in MS ital. 115’s rendition of the Annunciation, as Mary’s physical reaction to Gabriel’s message shares a striking semblance to a particular action exercised by a priest during the performance of the liturgy. Folio 12r contains a miniature in which the Virgin kneels in prayer before God and voices her gratitude after hearing the angel’s message of Christ’s impending birth (Fig. 25). Here the viewer is allowed to witness the Virgin’s mystical interaction with God, as she raises her eyes to the heavens with her arms outstretched in the orans posture of prayer, while God emerges from a cherubim-borne mandorla in the sky above her. The mystical encounter is dramatized further by the blessing bestowed upon the Virgin, since God’s hands break the parameters of the blue mandorla and enter into the earthly realm where Mary resides.
The orans pose and the elevated trajectory of the Virgin’s gaze mirrors the posture of a priest as he prays over the sacramental elements, as both figures engage in an otherworldly conversation, seeking God’s blessing for the physical body they are about to deliver. As the Virgin gives birth to Christ from her virginal womb, this miracle is reciprocated in the chaste hands of the priest, since the unleavened wafer becomes the transubstantiated body of the Lord.
This Eucharistic theme continues throughout the Nativity sequence. Folio 19v
(Fig. 28) contains two miniatures arranged in a stacked design divided by a single line of text. The miniature in the upper register of the folio is reminiscent of an Eleousa icon,19 with the Virgin pressing her forehead against the cheek of the Christ Child in a gesture of
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19 See Flora, Devout Belief of the Imagination, 76. Flora draws attention to the regal nature of this image, as the Virgin sits upon a rock-cut throne, which seems out of place given the humble setting of a cave. ! &'! affection. This moment of tenderness forms the focus of the entire scene, as Joseph and the two grazing animals all direct their attention to the embrace shared between Mary and her newborn child. As the nativity sequence continues in the lower register, the maternal quality altogether fades as the entire cast of characters, including the prostrating animals, kneels to worship the Christ Child, who sleeps in the manger nearby (Fig. 29). The prayerful posture shared between husband and wife is especially captivating, as the
Virgin clasps her hands together in adoration, while Joseph crosses his arms in preparation to receive the blessing of the Holy Infant. In folio 19v, the manger becomes an altar for the female viewer to direct her gaze, as the rocky terrain of the nativity and the barren earth of Calvary are conflated into one unified image.20
The Presentation in the Temple Sequence: The Presiding Virgin and the Elevation of the Literal Host
The veneration of the Christ Child is further developed in Ms. Ital 115’s presentation in the Temple sequence, as the Virgin’s interaction with the holy infant casts her into the role of priest. The image program begins in folio 33v as Mary hands her son to Simeon, who kneels in reverence to receive Christ with his outstretched arms (Fig. 30).
The design of this miniature lies in accordance with the biblical narrative, which designates Simeon as the priestly figure who administers the purification rites according to Jewish custom. While Simeon is presented here in folio 33v as a character of authority, this power is only momentary because the Christ Child will soon return to the arms of the
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20 For further discussion on the conflation of the manger and the original altar of Golgotha, see Theresa Kenney, “The Manger as Calvary and Altar in the Middle English Nativity Lyric,” in The Christ Child in Medieval Culture: Alpha es et O!, edited by Mary Dzon and Theresa Kenney (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 29-65. ! &(!
Virgin in the following miniature and will remain with her throughout the entirety of the presentation sequence. The artists of Ms. Ital 115 signal this return through the contortion of the Christ Child’s body, which reaches for his mother during the moment of the exchange, thus mirroring the yearning communicated through his fixated stare. The author of the Meditationes describes the moment in which Christ returns to the Virgin by stating, “Then the boy Jesus stretched his arms toward his mother and returned to her.
After that they walked around the altar in a procession that is today performed in the whole world.”21 While folio 34r depicts the procession as it is in the process of movement, the artists of the miniature elected to provide the Clarissan viewer with a snapshot in which the Virgin stands at the head of the altar (Fig. 31). By positioning
Mary in this prominent position of power, the artists infuse the Virgin with a priestly action that is normally only exclusive to men. As the Virgin raises the Christ Child above the altar by pressing him close to her chest, she evokes the posture of a priest in the elevation of the consecrated Host. The surrounding characters validate the sanctity of her movement by directing their gaze upon the embrace shared between the mother and child.
The Virgin’s location within the temple presents a stirring portrait of female spirituality, especially considering the fact that women were excluded from praying in the public setting of the synagogue up until the early seventh century.22 While Mary’s presence within the male-gendered worship space initially attracts the eye, it is her participation in the purification ritual of her son that leaves the Clarissan viewer absorbed in contemplation. In MS. ital 115’s Presentation sequence, the Virgin is more than a !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
21 Ragusa and Green, Meditationes, 58. 22 Fran Altvater, “Barren Mother, Dutiful Wife, Church Triumphant: Representations of Hannah in I Kings Illuminations,” in Different Visions: A Journal of New Perspectives on Medieval Art 3 (2011): 5.! ! &)! typological parallel to the praying Hannah of the Old Testament because she usurps the power of the priesthood, thereby transcending her subservient status as a woman. As the image program transitions from the purifying procession in folio 34r to the Virgin’s offering of the Christ Child upon the altar in folio 34v (Fig. 32), the role of the Virgin as celebrant comes to full fruition. This miniature depicts the Virgin and Child beneath an architectural apparatus meant to symbolize the dome of a temple. The intended focus of the scene can be found in the caption written beneath the round arch of the dome, which reads, “Mary as she offers the infant on the altar in the Temple.”23 This inscription directs the nun to focus her attention solely upon the action occurring between the Virgin and
Child. The accompanying entourage of men and women appear almost as an afterthought, since they do not inhabit the space around the altar, but congregate outside the restricted area of the dome. In folio 34v, the hallowed space surrounding the altar is reserved for
Mary and Christ alone. Here Simeon and Joseph are relegated to witnesses who observe the action from afar, while the Virgin is chosen to execute the priestly action. By kneeling before the altar and placing her son upon the communion table, the Virgin performs a priestly duty by transporting the consecrated Host from the tabernacle to the altar.
The Virgin’s role as celebrant continues in the final frame of the presentation sequence (fol. 35r), as the elongated body of the Christ Child is stretched out across the width of the altar (Fig. 33). The Presentation sequence concludes by illustrating yet another exchange between mother and child. Here Christ’s head is tilted upward by a
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23 Flora, Devout Belief of the Imagination, 71. The provided caption syncs perfectly with the clerical advisor’s instructions located on the far left side of the folio, as he asks the artists to show “Here how she kneels with the Infant in her arms in front of the altar and places him on it.” ! &*! hooded male assistant, thereby providing him the opportunity to confer a blessing upon his mother and her male entourage. The fact that a blessing is being bestowed here is undeniable, judging by the manner in which Christ raises his hands in a gesture of benediction, and how Simeon and another haloed figure cross their arms at the chest in preparation to receive the blessing. While the argument could be made that the Christ
Child assumes the role of priest in this image, the posture of the Virgin seems to suggest otherwise. Mary stands to the left of the altar with her blue mantle pressed against the façade of the sacrificial table and raises her hands to evoke the orans posture of prayer.
Here the Virgin not only receives her son’s blessing, but also prays over the body of
Christ in a manner similar to the priest’s recitation of the epiclesis during the consecration of the elements. Mary’s location within the temple also sets her apart from her male entourage, as she appears isolated beneath the arched entrance of the dome, in close proximity to the altar. This access to the restricted area of the male-dominated worship space presents the Virgin as the primary intercessor of the image. Mary’s intimacy to Christ is evidenced by the fact that her son’s blessing is directed explicitly to her, thereby establishing her as the exclusive mediator of salvific sustenance. In folio 35r, the artists of MS Ital. 115 present an empowering image of femininity for the reader’s gaze by introducing the Virgin as the medium through which access to Christ can be gained.
The Wellesley College Panel: An Image of Motherhood and Priestly Action
While the presentation sequence casts the Virgin into a priestly role through her interaction with her son, this reversal of gender norms does not vanish as the narrative ! '+! transitions from the Christ Child to the Man of Sorrows.24 Whether the setting is placed in the infancy stages of Christ’s life or the final moments of his Passion, the theme of
Mary performing the duties of celebrant remains intact. A prime example that preserves this motif is the Wellesley College panel depicting Christ Mounting the Cross and the
Funeral of Saint Clare (ca. 1290, Fig. 34). The Italian panel is subdivided into two levels as the Funeral of Clare of Assisi is illustrated in the lower register and placed in conversation with Christ’s ascent of the cross in the top portion of the frame. Although the original context of the Wellesley panel is unknown, Holly Flora asserts that the work would have been ideally suited for a Clarissan convent.25 In proposing a conventual setting for the object, Flora cites the maternal actions of Mary and the Eucharistic connotations associated with the image to substantiate her claim for an enclosed female audience, since these devotional motifs would have factored prominently in Clare’s spirituality and the members of her order.
The Wellesley panel presents a hybrid composition in which the Virgin is shown fulfilling the roles of mother and priest simultaneously. While gazing upon the image in the upper register of the panel, the female viewer would have been captivated by the manner in which Christ ascends the cross (Fig. 35). Although Christ is aided in his ascent by an executioner who wraps his body around the intersecting wood beams, this does not appear to be a heated exchange, since Christ bounds forward up the ladder and scales the instrument of his death willingly. The voluntary nature of the ascent is further evidenced
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24 Given that MS ital. 115 does not contain a Passion sequence, the Wellesley College panel will be discussed as a visual counterpart to the Eucharistic images found within the infancy narrative of the Paris manuscript. 25 Trinita Kennedy, ed. Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy, exh. cat. (Nashville: Frist Center for the Visual Arts, 2014), 120.! ! '"! by the fact that no tormentor prods Christ from behind. He lunges forward on his own accord and actively reaches for the upper rung of the ladder. Here the focus of the Savior is fixated upon the final destination of his incarnational journey, as Christ appears impervious to the emotional trauma experienced by his mother, who reaches out desperately to rescue her son from his impending fate. This scene emphasizes Christ’s heroic martyrdom, which would have resonated within the mind of the Clarissan viewer, since she would have equated this image of self-sacrifice with the renunciation of the world and the Franciscan vow of poverty.26
Although Christ is not shown disrobing in the Wellesley panel, the enclosed viewer would have been familiar with the events leading up to this moment, and would have been able to draw connections between this scene and previous Passion episodes.
The author of the Meditationes describes how upon arriving at Calvary, Christ is stripped for the third time before ascending the cross voluntarily.27 Given that the narrative of
Christ’s stripping immediately precedes the Ascent of the Cross, it is reasonable to suggest that Mary is not only attempting to rescue her son by wrapping her arm around his lower torso, but is also shielding his nudity by clothing him with her veil. The
Meditationes describes the inner turmoil experienced by the Virgin upon seeing Christ’s naked body by stating,
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26 Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 155. Also see Kennedy 2014, 119. 27 Ragusa and Green, Meditationes, 333. This account presents Christ as a dynamic subject acting upon his own volition. He is not described as a passive prisoner led to and fro by his executioners, but rather as an active participant who ascends the cross without rebellion. Christ’s cooperation in his death is further evidenced by the manner in which he reaches for the cross, turning his body to allow his extremities to be pierced by the nails.! ! '#!
She is saddened and shamed beyond measure when she sees Him entirely nude: they did not leave Him even His loincloth. Therefore she hurries and approaches the Son, embraces Him, and girds Him with the veil from her head.28
This scene captures the embarrassing connotations associated with being nude in public by subjecting the exposed body to the invasive gaze of onlookers. The Virgin’s covering of Christ can be read at one level as a maternal gesture, as Mary performs the following three actions simultaneously: (1) she wraps her arms around the pelvic region of her son to prevent his ascent and impending death; (2) she shields Christ’s nudity by clothing him with her veil; and (3) she presses her hand into the sternum of the executioner, who lunges forward to deliver one final blow. The Virgin’s heated exchange with the bull- rushing tormentor is a novel rendition of late medieval Passion iconography, considering the manner in which Mary places herself in harm’s way to protect her son. By executing three separate actions simultaneously, the Virgin protects Christ from visual and physical assaults that come from all directions.
The Virgin’s clothing of Christ also carries Eucharistic connotations, especially considering that the panel’s intended audience would have likely been unable to see the elevation of the consecrated Host during the public recitation of the liturgy.29 The panel’s revelation of Christ’s physical body could have served as a visual substitute to satisfy the nuns until they were physically able to receive the Blessed Sacrament. The Virgin’s clothing gesture evokes the actions of a priest in the procession of the consecrated Host.
Before elevating the monstrance for procession, the priest leading the ritual would need
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28 Ibid., 333. 29 Bruzelius 1992, 83.! ! '$! to wrap the liturgical vessel with the linen of his outer vestment, as he would have been strictly prohibited from touching it with his bare hands. By covering Christ’s body with this same reverential treatment, the Virgin mirrors the ritual performed by a priest, thereby clothing the literal Host as it is in the process of movement. In comparing the
Wellesley panel with other contemporary renditions of the Passion, such as the miniature found in the Italian manuscript, Oxford Corpus Christi College MS 410 (ca. 1350), the viewer notices that Christ is not clothed with the same degree of caution as he is MS 410
(Fig. 16). While this is partly due to the fact that the Virgin is shown performing three actions at once, the panel still does not deviate from standard convention, as Mary refrains from touching the flesh of Christ by positioning her left hand upon the garment itself. The placement of the Virgin’s hand upon the loincloth suggests that she may be doing more than impeding Christ’s ascent. She may also be preparing her son’s body for imminent sacrifice.
This Eucharistic reading helps establish a relationship between Christ’s ascent and the funeral of Saint Clare in the lower register of the panel. In his biography documenting the life and miracles of the female saint, Thomas of Celano describes an event in which
Clare brandished a monstrance to protect her fellow sisters from the invading Saracens, who attempted to scale the walls of her convent at San Damiano.30 By using the liturgical vessel as her weapon and invoking the Lord in prayer, Clare delivers Assisi from the hands of the barbaric soldiers. Thomas of Celano describes the Saracens’ reaction to
Clare’s wielding of the monstrance by stating that upon seeing the resplendent Host, “the
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30 See Thomas of Celano, The Life of Saint Clare (Philadelphia: Dolphin Press, 1910), 36-37. ! '%! boldness of these dogs vanquished and changed into fear, for they quickly descended the walls they had scaled, and were overthrown by the power of her supplication.”31
Guido da Siena’s thirteenth century painting (c. 1260, Fig. 36) instills the episode with a sense of flare, as Clare is shown emerging from the entrance of San Damiano, holding a monstrance in an attempt to stave off the foreign assailants. Clare’s unveiling of the Host catalyzes the miracle by halting the Saracens in their upward climb and causing them to fall from their perched location on the roof of the convent (Fig. 37).
While this scene captures the enemy soldiers in the midst of their descent, the viewer is able to conclude that these attackers will soon join their comrades on the outskirts of the city. The empowering presence of Clare in this painting links her with the Virgin in the
Wellesley panel and MS Ital. 115, since both figures deviate from traditional gender roles ascribed to women. Clare is distinguished from the prior lineage of female saints because she is not shown experiencing an ecstatic vision, but actively employs the monstrance as her method of defense. In raising the Host to ward off the invading Saracens, Clare mimics a gesture similar to one performed by a priest.32 The manner in which she holds the monstrance further evidences her celebrant status, as Clare’s hands do not actually touch the vessel, but remain beneath a linen cloth during the procession. By carrying the
Host with this level of veneration, Clare mirrors the clothing gesture performed by the
Virgin in the Wellesley panel. The parallel between the figures and the priestly office is established by the manner in which they refrain from touching the bare skin of Christ, as
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31 Ibid., 37. 32 Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, The Cult of St. Clare of Assisi in Early Modern Italy (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014), 105-107. Debby also notes that there is no other recorded episode of a female saint driving off an invading army, which magnifies the shocking nature of this reversal of gender roles.! ! '&! both females exercise caution upon covering the Lord’s sacrificial body, and infuse the gesture with a ritualized effect.
Gendered Viewing and Clarissan Response
As a means of conclusion, this study will attempt to theorize how a Clarissan nun would have interpreted these images of female empowerment. How would a cloistered viewer, strictly prohibited from the sacred space of the altar, have responded to an image of the Virgin officiating in a priestly role? It is necessary to keep in mind that all of the images included within the scope of this research were most likely commissioned by a male patron for an enclosed female audience. A nun would have been instructed to begin her devotions by contemplating the humanity of Christ,33 since this level of meditation was reserved for beginners in matters of spiritual discipline. Given that the female contemplative was to remain firmly grounded in Christ’s Incarnation, it is no mistake that the Nativity and Presentation in the Temple sequences are given such extensive treatment in MS ital. 115. These miniatures play out in a cinematic fashion to allow the cloistered viewer to delight in Christ’s human nature, which is powerfully revealed in the form of an infant. The Eucharistic tenor of these episodes assists in this devotional endeavor by evoking a ritual in which the humanity of Christ is revealed on the altar. Here the priestly
Virgin executes an intercessory role by providing an avenue through which the nun can rectify her visual obstruction. By entering into the miniature with her mind’s eye and imagining herself alongside the Virgin at the altar, the nun is provided with a privileged seat of observance normally only afforded to members of the male clergy. Given the fact
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33 Flora, Devout Belief of the Imagination, 45. ! ''! that choir screens were often placed at the front of the nave to separate the laity from the clergy celebrating the liturgy,34 a nun’s imaginative insertion into these scenes allows her to join her Franciscan brothers in participating in the sacred drama of the Mass.
For a nun trained to emulate the Virgin in word and deed, visualizing images of
Mary performing priestly duties would have been altogether consuming. By partaking in this meditative excursion, the cloistered viewer gains imaginative access to the restricted area of the altar, and is able to dwell there and observe the sacred mysteries from an intimate perspective. This affective devotion can therefore be defined as a form of liberation, providing the viewer a momentary reprieve from the limitations of enclosure, and transporting her to the setting of the Eucharistic banquet.
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34 Bruzelius 1992, 91. ! '(!
Conclusion
This study will close by examining one innovation in the evolution of Clarissan architecture. In her article surveying the architecture of four Clarissan convents in Italy,
Caroline Bruzelius concludes her study by looking at the novel location of the nuns’ choir at Santa Chiara in Naples (ca. 1328-1340) and its effect upon the cloistered community’s sensory experience of the Mass. The nuns’ choir is located directly behind the altar in a retrochoir to the east, with three large grated openings designed to permit the sisters to view the altar and the priest’s elevation of the consecrated Host (Figs. 38-40).1 Bruzelius contends that this is the first known instance in Clarissan church design in which the conventual community directly faces the congregation, who reside beyond the wall in the nave to the west.2 Given that the priest would have conducted the liturgy by facing the altar with his back turned toward the gathered lay population (ad orientem), this orientation presents the cloistered nuns as the privileged viewing audience of the
Eucharistic celebration.
The innovative design of Santa Chiara is referenced here because it stands as a prime example of how the church space evolves to accommodate cloistered females’
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1 Bruzelius 1992, 87. Although the conventual community of Santa Chiara had a direct line of vision to the altar, it is essential to note that this vantage point could have been partially obscured by the grated pattern of the windows. The eight-inch spikes protruding from the grilles are employed as a defense mechanism against voyeurism and illustrate the struggle between improving a nun’s ability to observe the sacred liturgy and preserving her required invisibility. 2 Bruzelius 1992, 88.! ! ')! growing interest in Eucharistic devotion. Although the construction of Santa Chiara occurred contemporaneously with the reconstruction of Santa Maria Donna Regina, the church was not completed until nearly a decade after the fresco cycle decorating the nuns’ choir of Donna Regina was painted.3 While Santa Chiara’s reconceptualization of the worship space attests to the prominent role Eucharistic devotion played in Clarissan spirituality, the Passion frescoes at Donna Regina and the miniatures contained within
MS 410 and MS ital. 115 all represent a tradition in which communion with the Host is achieved through imaginative devotion. Santa Chiara must be regarded as an architectural anomaly for the Clarissan order, since many churches during the thirteenth and fourteenth century were either modified to accommodate the arrival of the sisters or did not possess the affluent funding necessary to commission such an innovative church interior.4 For nuns residing in choirs alongside the nave or in elevated galleries at the western end of the church, a visual encounter with the Eucharist was not a feasible option. Bruzelius’ survey spanning from the modest complex of San Damiano to the royal commissioned convent of Donna Regina serves as evidence that preserving the invisibility of these women took precedence over their ability to observe the liturgy of the Mass.
Although these women were considered “dead to the world,” they burned with an unquenchable desire to commune with their beloved bridegroom, who is most effectively revealed in the celebration of the Eucharist. This thesis has sought to communicate how !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3 While the convent of Santa Chiara was founded in 1310, construction on the church continued until its completion around 1328. In comparison, Bruzelius suggests that plans to reconstruct Donna Regina began as early as 1294, while the fresco cycle decorating the nuns’ choir at Donna Regina was painted around 1318-1320. (See Bruzelius 1992, 87. See also Bruzelius 2004, 81). 4 A royal patroness, Queen Sancia of Mallorca, commissioned the convent of Santa Chiara. Sancia had a passionate devotion to the Eucharist, professing in one of her letters that she had received inspiration from the Host reserved on the altar of her palace chapel. Given Sancia’s belief in the power of the Eucharist, this might help explain her decision to rethink the location of the nuns’ choir (Bruzelius 1992, 87-88).! ! '*!
Clarissan nuns transcended this negative aspect of their entombed existence through the meditative employment of devotional art. By engaging in performative vision, the female viewer utilizes the sacred image as a conduit of connection to the spiritual realm that lies beyond. Images thus become intercessory portals that remedy a nun’s visual obstruction to the Eucharist by transporting her to the original altar of Golgotha in her contemplative reverie.
The Eucharist is central to Clarissan spirituality because it is the direct revelation of Christ’s human nature upon the altar. Given that these women were charged to immerse themselves in the contemplation of Christ’s humanity, their distance from the celebration of the Mass seems altogether mystifying. Thus the images examined within this study function as instruments of the cura monialium, designed to enrich the spiritual lives of their cloistered audience, while also ensuring that they remain firmly anchored to systems governed by men.5 The Virgin is introduced as a female role model to mold the female novice into a paragon of virtue and is awarded a priestly license to point the way to the original altar of Golgotha. Upon the nun’s mental arrival at Calvary, the corporeal veil once shielding her eyes is removed, thus granting her spiritual vision of the Host.
While the Passion frescoes of Santa Maria Donna Regina illustrate how this endeavor occurs during the public recitation of the liturgy, the miniatures accentuating the texts of MS 410 and MS Ital. 115 allow the viewer to continue her cerebral pilgrimage within the privacy of the convent. Whether ecstatic experience occurs in the public or private worship arena, the final destination of the devotional journey remains
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5 Jeffrey Hamburger, “Art, Enclosure, and the Cura Monialium: Prolegomena in the Guise of a Postscript,” Gesta 31.2 (1992), 109. The term cura monialium is interchangeable for the pastoral care of nuns. ! (+! the same, as the nun is mystically transported to the original setting of Christ’s Passion and is able to observe the sacred drama from an intimate perspective. Performative vision is a mode of participatory devotion that transcends the limitations of sensory experience, allowing the nun to see imaginatively what she is denied from seeing corporeally.
Eucharistic vision is thus restored in the vita contemplativa of the viewer, as the permeable quality of the image quenches the desire for spiritual sustenance by providing an avenue in which the union between sponsa and sponsus can be brought to full fruition. ! ("!
! Figure 1. View from the nuns’ choir facing the apse, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples
Figure 2. Longitudinal view of church interior, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples
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Figure 3. View from the altar toward the nave and nuns’ choir at the western end of the church, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples
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Figure 4. Schematic Layout of Frescoes, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples. Passion cycle located top right (P1-P17)
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!!!!!!!!! ! Figure 5. Communion of the Apostles, Frame P2 of the Passion Cycle, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, ca. 1318-1320
Figure 6. Derision and First Stripping of Christ; Denial of Saint Peter; Christ before the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas; the Flagellation (right to left), Frame P6 of the Passion Cycle, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, ca.1318-1320 ! (&!
Figure 7. First Judgment before Pilate and Christ before Herod (left to right), Frame P7 of the Passion Cycle, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, ca. 1318-1320
Figure 8. Second Judgment before Pilate; Crowning of Thorns; Second Stripping of Christ; Way to Calvary (left to right), Frame P8 of the Passion Cycle, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, ca. 1318-1320 ! ('!
Figure 9. Third Stripping of Christ and Christ’s Ascent of the Cross, Frame P9 of the Passion Cycle, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, ca. 1318-1320 ! ((!
Figure 10. Detail of Third Stripping of Christ, Frame P9 of the Passion Cycle, Santa Maria Donna Regina, ca. 1318-1320
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Figure 11. Procession of the Consecrated Host
Figure 12. Crucifixion, Frame P10 of the Passion Cycle, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, ca. 1318-1320 ! (*!
Figure 13. Detail of Crucifixion, Frame P10 of the Passion Cycle, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, ca. 1318-1320
Figure 14. Priest Lying Prostrate during the Solemn Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday ! )+!
Figure 15. Deposition and Lamentation, Frame P11 of the Passion Cycle, Santa Maria Donna Regina, Naples, ca. 1318-1320 ! )"!
Figure 16. The Ascent of the Cross, Oxford Corpus Christi MS 410, ca. 1350, fol. 135v
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Figure 17. Crucifixion, Oxford Corpus Christi MS 410, ca. 1350, fol. 136v
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Figure 18. Crucifixion, Oxford Corpus Christi MS 410, ca. 1350, fol. 137r
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Figure 19. Crucifixion, Oxford Corpus Christi MS 410, ca. 1350, fol. 137v ! )&!
Figure 20. Crucifixion (Swoon of the Virgin), Oxford Corpus Christi MS 410, ca. 1350, fol. 139r
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Figure 21. Crucifixion, Oxford Corpus Christi MS 410, ca. 1350, fol. 140r
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Figure 22. The Wound of Christ, Attributed to Jean Le Noir, Psalter and Hours of Bonne of Luxembourg, ca. 1349, fols. 330v-331r
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Figure 23. Deposition, Oxford Corpus Christi College, ca. 1350, fol. 142r
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Figure 24. Miracle of the Crib at Greccio, Attributed to Giotto, Upper Church of the Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi, ca. 1297-1300
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Figure 25. The Virgin Thanks God after the Annunciation, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Ital. 115, fol. 12r
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Figure 26. Ecclesia and the Dowry Offering, from Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias II.6, Wiesbaden, Hessische Landesbibliothek, MS 1
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Figure 27. Christ Child in the Eucharist, Breviary of Aldersbach, ca. 1260, Staatsbibliothek Münich, CLM 2640, fol. 15v
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Figure 28. Nativity, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Ital. 115, fol. 19v
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Figure 29. Nativity, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Ital. 115, fol. 19v
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Figure 30. Presentation in the Temple, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Ital. 115, fol. 33v
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Figure 31. Presentation in the Temple, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Ital. 115, fol. 34r
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Figure 32. Presentation in the Temple, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Ital. 115, fol. 34v
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Figure 33. Presentation in the Temple, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Ital. 115, fol. 35r
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Figure 34. Christ Mounting the Cross and the Funeral of Saint Clare, ca. 1290, tempera and silver leaf on panel, Davis Museum at Wellesley College
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Figure 35. Detail of Christ Mounting the Cross and the Funeral of Saint Clare, ca. 1290, tempera and silver leaf on panel, Davis Museum at Wellesley College
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Figure 36. Guido da Siena, Panel Painting, c. 1260, Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale
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Figure 37. Guido da Siena, Detail of Panel Painting, c. 1260, Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale
Figure 38. Santa Chiara, Naples, Nuns’ Choir, openings towards the altar
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Figure 39. Santa Chiara, Naples, Nave Interior
Figure 40. Santa Chiara, Naples, Plan
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BIOGRAPHY
Shane Harless was born on March 22, 1985 in Birmingham, Alabama. In May of
2007, he received his B.A. in religious studies from Birmingham-Southern College. After completing his undergraduate requirements, Shane attended graduate school at Vanderbilt
University where he earned a master’s degree in theological studies in December of 2010.
After receiving his M.A. in Art History from Tulane University this coming August
(2015), Shane hopes to pursue graduate work at another research institution where he will concentrate on the devotional art of late medieval and early Renaissance Italy. His research explores the intersections of narrative, performativity, imagination, and gender in devotional objects commissioned specifically for monastic communities.