Triptych
Jacobello del Fiore - documented in Venice from 1400 to 1439
The triptych painted by Jacobello del Fiore in 1421 was painted for the Magistrato del Proprio, the judges concerned primarily with property disputes. Consideration of this panel leads us further into the associative mechanics of personifying Venice herself. The crowned figure of Justice is seated upon a leonine throne of Solomonic implications; she is flanked by the two archangels: to her right, on which she holds the sword of punishment, stands Michael, triumphant over the dragon of Satan and Evil; on her left, the side of the scales of judgement, Gabriel approaches, significantly gesturing to the regal woman. The inscription behind her declares that she "abides by the angels' admonitions and holy words."
Michael, traditional guardian of divine (and ultimate) justice, urges her to reward or punish according to merit, to "commend the purged souls to the benign scales." Gabriel, who exhorts her to lead humanity through the darkness, is explicitly identified as the "announcer of the virgin birth and peace among men."
The two lions bracketing the throne of Justice allude to the gilded throne of Solomon the wise judge, the sanctified seat of Justice and of Wisdom as Sedes Sapientiae, the throne of Divine Wisdom, it came to be identified with the body of the Virgin Mary, the support of the Incarnate Word of God and, as Jacobello's triptych makes clear, that throne was ultimately inherited - or, better, appropriated - with all its accumulated meanings, by Venice herself. Moreover, the convenient coincidence of the leonine decoration with the beast of St. Mark offered to Venetian iconography a special set of possibilities, of correspondences and cross-references, and a new range of resonance.
In Jacobello's panel, in the context of deliberate ambiguity, the archangel Gabriel's presence becomes resonantly significant. The heavenly messenger, companion of the Holy Spirit and announcer of the Incarnation, is traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary. And that association is pointedly acknowledged in Jacobello's painting: bearing the lily that is his attribute through his role in the Annunciation, the Archangel assumes a pose of direct address that intentionally evokes that role. His addressee, however, is ostensibly a different virgin, the virgin goddess of Justice...
The return of Justice to the world signals a new golden age, here being claimed by and for Venice herself. Gabriel's position in the painting and the allusions of his text encourage the kind of associative ambivalence that was central to the Venetian iconographic imagination. The Annunciation scene played out in Jacobello's panel automatically conflates those earlier events of March 25: the theological Incarnation that initiated the new era of Christian grace and that the political incarnation of the four-hundreth-and-twenty-first year of that era, the foundation of Venice.
The panel, in fact, is dated 1421 and thus commemorates, intentionally or not, the Republic's millennial birthdate.
["Myths of Venice, The Figuration of a State", by David Rosand]
Triptych
Jacobello del Fiore - documented in Venice from 1400 to 1439
The triptych painted by Jacobello del Fiore in 1421 was painted for the Magistrato del Proprio, the judges concerned primarily with property disputes. Consideration of this panel leads us further into the associative mechanics of personifying Venice herself. The crowned figure of Justice is seated upon a leonine throne of Solomonic implications; she is flanked by the two archangels: to her right, on which she holds the sword of punishment, stands Michael, triumphant over the dragon of Satan and Evil; on her left, the side of the scales of judgement, Gabriel approaches, significantly gesturing to the regal woman. The inscription behind her declares that she "abides by the angels' admonitions and holy words."
Michael, traditional guardian of divine (and ultimate) justice, urges her to reward or punish according to merit, to "commend the purged souls to the benign scales." Gabriel, who exhorts her to lead humanity through the darkness, is explicitly identified as the "announcer of the virgin birth and peace among men."
The two lions bracketing the throne of Justice allude to the gilded throne of Solomon the wise judge, the sanctified seat of Justice and of Wisdom as Sedes Sapientiae, the throne of Divine Wisdom, it came to be identified with the body of the Virgin Mary, the support of the Incarnate Word of God and, as Jacobello's triptych makes clear, that throne was ultimately inherited - or, better, appropriated - with all its accumulated meanings, by Venice herself. Moreover, the convenient coincidence of the leonine decoration with the beast of St. Mark offered to Venetian iconography a special set of possibilities, of correspondences and cross-references, and a new range of resonance.
In Jacobello's panel, in the context of deliberate ambiguity, the archangel Gabriel's presence becomes resonantly significant. The heavenly messenger, companion of the Holy Spirit and announcer of the Incarnation, is traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary. And that association is pointedly acknowledged in Jacobello's painting: bearing the lily that is his attribute through his role in the Annunciation, the Archangel assumes a pose of direct address that intentionally evokes that role. His addressee, however, is ostensibly a different virgin, the virgin goddess of Justice...
The return of Justice to the world signals a new golden age, here being claimed by and for Venice herself. Gabriel's position in the painting and the allusions of his text encourage the kind of associative ambivalence that was central to the Venetian iconographic imagination. The Annunciation scene played out in Jacobello's panel automatically conflates those earlier events of March 25: the theological Incarnation that initiated the new era of Christian grace and that the political incarnation of the four-hundreth-and-twenty-first year of that era, the foundation of Venice.
The panel, in fact, is dated 1421 and thus commemorates, intentionally or not, the Republic's millennial birthdate.
["Myths of Venice, The Figuration of a State", by David Rosand]