El olivo en flor: Cantar de los Cantares

"Yo soy de mi amado, y mi amado es mío."
Cantar de los Cantares, 6:3

Lilen: Salomón y Shulamit

Las imágenes de esta nota tienen todas su fuente última de inspiración en el Cantar de los Cantares. Hay muchas interpretaciones de ellas, pero casi ninguna de ellas es completamente satisfactoria. Las imágenes indudablemente presentan una unión o compromiso matrimonial. La corona sobre la cabeza de la novia la señala como la elegida a ser desposada por el rey. Pero la identidad de cada una de las partes no siempre está del todo clara. Tanto el cristianismo como el judaísmo recurren al Cantar de los Cantares, composición ya de por sí profundamente poética, y le agregan su propio simbolismo. Tal simbolismo varía incluso dentro de una misma confesión, ya sea ésta cristiana o hebrea.

Comentario de Bede sobre el Cristo y la Iglesia, Cantar de los Cantares, St. Albans, Inglaterra, c. 1130
Cambridge, King's College, Ms. 19, fol 21v.

Cantar de los Cantares: Vox Ecclesiae
Biblia de Winchester, 1160-1175
Song of Songs begins with the voice of the bride, who is described in this Latin Bible as Vox Ecclesiae Desiderantis Adventum Christi (The Voice of the Church Longing for the Coming of Christ). The illuminated "O" begins the first words of the bride: Osculetur me osculo oris sui (May he kiss me with the kiss of his mouth) (DB).

Salterio de San Luis y Blanca de Castilla, Francia, c. 1225
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Arsenal 1186, fol. 29v

Coronación de María, relieve, 1250. Catedral de Estrasburgo
The scene is the final episode in the Life of the Virgin, and follows her Assumption (not yet dogma in the Middle Ages) or Dormition. The scriptural base is found in the Song of Songs (4.8), Psalms (44.11-12) and Revelation (12.1-7). The title "Queen of Heaven", or Regina Coeli, for Mary goes back to at least the 12th century. The subject also drew from the idea of the Virgin as the "throne of Solomon", that is the throne on which a Christ-child sits in a Madonna and Child. It was felt that the throne itself must be royal. In general the art of this period, often paid for by royalty and the nobility, increasingly regarded the heavenly court as a mirror of earthly ones (VT).

Dormición y Coronación de la Virgen, relieves, siglo XIII (restauración en siglo XIX). Notre Dame de París Dormition and Coronation

Pietro Cavallini, Cristo y María (Coronación de la Virgen), mosaico, 1290. Basilica de Santa María en Trastevere, Roma (Kitsinger). "The figures of Maria and Christ are at once both very traditional and very experimental. [...] She is displayed as sponsa, the bride of Christ: she shares his throne, wears his crown, and embraces him. This “synthronos” pose begins to appear in several places in the early-mid 1100s, from Solomon and wife in a French bible to an illustration in the Song of Songs at Cambridge to a similar miniature in a German manuscript, but there is no strong evidence that this mosaic was influenced by any of these sources. Christ holds an inscription saying “veni electa mea et ponam in te thronum meum,” and Maria holds one saying “leva eius sub capite meo et dextera illius amplesabitur me.” These are both paraphrases of the liturgy of the Feast of the Assumption festival, which is itself a paraphrase of the Song of Songs" (S. Maria in Trastevere, Ars 7, Washington, 10.06.2004, sect. 2).

Jacopo Torriti, Coronación de la Virgen, mosaico, 1296. Santa Maria Maggiore, Roma

Cristo y la Iglesia
Biblia Historiada, Francia, 1372
The Church as the Bride of Christ, done by an unknown illustrator of Petrus Comestor’s 1372 French work Bible Historiale (folio).

"Conmigo del Líbano desciende, novia mía;
desciende del Líbano conmigo."
Cantar de los Cantares, 4:8