EMILE MALE ~ BIBLIA PAUPERUM & SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS
BIBLIA PAUPERUM & SPECULUM HUMANÆ SALVATIONIS
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[Excerpted from Religious Art in France: the Late Middle Ages by Emile Mâle, translated by Marthiel Matthews. Princeton University Press, 1986]
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The influence on art of the Biblia Pauperum and the Speculum Humanae Salvationis was so great that we should say a few words about the works themselves.
The Biblia Pauperum is nothing more than a collection of images that we encounter first in the late 13th century, but which probably are older. The story of Christ is told in the 13th century manner, that is, by developing the Infancy and the Passion at length, at the expense of the life in between. The work ends not with the Ascension but with the Second Coming, that is, with the Last Judgment.
Each scene in the life of Christ is made to correspond with two events prefiguring it is the Old Testament; at the same time, four prophets, places in medallions, unroll banderoles on which are written cryptic words that provide a clue to the mysteries of the Gospel; a brief inscription explains each of the Old Testament figures....
The Speculum Humanae Salvationis is slightly more recent than the Biblia Pauperum. From a note found in several of the manuscripts we learn that "the book called Speculum Humanae Salvationis is a new compilation, edited by an author who, out of humility, wanted to conceal his name". Thus, the author was a man who lived in the last part of the 13th century and was permeated by its spirit. Outdoing his predecessors, he placed in correspondence to each event in the lives of the Virgin and of Christ, not two but three prefigurations taken from the Old Testament: the Annunciation, for example, is symbolized by the Burning Bush, the Fleece of Gideon, and the Meeting between Rebecca and Eliezer....
Like the Biblia Pauperum, the Speculum Humanae Salvationis is a book of images; the text, however, is given more importance, and a long commentary in rhymed prose accompanies each figurative scene and explains its meaning....
Artists began to look for symbolic motifs in the manuscript of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis around 1400. The miniaturist who illustrated the Tres Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry had already used it. This wonderful manuscript was lost when the library of Turin burned, but happily, it had already been photographed. Studying these reproductions, we note that the episodes from the Passion are accompanied by scenes from the Old Testament. These scenes are clearly prefigurations, but however familiar we may be with the spirit of the Middle Ages, we cannot help being stuck by their strangeness. For example, Christ Nailed to the Cross is shown with Tubal, father of blacksmiths, striking his anvil, and beside him the prophet Isaiah is sawed in half by torturers.
If the artist himself had been capable of thinking of such subtle correspondences, he would certainly have been a most ingenious theologian. But he was not thinking it up, he was copying two figures in the Speculum Humanae Salvationis accompanying the scene of Christ Nailed to the Cross. The other symbolic correspondences found in the Turin Book of Hours have the same source.
We can state affirmatively that from this time on, any self-respecting artist would have had a manuscript of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis in his studio. Jan Van Eyck had one, and here is the proof.
In 1440, he began a triptych for the Church of St. Martin, in Ypres, but died before finishing it. The central panel is devoted to the Virgin holding the Child; the right wing represents the Burning Bush and the Fleece of Gideon; the left, the Flowering Rod of Aaron and the Closed Gate of Ezekiel. These are the exact figures which correspond to the virginity of Mary in the Speculum Humanae Salvationis. It could be objected, this is true, that these were the traditional types and that Van Eyck could have found them anywhere. But a look at the reverse side of the wings reveals a completely new scene not to be found in painting before this time: The vision of the Ara Coeli. The Triburtine Sibyl raises her hand to point out to the Emperor Augustus the Virgin and Child in the sky. Now it so happens that in the Speculum Humanae Salvationis the scene between the Sibyl and Augustus accompanies the miracle of Aaron's Rod, and immediately follows the Burning Bush and the Fleece of Gideon, which are on the preceding page. Thus there can be no doubt; the presence in the work of Van Eyck of a subject as new as the Meeting of Octavius and the Sibyl - a subject introduced into art solely by the Speculum Humanae Salvationis - disposes of all uncertainty. Moreover, we can see that Van Eyck used the manuscript before him as his source for showing the porta clausa of the prophet at the town gate opening between two towers, and the Burning Bush as a tall, slender tree spreading out at the top....
But what Flemish artist did not have the Speculum Humanae Salvationis? Thanks to this valuable book, more than one artist who was probably no great scholar could seem to be a theologian.
Meanwhile, toward 1460, the first woodcut edition of the Biblia Pauperum appeared. This book, which had been little known as long as it remained in manuscript form, began to be used by artists. Sometimes they preferred it to the Speculum Humanae Salvationis, but for the most part they used both.
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BIBLIA PAUPERUM
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SPECULUM HUMANÆ SALVATIONIS
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