Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



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  • Title: Tree of Life and Death Flanked by Eve and Mary-Ecclesia
  • Creator: Furtmeyr, Berthold, painter
  • Description: This image precedes the liturgy for the feast of Corpus Christi in a missal created for the Archbishop of Salzburg. The central roundel depicts a tree that bears both fruit and sacramental hosts. It thus combines the paradisaical Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge from Eden. On the right is Eve, who hands a forbidden fruit to a man kneeling at her feet. A death's head appears among the fruits on her side of the tree. The tempting serpent winds around the trunk, and offers Eve another piece of fruit from its mouth. On the left side is Mary-Ecclesia. Rather than a death's head, a crucifix hangs on this side. Instead of fruit, Mary-Ecclesia administers one of the hosts to a kneeling man who opens his mouth to accept it, and she is in the process of plucking yet another wafer. She is presented as a mirror image of Eve and thus the salvific antidote to the Fall. An angel accompanies Mary-Ecclesia on the left and Death accompanies Eve on the right. Both hold banderoles bearing text. Adam reclines in a gesture of sorrow at the base of the tree and also holds a banderole. In the upper two roundels are princely figures who hold banderoles bearing the text of Psalm 77:25 on the left and Psalm 36:16 on the right. Three shepherds depicted below illustrate Thomas Aquinas's Corpus Christi sequence "Lauda ducem et pastorum," but they also embody the virtues expected of a good ruler. The one on the left is the personification of "Prudentia," the one in the center is "Regalitas," and the one on the right is "Verus Pastor." All are accompanied by banderoles.
  • Source: Wikimedia Commons
  • Rights: Public Domain
  • Subject (See Also): Adam (Biblical Figure) Corpus Christi Death Ecclesia Eucharist, Sacrament Eve (Biblical Figure) Fall of Humankind Mary, Virgin, Saint Missals, Liturgical Books Mirror for Princes, Literary Genre Tree of Life
  • Geographic Area: Germany
  • Century: 15
  • Date: 1489
  • Related Work: Additional images: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/0004/bsb00045166/images/index.html?fip=193.174.98.30&id=00045166&seite=1
  • Current Location: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 15710, 60v
  • Original Location:
  • Artistic Type (Category): Digital images; Manuscript illuminations
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Vellum (parchment); Paint; Gold leaf
  • Donor: Male religious; Bernard von Rohr, Archbishop of Salzburg (1466-1481)
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): 38.29 cm/28.7 cm/
  • Inscription: Angel: ecce panis angelorum factus cibus viatorum [behold the bread of angels made food for pilgrims]; Death: mors est malus vita bonis inde [death is evil, life therefore is goodness]; Upper left prince: Panem angelorum manducavit homo
  • Related Resources: Nils Büttner, "Landschaftsmalerei um 1500," in Christoph Wagner, Berthold Furtmeyr: Meisterwerke der Buchmalerei und die Regensburger Kunst in Spätgotik und Renaissance [Ausstellungskatalog] (Regensburg 2010), 144-53, especially 149-51.