Plate 7.3: A Shrine Madonna (c.1300)
An outgrowth of the cult of the Virgin Mary, Shrine Madonnas became
very popular throughout Europe in the later Middle Ages. Large ones
stood on church altars; smaller versions, like the one here, which is about
14.5 inches high, were used as aids to private prayer and devotion.
Certainly this example—from the Rhine Valley region and perhaps owned
by a nun at a convent in Cologne—offers much to contemplate. Closed, it
depicts at first glance a simple scene: Mary nursing the Christ Child. But
Mary wears a crown, signaling that she is no ordinary mother but rather
Queen of Heaven, while Christ holds a dove, the symbol of the Holy
Spirit. That the statue is “about” the harmony of flesh and spirit becomes
clear when the Virgin’s body is opened, revealing a seated God the Father
holding a cross. The original sculpture would have included (where there
are now only holes) the figure of the crucified Christ on the cross and,
above him, a dove signifying the Holy Spirit. The three together—the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—formed the Trinity, called, in this
form, the Throne of Mercy. Flanking Christ’s throne are six painted scenes
of his infancy.
The statue embodies an idea that was echoed in contemporary
prayers, hymns, and poetry: that Mary was not just the mother of Christ
but the bearer of the entire Trinity. “Hail, mother of piety and of the whole
Trinity,” went one popular prayer. The Shrine Madonna physically placed
the Trinity in Mary’s very womb. Just as her inward parts consisted of a
large central area flanked by three “compartments” on each side (the
painted depictions of Christ’s infancy), so, too, late medieval
representations divided the womb into seven cells: a large one at the center
and three small cells on each side. In Guido da Vigevano’s fourteenth-
century diagram of the female anatomy, for example, the uterus looks
rather like a Christmas tree—or like the open Madonna.
