However, Guido’s conception was not nearly as complex as the
Rhineland Madonna. For the side cells of her innards were painted with
narratives that made her seem much like an “open book.” On the left are,
reading from top to bottom, the Annunciation (when the angel Gabriel told
Mary she would give birth to God’s son), the Nativity (Christ’s birth), and
the Adoration of the Magi. On the right are the Visitation (when the
pregnant Virgin visited the equally pregnant Saint Elizabeth, mother of
John the Baptist), the Presentation in the Temple (when Joseph and Mary
brought Jesus to the temple to be “consecrated to the Lord”), and the
Annunciation to the Shepherds. Like viewers of the fourteenth century, we
are reminded not only of Christ’s human beginnings on earth but also, in
glancing at the central throne, of his equally divine nature. Moreover, the
“cells” are in dialogue with one another across that central image. For
example, the scene of the Nativity, which shows Mary stretched out on
the bed on which she will give birth to Jesus, is directly opposite the
Presentation, which depicts Christ lifted over an altar as he is given to
Simeon. Thus the birth of Christ is paired with Christ as the “bread of
life,” the Eucharist of the altar. In these ways, the Shrine Madonna literally
holds the Trinity in all its complexity in her very womb.
Books of Hours—small prayer books for laymen and (especially) -women—
almost always included images of the Virgin for worshippers to contemplate. In Plate
7.4, on the right-hand side, Jeanne d’Evreux (1301–1371), queen of France and the
original owner of this Book of Hours, is shown kneeling in prayer within the initial D.
This is the first letter of “Domine,” “Lord,” the opening word of the first prayer of
the Office of the Virgin Mary. Above Jeanne is the Annunciation, when Gabriel tells
Mary that she will bear the Savior.
