A Short History of the Middle Ages Fourth Edition

Plate 8.8: History of Alexander the Great, Tapestry (c.1459). To the right of the depiction of his ascent into
the air, Alexander appears surrounded by his courtiers. Next he explores the underwater world: seated in a
glass bell, he is encircled by sea creatures. Below, now returned to land, Alexander and his men fight
dragons and monsters, one of whom is pierced by the hero’s sword. The tapestry was commissioned by
Philip the Good for 500 gold pieces and created by the master weaver of Tournai in silk, wool, and real gold
thread. Alexander’s adventures were recounted in vernacular romances; the text that probably directly
inspired this tapestry was The Book of the Conquests and Deeds of Alexander the Great by Jean Wauquelin
(d.1452), a copy of which was owned by the duke of Burgundy.

At the same time, dukes and other northern European patrons favored a new

style of art that emphasized devotion, sentiment, and immediacy. (This style would

later be one of the inspirations for Raphael’s Entombment in Plate 8.5.) Painted in

oil-based pigments, capable of showing the finest details and the subtlest shading,

Netherlandish art was valued above all for its true-to-life expressivity. In the Columba

Altarpiece (Plate 8.9) by Rogier van der Weyden—likely commissioned by Johann

Dasse, a wealthy merchant from Cologne (Germany)—the donor himself is depicted,

hat in hand (to the left in the central panel), humbly witnessing the visit of the Magi.

Time itself is compressed in this picture, as the immediacy of the painting—its here-

and-now presence—belies the historical reality: like Margery Kempe at the birth of

Christ (see above, p. 302), so also here: no one from the fifteenth century could

possibly have been at the scene.