TY - JOUR TI - ‘Your body is full of wounds’: references, social contexts and uses of the wounds of Christ in Late Medieval Europe AU -Johanna Pollick AU -Emily Poore AU -Sophie Sexon AU -Sara Stradal PY - 2022 VL - IS - Spring 2021 KW - arma Christi KW - Art History KW - Mediaeval Art KW - philopassianism KW - Renaissance Art KW - wounds of Christ AB - In this collaborative essay, the authors investigate the different ways in which representations of the wounds of Christ functioned in devotional practices as well as within a wider European context. The first section considers the wounds of Christ rendered as life-giving wells in Princeton MS Taylor 17, a fifteenth-century Middle English prayer book, focusing on their relationship to contemporary secular imagery as well as devotional literature about the heart. The second section focuses on the illustration on a Syphilisblätter, Dürer’s ‘Syphilitic Man’ (1496), and considers the visual referents relied on by the artist to communicate complex devotional ideas. This section also considers Dürer’s own relationship to philopassianism and positions this image within the artist’s oeuvre. The third section focuses on the Loftie Hours and the Hours of Bonne of Luxembourg, both produced for female patrons in the Later Medieval period. Through consideration of the patterns of wear and intervisual relationships with contemporary illustrations of vulvas, the potential of these manuscripts to express different gendered positions alongside pious and devotional practices is examined. N1 - Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Manuscripts Division, MS Taylor 17, ff.9r-12r. The same text, accompanied by similar imagery, can be found in two further fifteenth- and sixteenth-century books: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 1, and Richard Fakes, A gloryous medytacyon of Ihesu crystes passion [London, 1523]. N1 - On the wound-as-well metaphor in Late Medieval England, see Gray, 1963, and Morgan, 2003. N1 - An early image of the five wounds of Christ, in which they are depicted as five-petalled flowers superimposed on a cross appears in an early fourteenth-century book of hours from a diocese in eastern France (Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 288, f.15r). N1 - On the ‘imprinting’ of images on the mind or heart in Medieval mnemonic discourse, see Carruthers, 2008. N1 - MS Taylor 17, f.11r. N1 - On the range of meanings of the heart in Medieval culture both sacred and secular, see Webb, 2010 and Jager, 2000. N1 - London, British Library, MS Stowe 955, f.6r. N1 - A heart-shaped badge depicting the Virgin and Child is sewn into a Flemish book of hours circa 1490 (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 51, f.58v). N1 - See also a similar badge in the British Museum in Lightbown, 1992, pl.54. N1 - ‘And that my heart may so incline to serve you as one of your own.’ MS Taylor 17, f.11r. N1 - Marcellus Cumanus, a physician working with a company of Venetian troops issued this report from Fornovo: ‘…several men-at-arms or foot-soldiers…had pustules on their faces and all over their bodies. These looked rather like grains of millet, and usually appeared on the outer surface of the foreskin, or on the glans, accompanied by a mild pruritus…but the scratching provoked by the pruritus subsequently produced a gnawing ulceration. Some days later, the sufferers were driven to distraction by the pains they experienced in their arms, legs and feet, and by an eruption of large pustules…' (5 July 1495) (Quétel, 1990, p 10). N1 - Ulrich von Hutten’s description of a foul odour alludes to the corrupt airs that were described both in the Hippocratic Corpus and by Galen as being capable of disrupting humours and causing diseases (Totelin, 2014, p 17). As the account by Tommaso di Silvestro mentioned later in this essay shows, fragrant herbs were prescribed to be consumed or applied topically to nullify the effects of these odours. Pharmacological texts, including a significant portion of the first book of Dioscorides’ Materia medica (50–70), were concerned with the production of herbal perfumes to be used to treat various diseases (Totelin, 2014, p 26). The purported healing properties of fragrances accords with Richard Rolle’s comparison of Christ’s wounds with scented flowers and health-giving herbs and Ambrose’s description of the sweet-smelling fountain of eternal life, as discussed by Pollick in the text above. N1 - Conflating the contemporary notion of ‘syphilis’ – a term appropriated by modern germ theory – with the ‘French disease’ (terminology associated with the diagnostic principles of humoral medicine and iatromathematics) is a problematic approach avoided by this article. When describing this issue, Arrizabalaga et al refer to Cunningham’s advice regarding the historiography of the plague: ‘We are simply unable to say whether they were the same, since the criteria of sameness have been changed’ (Cunningham, 1992, pp 210, 242 quoted in Arrizabalaga et al, 1997, p 3). N1 - For further discussion on the use of arrows as metaphors of the plague, see Berger, 2007. N1 - Roch may also be accompanied by a dog or angel (Schiferl, 1983, p 208). N1 - During the second and third centuries, the cult of Asclepius – the god of medicine and snake-bearing son of Apollo – was also seen as a pagan competitor of Christ (Arbesmann, 1954). N1 - Florentine Man of Sorrows images that employ this form of the ostentatio vulnerum include Niccolò di Tommaso, 'Man of Sorrows', c.1370, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, New York, accession number 25.120.241; Giovanni del Biondo, 'Christ in the Tomb', c.1390, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, accession number III.32; Fra Filippo Lippi, Pietà, c.1432, Museo di Castelvecchio; Benozzo Gozzoli, 'Christ the Man of Sorrows between the Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist', c.1450, Brera Pinacoteca, Inv 6101 (Meiss, 1979, p 124). N1 - Barcham and Puglisi have claimed ‘that no other European region can boast so many important painters and sculptors replicating [the Man of Sorrows] so often’. By their summations, in the years between c.1430 and c.1620, the leading artists of Venice created more than 100 paintings and drawings of the motif, including six paintings by Michele Giambono, more than a dozen by the Vivarini workshop and ten by Giovanni Bellini and his family workshop (Barcham and Puglisi, 2011, p 21); while it has been broadly accepted that Dürer visited Venice from 1494 to 1495, Luber challenges this theory (2005). N1 - Another similar example of an open-palmed Man of Sorrows (c.1450–1460) by Giambono is in the collection of the Museo d’Arte Medioevale e Moderna, inv. no. 6. See Barcham and Puglisi, 2011, pp 68–69. N1 - Of the Man of Sorrows paintings created by brothers Antonio and Bartolomeo Vivarini, two versions with symmetrical, open-palmed gestures were included in the central pinnacles of polyptych altarpieces located outside Venice: Antonio Vivarini’s Parenzo Altarpiece (1440), Museum of the Basilica Eufrasiana, Parenzo and Bartolomeo Vivarini’s Bari Altarpiece (1476), Basilica of San Nicola, Bari. N1 - For images of the Bonvicino and di Pietro Man of Sorrows, see Schultz, 2004, pp 300–301 and 303. Full-length Man of Sorrows images displaying symmetrical, open-palmed ostentatio vulnerum continued to have appeal for artists after the completion of the ‘Syphilitic Man’, including Andrea Mantegna’s Christ as the Suffering Redeemer (1495–1500), Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark. N1 - The text ‘Michil’ printed on Christ’s tomb could refer to the designer, cutter or, most likely, the publisher of the print (Richard S Field in Parshall and Schoch, 2005, pp 236–38 and Sabine Griese, pp 248–50). For a detailed description of the Passion events symbolised by the arma Christi in this print and the text of the prayer refer to Sabine Griese in Parshall and Schoch, 2005, p 248. N1 - Dürer’s engraving, ‘The Man of Sorrows with Arms Outstretched’, c.1500, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession numbers 68.793.10 and 19.73.20, includes characteristics typical of a northern style Man of Sorrows – full-length, active, open-eyed – with an Italianate contrapposto pose and muscular, idealised body that further attest to his tendency to synthesise Italianate and northern styles. Christ’s posture and the rolling hills and open landscape in the engraving are also similar to the ‘Syphilitic Man’. Christ’s lifted hands, which recall an early Christian gesture of prayer known as the orans, look like an inversion of the syphilitic’s gesture (Barcham and Puglisi, 2011, pp 98–100). N1 - Evidence of the existence of this Man of Sorrows can be seen in a still-extant fresco by Bicci di Lorenzo titled ‘Martin V Confirming the Consecration of S. Edigio’ (1424–5), located in the Salone di Martino V at the Hospital of S. Maria Nuova. The sculpture in question has been identified as being the terracotta sculpture by an unknown artist titled ‘Christ showing the wound in his side’, created c.1420–25 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, inv. A.43-1937. However, this identification and the attribution of the sculpture to Dello Delli has been challenged (Finaldi, 2000, 176–77). N1 - The suffering of the sick was likewise alluded to by the inclusion of a wooden Christ in Misery above the rear door of the Room of the Poor at the Hospices de Beaune in Burgundy (founded 1443). N1 - Contemporary studies claim it was only during the years after the adoption of the Feast of Corpus Christi that the Corporal of Bolsena became associated with the establishment of the feast day (Clark, 1960, p 217; Izbicki, 2010, np). N1 - This miracle was originally reported to have occurred in the Church of San Niccola in Naples by Guglielmo di Tocco in the Acta Sanctorum and was only later associated with the city of Orvieto by 1337 (Raucher, 2015, p 3). N1 - The Corporal of Bolsena is reverently paraded through the streets of Orvieto to mark the annual feast day on the second Sunday after Pentecost, a ceremony that occurs to the present day. N1 - On the likelihood that Dürer suffered from syphilis, see Timken-Zinkann (1972). N1 - For further information on the manuscript, see Easton (2006), Bynum (2011, pp 197, 199–201), and Lochrie (1997, pp 190–191). N1 - For further information on the details of the manuscript, including additional photographs of the manuscript, see https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/471883 N1 - For more information on the manuscript, see Marrow, p 225, no.8b. N1 - For a detailed description of the manuscript and additional photographs, see: https://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/html/W165/description.html N1 - For more images and analysis of a selection of manuscripts and what their patterns of wear might signify, see Rudy, 2011. N1 - For a selection of different Christ-wound images and their various uses, see Rudy (2011), Areford (1998), and Bynum (2011, pp 197–200). N1 - Easton (2008, p 15) provides a bibliography regarding these Late Medieval pilgrim badges. N1 - For an image of folio 112v, see https://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W165/data/W.165/sap/W165_000228_sap.jpg PB - The Science Museum Group SN - 2054-5770 LA - eng DO - 10.15180/211503 UR - https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/your-body-is-full-of-wounds-references-social-contexts-and-uses-of-the-wounds-of-christ-in-late-medieval-europe/ T2 - Science Museum Group Journal