Abstract
The allegorical painting by Frans Floris (Louvre collection) was given a number of names, including ‘Allegory of the Trinity’. There are some unconventional elements in the composition of the ‘Adoration of the Trinity’, including the wings flanking the cross, and a hen with her chicks underneath it. Several quotations from both the Old and the New Testaments are used to clarify the message of the painting. In this article an attempt is made to review the significance of the image of a bird spreading its wings over its nestlings. Old and New Testament traditions, both textual and iconographic, will be reviewed. Recent analysis by Edward W. Wouk will be complemented with several texts and relating to the Holy Mother in the Franciscan tradition. These images and texts come from late medieval miscellanies of “exempla”, and are believed by Wouk to be inspired by the poem ‘Gallina’ by Alardus of Amsterdam and for the conception of Floris’ painting of the Trinity
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