Coppo di Marcovaldo's Madonna del bordone and the Meaning of the Bare-Legged Christ Child in Siena and the East

Abstract

Coppo di Marcovaldo's Madonna del bordone was probably the first in the series of similar, large images of the Virgin and Child produced in Siena in the decades following the city's victory at Montaperti in 1260. These images are united by a number of elements, most distinctly the bare-legged child on a cloth. Analysis of the meaning and use of the motif of the bare-legged child in the Byzantine world provides a context for understanding Coppo's use of the same motif as well as an understanding of the use of Byzantine elements by Italian painters. The meaning of Coppo di Marcovaldo's bare-legged child who sits on a large, striped cloth, has eluded scholars, but considered in the context of images made in the Byzantine world, the iconography of this motif is clear. The bare-legged child, associated in the East and the West with the Presentation in the Temple, stresses the identification of the child with the crucified Christ and the host of the eucharist. This interpretation identifies the cloth in Coppo's painting as the shroud of Christ, a motif suited to the particular needs of the Servite order. The significance of Coppo's image, of the bare-legged child in Siena, and of the use of Byzantine imagery in Siena emerges in a subsequent discussion of the manner in which the group of images with this child participated in the articulation of the religious and political identities of Siena and its citizens.