“In the Hearth of the Virginal Womb”: The Iconography of the Holocaust in Late Medieval Art

Abstract

The fireplace in some Italian and Netherlandish paintings of the 14th and 15th centuries, notably Pietro Lorenzetti's Last Supper in Assisi and Campin's Madonna and Child Before a Fire-Screen, is shown to be invested with theological symbolism concerning Christ's Incarnation, his sacrificial death on the Cross, and the Eucharist. The argument is built upon exegesis of Exodus and Leviticus which interpret Hebrew fire ritual and its altar-hearth as prefigurations of the Cross and the Eucharist. The fire-altar of the Old Law is depicted in some paintings of the Presentation in the Temple and the Sacrifice of Isaac. Other sacrifices, particularly the Last Supper, inspired the translation of the fire-altar into its domestic equivalent, the hearth, a translation that had literary parallels in the writings of Aquinas and Bonaventure, among others, who explained the mysteries of the Incarnation and Eucharist by means of Exodus, Leviticus and by domestic parables concerning the mundane activity surrounding the bread hearth.