Abstract
The current paper will concentrate on the lion featured in Vittore Carpaccio’s Meditation on the Passion. The multiple meanings of the lion in primary sources will serve as a key towards demonstrating the concept of prophecy, one of the multi-level meanings referring to all three figures featured in the painting—Job, Christ and St. Jerome. To this, an interpretation not discussed hitherto with reference to the Meditation will be added—the lion as alluding to the concept of wisdom as referred to in the book of Job. Furthermore, the lion and the wisdom will be discussed as an allusion to the self-image of Venice during the period in which the painting was executed, and thus add another, social and civic, reading.
Highlights
The current paper will discuss the iconography of Vittore Carpaccio’s Meditation on the Passion,[1] offering a reading based on the long and well-established tradition of interpreting Biblical figures and verses as having multiple meanings.[2]
The limited or false zoological information featured in the books;[42] the Christian morality that accompanies most of the entries, manifested by the limited number of roles played by many figures, i.e., the predators are the devil and their prey is humankind;[43] and the religious message repeats itself under various guises, which enhance it.[44]
Simona Cohen observed that the religious context of the Bestiaries is demonstrated by their content—the large number of texts in the Bestiaries related to vices and virtues, to penitence, and to the lives of saints—as well as the usage of vernacular language, all lead to the conclusion that they were used for sermons.[45]
Summary
1) is is aa rectangular, rectangular, horizontal horizontal painting, painting, depicting depicting three figures in an open space, surrounded by animals. Carpaccio’s Meditation, other saints, whose identity we shall discuss, flank the figure of feature is theAnother abundance of animals, usually do of not appear which in the Pietà iconography, andin have dead Christ. (70.5 × 86.7 cm), New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dead Christ is depicted in the center of the painting, naked, except for a loincloth, his eyes closed and his wounds bleeding. 347–420), because of the prayer beads, beads, towards the viewer This saint was identified as St. Jerome There is a lion next to St. Jerome (Figure 2), and above him, to the left, is is aa grazing at the mouth of of the the cave, cave, and and aa tiger tiger or or aa leopard leopard devouring devouring aa stag—and stag—and grazing stag, stag, aa fox, fox, at the mouth closing the circle, is a goldfinch on the back of Christ’s throne. Borroughs 1911, p. 192; Hartt 1940, pp. 25–35; Balentine 1999, pp. 269–89; Terrien 1996; Hornik 2002, p. 543
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