The Sculptures of the Church of Saint-Maurice at Vienne, theBiblia Pauperum and the Speculum Humanae Salvationis

Abstract

Of all the books written in the later Middle Ages in northern Europe none exerted such a far-reaching influence upon artists working in all art media as the Biblia Pauperum and the Speculum Humanae Salvationis.1 The first general discussion of this relationship was by Émile Mâle in his standard study of late mediaeval Christian iconography, L'art religieux de la fin du moyen-âge en France.2 He pointed out numerous specific instances. Among the prominent Flemish painters Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Dirk Bouts were familiar with illustrated manuscript copies of both of these books, as the iconographical programs of many of their paintings attest. Either manuscripts or more probably woodcut editions were followed in the sixteenth century by the designers of the well-known tapestries of the Life of Christ at La Chaise-Dieu and of the Story of the Virgin series at Reims.3