The'' Madonna and Child with Three Angels'' (also known as ''Madonna del Padiglione'') is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian Renaissance painting, Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th cent ...
, executed around 1493. It is housed in the
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
A pinacotheca (Latin borrowing from grc, πινακοθήκη, pinakothēkē = grc, πίναξ, pinax, (painted) board, tablet, label=none + grc, θήκη, thēkē, box, chest, label=none) was a picture gallery in either ancient Greece or an ...
of
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
.
The Virgin Mary is portrayed with her right hand expressing milk from her exposed breast and gesturing to the Child, the latter being supported by an angel. The Italian name (''
padiglione'' meaning "pavilion") derives from the rich baldachin over the scene. The open book on a small prie-dieu is a familiar symbol of Christ, the "word
f God
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
His ...
made flesh" (John 1:14) and the Christ child gestures toward the book to signal his identity.
The "pavilion" is a reference to the same verse in Gospel of John: "The word became flesh and dwelt among us." In the Greek language of the gospel, the word "dwelt" actually means "tented," a reference to the book of Exodus in the Old Testament where God's glory entered the tabernacle in the wilderness of Sinai: "Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle" (Exodus 40:34). The tabernacle was a movable tent shrine created according to God's directions to hold the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred container of the Ten Commandments, God's words. In this painting, the Virgin Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant since she, like the Ark, contained the Word of God (Leith, 117). The book and the open tent/pavilion signify the revelation that the Old Testament prophecy has been fulfilled in the birth of the Christ Child to the Virgin.
[Leith]
Notes
References
*Mary Joan Winn Leith, ''The Virgin Mary: A Very Short Introduction'' (Oxford, 2021).
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1493 paintings
Paintings of the Madonna and Child by Sandro Botticelli
Paintings in the collection of the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
Angels in art
Books in art