Unknown artist, Avignon
Presentation of Samuel in the Temple, from Speculum humanae salvationis, First half 14th century, Manuscript illumination, Biblioteca dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana, Rome; 55.K.2 (Rossi 17), fol. 21r, By permission of the Library of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana
One Presentation After Another
Commentary by Sara Kipfer
From the twelfth century onwards, the story of Hannah bringing Samuel to the Temple was a constitutive element in European illuminated manuscripts. The widest distribution of this scene can be found in the Speculum Humanae Salvationis (Mirror of Human Salvation), an anonymous composition, originally written in Latin sometime between 1309 and 1324 and translated into every major European language (Nielsen 2022: 1). One third of the 420 extant copies of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis are illustrated. The composition of the example exhibited here is very typical: Samuel is shown standing on the altar, flanked by Eli to the left and Hannah to the right.
The Speculum Humanae Salvationis provided a typological approach combining Old and New Testaments and embodied a very influential model of medieval biblical interpretation. Each of its forty-two chapters comprises four episodes, and each episode has its own illumination appearing above a column of text (Nielsen 2022: 2).
The scene of Samuel brought by Hannah to Shiloh in chapter 10 of the Speculum is paralleled with the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:22–35). The compositional arrangements are similar in both depictions: the infant Jesus is usually shown sitting or standing upright on an altar between Mary and Simeon, who are positioned symmetrically at either side. However, the figures in the New Testament scene are depicted as smaller than Eli and Hannah, and accompanied by two more figures, namely Joseph and the prophetess Anna.
Between those two presentation scenes, images of the Ark of the Covenant together with the rod of Aaron flanked by a vessel of Manna and the book of the Law (Exodus 25:10–22), and a seven-branched lampstand (Exodus 25:31–40) can be found. The Ark and the menorah were seen as an antitype of Mary: as the ark contained the Ten Commandments, so Mary is seen as the vessel for the incarnate deity (Nielsen 2022: 94). Furthermore, the seven burning lamps prefigured the seven works of mercy in Mary (ibid: 97).
The latent and sometimes even explicitly anti-Jewish approach in the Speculum Humanae Salvationis certainly requires critical reflection in its own right. Here there is both continuity and contrast—the former setting Mary and Hannah in close parallel, the latter reinforcing Christianity’s sense of its greater excellence: ‘Anna offered a son who would contend for the Jews. Mary offered a son who was going to protect the world’ (ibid: 99).
References
Nielsen, Melinda. 2022. An Illustrated Speculum Humanae Salvationis. Green Collection MS 000321 with iconographical notes by David Lyle Jeffrey (Leiden: Brill)
