XITHE PALM
TheRomans took palms for their symbol of Victory. There is a sarcophagus in the Vatican on which is carved a Roman conqueror with captive barbarians kneeling before him, and the winged Victory who crowns him with laurel holds a palm in her left hand.
Simon Maccabees, after he had taken the Tower of Jerusalem, entered it ‘with thanksgiving, and branches of palm trees and with harps.’148And the seers of Scripture saw palms in heaven: ‘A great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds and people, and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.’149‘These be they that have put off the mortal clothing and put on the immortal, and have confessed the nameof God; now are they crowned and receive palms.’150
Palms were therefore the meed of martyrdom, the symbol of the martyrs’ victory over death.
‘... The angel saidGod liketh thy request,And bothe with the palme of martirdome,Ye shallen come unto His blissful rest.’151
‘... The angel saidGod liketh thy request,And bothe with the palme of martirdome,Ye shallen come unto His blissful rest.’151
‘... The angel saidGod liketh thy request,And bothe with the palme of martirdome,Ye shallen come unto His blissful rest.’151
‘... The angel said
God liketh thy request,
And bothe with the palme of martirdome,
Ye shallen come unto His blissful rest.’151
During the first three centuries of Christianity Christian art concerned itself almost exclusively with the events recounted in the Old and New Testaments and the Apocryphal Gospels. ‘But during the fourth century artists began to represent the acts of the martyrs, at the bidding of Saint Basil, who called to his aid illustrious painters of athletic combats, to paint with resplendent colours the martyr Barlaam, the crowned athlete, whom he found himself unable adequately to describe.... A fresco came to light in 1887, under the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo on the Celian Hill, which shows three Christians being put to death beneaththe rule of Julian the Apostate, kneeling with eyes bound and hands tied behind their backs. This may be considered as the first representation of a martyrdom....’152
Sixtus III (432–440), as is shown by the inscription which is read above the principal door of Santa Maria Maggiore, had had the instruments of their martyrdom painted only beneath the feet of the martyrs.
‘Ecce tui testes uteri sibi proemia portantSub pedibusque jacet passio cuique sua.Ferrum, flamma, ferae, fluvius, sævumque venenumTot tamen has mortes una corona manet.’153
‘Ecce tui testes uteri sibi proemia portantSub pedibusque jacet passio cuique sua.Ferrum, flamma, ferae, fluvius, sævumque venenumTot tamen has mortes una corona manet.’153
‘Ecce tui testes uteri sibi proemia portantSub pedibusque jacet passio cuique sua.Ferrum, flamma, ferae, fluvius, sævumque venenumTot tamen has mortes una corona manet.’153
‘Ecce tui testes uteri sibi proemia portant
Sub pedibusque jacet passio cuique sua.
Ferrum, flamma, ferae, fluvius, sævumque venenum
Tot tamen has mortes una corona manet.’153
Thus in the fourth century there were representations of martyrdoms, and in the fifth century single figures of the martyrs more or less idealized, but they apparently carried the crown of victory, ‘the crown of their high calling,’ not the palm. But though the crown was generally used, the palm of the primitive Christian Church was not forgotten, for, as Cassiodorus, writing at the beginning of the sixth century, points out, it was palms which, in the eyes of the people, indicated those strong athletes who were victorious,and advocates their use as a religious symbol.
Palms at this period seem to have been used as an emblem of the public games themselves. On the consular diptyches, the double tablets of ivory which a consul had carved to commemorate his entry into office, it was customary to put palms beneath the figure of the consul, among the bags of money and other objects that were supposed to represent the benefits which would accrue to the populace beneath his rule.
It was probably this secular use of the palm which excluded it from the symbolism of the Church during the early centuries, for it is palm trees not palm branches which are found in the early mosaics, notably those of S. Apollinare Nuova in Ravenna, where palm trees alternate with the figures round the frieze, and palm trees, according to St Ambrose, were not the symbol of victory but the emblem of the righteous man, ‘for its roots are upon the earth but its head is lifted towards the heavens.’
But by the thirteenth century the public games had dropped from Italian social life, and religious art reverted once more to the palmbranch of the catacombs as the symbol of a martyr’s triumph over death. Durandus, writing about the year 1286, unites the different renderings of the palm’s significance. He says: ‘Martyrs are painted with the instruments of their torture and sometimes with palms, which signify victory, according to that saying:
‘“The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree; as a palm tree flourishes, so his memory shall be preserved.”’154
After the Renaissance martyrs were very generally depicted with palms, either in place of, or in addition to, the instruments of their martyrdom. They varied in size and shape, from the tiny closed palm no longer than a human hand, used by Cimabue,155to the magnificent pedestal of palm branches on which Carpaccio has set his ‘Saint Ursula in Glory.’156Saint Christopher, the giant saint, in consideration of his size, was always allowed a whole palm tree as his staff, but a whole palm tree, or the tiniest scrap of its foliage, carried exactly the same meaning.
The palm is also given occasionally to severalsaints who have not suffered a violent death, but have been conspicuous for their victory over pain and temptation; for instance, Saint Francis, Saint Catharine of Siena and Saint Clare.
Even in the Catacombs two palms are sometimes placed crossways, not on the tombs of martyrs only, but on other Christian tombs, to signify the victory of the cross. For life as a declared Christian in the early days of the faith was sufficiently difficult and perilous, even if it did not end in death at the hands of the executioner. In the same way the pilgrim who had overcome difficulties and encountered possible death on a journey of piety to the holy sepulchre was permitted to take the name of palmer when he ‘brings home his staff enwreathed with palm.’157
Meanwhile palms never fell into disuse as a secular symbol. When they appear on the seals and coins of emperors and kings they indicate entirely worldly power and authority, and it is not in recognition of sainthood that the winged genius presents Henri IV with palm and wreathof laurel in the fine allegorical picture of his ‘Entry into Paris after the Battle of Ivry.’158
In a hymn of Saint Augustine, Jesus Christ is designated the ‘Palma bellatorum,’ but, perhaps by reason of its pagan origin, and also because it has never been exclusively a religious symbol, Christ as the conqueror of sin and death is seldom depicted with the palm of victory. In a few devotional Crucifixions palms are placed crossways above the Saviour’s head, and very rarely it is seen in the hand of the newly-risen Christ. He almost invariably carries instead the banner of the Resurrection with a scarlet cross upon a white ground. In one of the rare representations159where He holds a palm He holds also the banner in His other hand, and it is striking how the adding of the lesser symbol to the greater, an error the early masters carefully avoided, detracts from the dignity of the figure.
In the four canonical gospels, palms as a symbol are only mentioned once, the occasion being the entry of Jesus Christ ‘riding lowlyupon an ass’ into Jerusalem before the feast of the Passover.
‘They ... took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet Him, and cried Hosanna!’
It was a respect paid to a reigning sovereign and would support the accusation of the Jews that He sought to make Himself a king.
The entry into Jerusalem is not an incident in the life of Christ which is used for devotional contemplation, though it occurred usually in the series of scenes from the life of Christ which were frequent in pre-Renaissance art, executed in carved wood, ivory and marble; and in the hands of the villagers of the Mount of Olives the palms signified, of course, simply triumph, for they had not yet gained the full Christian meaning of victory through the Cross.
In representations of the entry of Christ into Jerusalem, the palms are merely a historical detail, but it is a true symbol, in defiance of the probable fact, when the Saviour Himself is represented carrying the palm, as in theBiblia Pauperumof 1440.160It is then purely a symbol of His triumph over sin and death.
In this same edition of theBiblia Pauperumthe palm is also, strangely enough, placed in the hand of Christ in the Ecce Homo; the ‘reed in His right hand’ set there in mockery, changed to the victor’s palm.
Occasionally the palm is given to the angel Gabriel when he comes from Heaven to announce the Saviour’s approaching birth. ‘Ave’ is his salutation to the Virgin, and in Roman fashion, as in salutation to a queen, he kneels with a lifted palm.
Spinello Aretino paints Gabriel with the palm. In his Annunciation at Arezzo161the angel is first seen above, flying with the palm from before God’s throne. Below he kneels, the palm in his hand, before the Virgin. Ambrogio Lorenzetti162and others follow the same tradition, but the palm was soon superseded in Siena by the olive and elsewhere by the lily, which was adopted by painters of all nations as the flower of the Annunciation.
TheLegenda Aureaof Jacobus de Voragine gives an account of the death and burial of the Virgin. The legend is said to be an inventionof the Gnostics, and there is reason to believe of Lencius in the second century.163
Shortly before the Virgin’s death the angel Gabriel again appeared to her, and ‘he gave her a branch of palm from Paradise which he commanded should be borne before her bier.’
This branch of palm was clearly the symbol of victory over sin, since she had passed a full lifetime in perfect sinlessness and her surpassing sorrows had entitled her to the reward of martyrdom.
The Legend continues:
‘And the palm shone which he had left behind with great clearness; it was green like a natural branch and its leaves shimmered like the morning star.’ The palm, therefore, is distinguished from the palms of the martyrs by being encircled with stars. A Sienese artist paints seven,164the sacred number, corresponding with the Virgin’s sorrows; other artists give twelve, foreshadowing that there should be upon her head ‘a crown of twelve stars.’
Usually, in Italian pictures of the death or ‘Dormition’ of the Virgin, an angel, or Saint Johnthe Evangelist, appears at her bedside carrying the palm. Northern art was almost entirely uninfluenced by the details given by Jacobus de Voragine of the Virgin’s death and burial, and though in Germany ‘The Death of the Virgin’ is a very favourite subject, the palm is never introduced. Saint John frequently, however, holds a lighted taper, and some form of the starry palm tradition may have drifted northwards, for the master of the Sterzing Altar165paints a cluster of star-shaped flowers in the hand of Saint John, who bends over the inanimate form of the Virgin.
Her body was carried by divine command to the valley of Jehoshaphat, ‘and John bare the palm branch in front of it.’
This scene, too, belongs to Italian art, and usually makes a beautiful processional group. Saint John, with the privilege of a son, walks before the bier. Duccio di Buoninsegna166paints him with the closed narrow palm of a martyr. In the charming little long-shaped picture by Fra Angelico167the palm has its fan-shapedleaves spread wide and it shines as if it were of gold.
In the ‘Immaculate Conception’ of the Spanish school one of the attendantputtiusually carries a palm. This may be the palm of victory over sin and death, or, following another authority, it may be a symbol of the Immaculate Conception, since it bears fruit at the same moment at which it flowers.168
According to Dr Anselm Salzer, O.S.B., ‘The palm, when referring to Mary, is a figure of her victory over the world and its temptations, of her everlasting virtue, of her sovereignty in heaven, of the protection that she offers to mankind, of her triumphant motherhood and of the beauty of her soul.’169