The Iconographic Motif of the Nativity of the Adoration Type and the Visions of Bridget of Sweden in Medieval Bohemia

The nativity scene of the adoration type which took inspiration from the Revelationes of Bridget of Sweden is a relatively frequent motif in 15th century Czech panel painting and book illumination. This essay analyses some complicated instances of a second phase of the Vision of the Nativity (Rev. VII:21) in late medieval iconography in Central Europe. Bohemia, and especially Prague, was one of the first centres to receive the Revelationes. In Bohemia, the Vision of the Nativity was one of the best known texts of the entire body of the Revelationes and its visual representation required a breakdown of the defined time of the narrative into separate elements. Some representations refer to older literary and iconographic models on which Bridget’s narrative is built while incorporating other traditional motifs or newer locally conditioned ones. These motifs took on a new configuration in each new painting, yet the symbolic testimony of the picture — the message addressed to the spectator — was always the same: the position taken by Mary before the newborn Saviour is that which is also to be taken by believers confronted with the mystery of the Incarnation.