Empathy and Performative Vision in Oxford Corpus Christi College MS 410

An extensively illustrated manuscript copy of the Meditationes Vitae Christi, MS 410, made c. 1350 in Rome, prescribes a performative experience of the life of Christ deeply connected to Franciscan ideas about the redemptive power of the devotional imagination. Several motifs that are unique to MS 410 or very rare include the depiction of a nude Christ Child in the manger reaching towards the ox at the manger of the Nativity, an image of women performing his Circumcision, and an emphasis on the clothing and disrobing of Christ during the Passion. Women are also prominent actors in the scenes of Christ’s ministry. These iconographic eccentricities can be linked to Franciscan devotion and to female Franciscan spirituality in particular.