IMAGES OF MEDIEVAL ART AND ARCHITECTURE

France: Benedictine Abbey Church of Saint-Denis

Twelfth Century Windows: "Anagogical" Window

This highly symbolic window is described by Suger (see below). Panofsky calls it the "anagogical Widow" ,while Grodecki calls it the "Allegories of Saint Paul" window. Only two of its panels contain twelfth century glass.

Screen-sized version.

Large "Archive Version".

Iconographical key

Yellow- 19th Century Restoration
Red- Contains some 
Twelfth Century Glass

C-6 Quadriga of Aminadab Panel
C-5 Nineteenth Century Restoration
The Lion and the Lamb unseal the Book
C-4 Nineteenth Century Restoration
Moses Veiled
C-3 Nineteenth Century Restoration
The Mystic Mill
C-2 Christ between Ecclesia and Synagoga

DETAILS

Extant Panel
Restoration Diagram

Quadriga of Aminadab Panel
(cf. I Samuel 7, 1 and II Samuel 6, 3)

Click here for a screen-sized version.


Shaded areas are restorations.

Based on Grodecki (1976), pp. 98-99, fig. 129

Christ Between Ecclesia and Synagoga

Click here for a screen-sized version.


Shaded areas are restorations.

Based on Grodecki (1976), pp. 201, fig. 133


SOURCES


ABBOT SUGER OF SAINT DENIS: ON WHAT WAS DONE IN HIS ADMINISTRATION

Translated by David Burr, History Department, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, and reproduced here with his kind permission.

XXXIV

We also had painted, by the hands of many masters sought out in various nations, a splendid variety of new windows below and above, from the first in the chevet representing the tree of Jesse to the one over the principal door of the entrance. One of these, urging us onward from the material to the immaterial, shows the apostle Paul turning a mill and the prophets carrying sacks to the mill. The accompanying verse says,

By working the mill, Paul, you take the flour from the bran.
You make known the inner meaning of Moses' law.
From so many grains is made the true bread without bran,
The perpetual food of men and angels.

In the same window, where the veil is removed from Moses' face, it says,

What Moses veils, the doctrine of Christ unveils.
Those who despoil Moses bare the Law.

In the same window, under the ark of the covenant,

From the ark of the covenant is established the altar of Christ.
There, by a greater covenant, life wishes to die.

Also in the same window, where the lion and lamb unseal the book,

He who is the great God, lion and lamb, unseals the book.
The lamb or lion becomes flesh joined to God.


Location



Bibliography

Suger, ed. Panofsky (1979), pp. 74-75, 211-12.

Grodecki (1976), pp. 98-102, figs. 122-34.


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Last updated by:JV Date: November 29, 2006