Category Archives: Plague

A Christmas Goldfinch

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Madonna and Child, by Carlo Crivelli (1480); note the goldfinch in the Christ Child's grasp

Madonna and Child, by Carlo Crivelli (1480); note the goldfinch in the Christ Child’s grasp

Very often in traditional depictions of the Virgin and Christ Child, there is a goldfinch in the baby’s grasp. Why?

The most simple reason might be that in the 14th century it was common for young children to keep tame birds as pets. Christ’s holding a bird allows a parent or a child to recognize his human nature, to identify with him. Despite the angels and the celestial gold background, the viewer is reminded that God lived and died as a man upon the earth.

But when is traditional Christian art ever simple? Or easy?

The goldfinch appears in depictions of Christ’s birth or during his childhood because it was said that when Christ was carrying the cross to Calvary a small bird – sometimes a goldfinch, sometimes a robin – flew down and plucked one of the thorns from the crown around his head. Some of Christ’s blood splashed onto the bird as it drew the thorn out, and to this day goldfinches and robins have spots of red on their plumage. Since goldfinches are also known to eat and nest among thorns, the goldfinch is often read as a prefiguration of Christ’s Passion.

The bird could also be seen as a symbol of the Resurrection of Christ. A non-Biblical legend popular in the Middle Ages related how the child Jesus, when playing with some clay birds that his friends had given to him, bought them to life. Medieval theologians saw this as an allegory of his own coming back from the dead.

Medieval Europeans also saw the goldfinch as a protector against the plague. Since classical times superstition had credited a mythical bird – the charadrius – with the ability to take on the disease of any man who looked it in the eye. The charadrius was sometimes represented as a goldfinch. Perhaps Christ’s finch offers the worshiper protection against the seemingly unstoppable contagion.

Also, since Ancient Egypt, the human soul had been represented in religious art by a small bird. We see the “Ba” (the soul-bird) on a detail of an Egyptian coffins. A very general reading of the goldfinch might, therefore, remind the viewer that his soul is ‘in the hands’ of God.

Curious about that big cucumber hanging from the apple tree? Hmmm… Read a VERY interesting interpretation of it AND other details of this painting here.

Remember the classic “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas“? I want a goldfinch!

Our Lady of Deliverance

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The altarpiece in Our Lady of Deliverance in Venice; note the angel on the right driving away Lady Plague with a torch.

The altarpiece in Our Lady of Deliverance in Venice; note the angel on the right driving away Lady Plague with a torch.

The bridge in 2011 to allow the procession to Our Lady of Deliverance in Venice.

The bridge in 2011 to allow the procession to Our Lady of Deliverance in Venice.

Each year on November 21, the feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple, a bridge is built across the water in Venice to allow a procession of the city council and the citizens of the city to Our Lady of Deliverance in thanksgiving for the end of the plague.

Beginning in the summer of 1630, a wave of the plague assaulted Venice, killing nearly a third of the population by 1631. In the city, 46,000 people died whilst in the lagoons the number was far higher, some 94,000. As a votive offering for the city’s deliverance from the pestilence, the Republic of Venice vowed to build and dedicate a church to Our Lady of Health (or of Deliverance, Italian: Salute). It was also decided that the Senate would visit the church each year on November 21 the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin, also known as the Festa della Madonna della Salut. The city’s officials still parade from San Marco to the Salute for a service in gratitude for deliverance from the plague. This involves crossing the Grand Canal on a specially constructed pontoon bridge and is still a major event in Venice.

There are several such “plague churches” in Venice, each built to celebrate the end of one outbreak of plague or another. The plague was one of the most fearsome diseases anyone could face (until the development of modern antibiotics); an outbreak of the plague in a town was probably the most terrible thing the inhabitants could face, except war. Plague was fought with prayer and fasting, fire (burning the houses and corpses of the sick), and efforts to avoid the poisonous fumes or “miasmas” that were thought to spread the disease. (Sometimes poisoned water was thought to spread the disease as well.)

Plague, as all illnesses, was seen as a disruption of the balance of the four humors of the human body. Doctors sought to heal a patient by restoring the balance of the humors, often by “bleeding” a patient to remove the excessive humors; folk healers used herbs and plants to heal patients and the modern heirs of these folk healers are the pharmacists who provide medicine at a local pharmacy. “Pharmacology” was the Greek word for witchcraft because if a person knew how to use herbs and plants to heal, the person was assumed to know how to use these same herbs and plants to kill. Many people accused of witchcraft might still be put on trial today — but as poisoners, not witches.