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Queen of Peace
Pierre-Marie Dumont
The Adoration of the Magi
Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516)
The visit of the three kings to adore the Christ Child is a familiar part of the Christmas celebration, as comfortable and well worn as a pair of old slippers. “We three kings of Orient are,” in grammar strange we without batting an eye sing, and many a living-room crèche proudly features regal figures marching to offer the gifts they have brought from afar. Hieronymus Bosch’s inimitable Triptych of the Adoration of the Magi depicts what’s familiar to us about the story—the kings, the shed, the donkey, Mary holding Jesus—but adds a wealth of strange details that compel us to consider the story anew. The jolly old Christmas carol doesn’t say anything about a servant with an apple on his head, or a troupe of semi-clad ne’er-do-wells spying on the scene, let alone the pitched battle taking place in the field behind the lowly cattle shed. That’s all by design: Bosch refuses to reduce the Gospel to cozy simplicity. To look closely at Bosch’s image is to leave the tame world of Christmas customs behind and enter into the wildness of the Incarnation.
Finding true gold
Starting with the king nearest to Christ, we find that he has offered a noble gift of gold, set on the ground before the infant King. The resplendently jeweled crown resting unattended on the grass reveals that this is a ruler of mythical wealth and power. Yet he places himself in humble submission to the child before him, showing by his kneeling posture, folded hands, and lowered eyes that he is not offering homage to a human king, but worship to God himself. The stubble on his chin and cheeks reveal that he has rushed to his goal, preferring to be disheveled in Christ’s presence rather than well coiffed in his own glory. But it is the gift he has brought that reveals the king’s true mettle. He has not brought a pile of coins in a chest or lumps of metal pulled from the earth: he has offered a prophecy fulfilled in gold.
The king has given Christ a statue of the sacrifice of Isaac (Gn 22:1-14), depicting several stages of the story at once: Isaac carrying wood to the altar of sacrifice, Abraham standing behind him with an upraised sword, an angel stretching out to prevent the blow, and a horned ram docilely waiting to be offered in Isaac’s stead. Bosch has composed the scene to show that what happened in Genesis is being fulfilled before the viewer’s eyes. The infant on Mary’s lap is the beloved Son who will freely choose to carry the wood of his own immolation to the hill of Cavalry, just as he is the ram who wills to be sacrificed in our stead. The magi—and we—are part of the scene, too, signified by “Abraham, our father in faith,” as the first Eucharistic Prayer calls him (see Heb 11:8). Our sins led Christ to the cross, but he has transformed us from dead stones into living children of Abraham by the gift of faith (see Mt 3:9). Bosch sets the golden statue firmly atop three half-squashed frogs that are barely visible poking out from its base, representing the grotesque foolishness of evil, thoroughly defeated by Jesus’ triumph on the cross. Still more, the purple-red cloth that partially drapes the statue suggests the veil that hangs over the Old Testament until its full meaning is revealed in Christ (cf. 2 Cor 3:15). In handing over his earthly wealth and majesty to Jesus, the kneeling king has found a treasure more precious than fire-tried gold (1 Pt 1:7): faith in the King of kings.
The scent of desire
The second king’s upright posture exposes his ornamented mantle to the viewer’s gaze, complementing the tray of frankincense that he offers to Christ. The prominent scene that wraps around his chest depicts the Queen of Sheba kneeling and offering gifts to King Solomon on his throne (1 Kgs 10:1-10). The image in the band below shows Manoah and his wife offering a goat in the presence of the angel of the Lord, sealing God’s promise that they will conceive and bear a son after long years of infertility: Samson, the mighty hero who even in death liberated God’s people from the grip of the enemy (Jgs 13:16, 16:23-30). This unusual pairing of images is united by a common theme: These are people who have abandoned everything out of desire for God. Nor is it mere painterly convenience that the images adorn the king’s mantle. The images are wrapped around his heart, revealing the inner longing that has led him far from his realm, his home, and his family. His burning desire has made him the aroma of Christ for God (2 Cor 2:15), physically expressed in the sweet-smelling incense in his hands.
An undying hope
The third king, standing far to the painting’s left, captivates with his dark skin and pearl-white robes, holding a round jar of myrrh. Everything about him points to Christ’s Passion. His gift evokes the alabaster flask of myrrh that the woman in Bethany poured over Christ’s head, a gift of love that Jesus interprets as a fitting preparation for his death and burial (Mt 26:7-12). The tangle of thistles that crown his collar, shoulders, and sleeves points to the crown of thorns and the agony that await the newborn King. But the king’s regal bearing shows that he understands the hope that will be born from Christ’s suffering: The blazing orange bird perched atop the myrrh is a phoenix, the legendary bird reborn from its own death. The king’s gift thus proclaims Jesus Christ and him crucified, the true hope born into the world in Bethlehem.
Bosch’s unfamiliar vision of the Magi sets us free to see with new eyes the mystery at the heart of our faith: Jesus Christ was born to die, born to rise, born to bring us from the farthest ends of the earth to spend eternity with him.
Father Gabriel Torretta,O.P.
Scholar of medieval Christianity who teaches theology
at Providence College in Rhode Island.
The Adoration of the Magi, central panel of the Triptych (c. 1494), Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516). © Museo Nacional del Prado, Spain. Dist. RMN-GP / image du Prado.
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Hope does not disappoint” (Rm 5:5) is the theme of the Jubilee that the pope has proclaimed, making the year 2025 a Holy Year. Now “the first sign of hope should be the desire for peace in our world, which once more finds itself immersed in the tragedy of war…. May the Jubilee remind us that those who are peacemakers will be called children of God (Mt 5:9).”1 I invite you to meditate on this grace of the Jubilee with Pinturicchio.
Bernardino di Betti di Biagio (1454–1513), nicknamed Pinturicchio (“little painter”) because of his small stature, was the chief master painter in Perugia in Umbria (the land of Saint Francis of Assisi). From 1481 on, just as the Italian Renaissance was about to come most admirably into full flower, Pinturicchio became famous, alongside Perugino (1446–1523), Botticelli (1445–1510), and Ghirlandaio (1448–1494), by covering the Sistine Chapel with his frescos; later Michelangelo (1475–1564) and Raphael (1483–1520) completed the unsurpassable splendour of that showcase of masterpieces.
The Madonna of Peace was painted in 1489–1490. This work displays a unique beauty, at the same time exalted in its sublimity and tender in its realism; you might even say that it is overwhelming, since the painter manages to share with us an immediate, mystical empathy with the Virgin Mary and her Child.
Mary is an adolescent with an exquisitely beautiful face that is idealised, yet nevertheless touching, because it delicately expresses the depth of her soul and the chastity of her immaculate heart. The depiction of the Child Jesus repeats and charmingly adapts the major features of the Pantocrator Christs that Pinturicchio could admire at length in the apse of the ancient Roman basilicas. Standing on Mary’s knees, with his feet placed on a precious cushion that underscores his royal dignity, the Child, like a Roman emperor, wears a bluish-grey toga edged with gold over a dalmatic made of unbleached silk and enhanced with gold and purple embroidering, and set with rare pearls at the shoulder.
He is the Prince of Peace, the eschatological figure of Peace prophesied by Isaiah (9:5), the one who will love us so much that he will give to each of us the power to imitate him, so that by acting as instruments of peace we might receive the blessing of being called the children of God (Mt 5:9). Indeed, we will be children of God then, in fact and in truth.
The fine golden hair of the Prince of Peace frames the delightful little face of a dear, loving child. His eyes, the windows of his soul, reflect the contemplation in which he revels in the Father’s benevolent plan, which will be accomplished in him for us men and for our salvation. The slightly pouting mouth—its seriousness is brightened by the restrained hint of a smile—speaks to us about the unthinkable requirements of the baptism that he knows that he must undergo, and at the same time, like a promise, about the perfect joy he will share with us when he has conquered the powers of evil and death and gives peace to us all, his Peace.
In his left hand he holds the Globe of Creation, through which divine grace shines now because it has been placed beneath the sign of the cross. With his right hand he gives to the visible and invisible universe what is customarily called the Benedictio latina (the Latin blessing). His two folded fingers symbolise his two natures, human and divine, and the other three outstretched fingers represent the Trinity which is at work in him.
Beneath the translucent light that bathes the whole work and brings it harmoniously to life, without ever giving a glimpse of itself, everything here is calm, all is serene, all is peace, all is grace. To allow us to contemplate the gentle Virgin Mary when she presents the Prince of Peace to the world, Pinturicchio’s genius was able to create this moment in which all is harmony and time seems to be suspended—a moment of eternity, so to speak—when with one voice all Creation sings with the choir of angels:
Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among men:
He loves them so much that he gave them his Son!
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1 See Francis, Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the year 2025, no. 8.
Pierre-Marie Dumont
Our Lady of Peace (detail, c. 1488–1490), Bernardino Pinturicchio (1454–1513), Pinacoteca Comunale, San Severino Marche, Italy. © akg-images / De Agostini Picture Lib. / A. De Gregorio.
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