Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York there is a sculpted panel whose motif has been identified as St Birgitta of Sweden receiving the rule of her order. The panel was commissioned from the Florentine master Agostino di Duccio in 1459 for the predella of the altar of San Lorenzo in San Domenico, Perugia. The altar itself was large, with cornices and garlanded decorations, and it included portrayals of the Virgin and Child, St John the Baptist, St Lawrence, St Peter the Martyr, and St Birgitta, all of whom were patron saints of the deceased’s family. In the symbolic scene carved on the panel, St Birgitta, whose attribute in this work is a sphinx, is seated, and the young Christ presents her with the rule of her order in the form of a scroll. With the exception of Birgitta’s attribute, the scene corresponds to a vision described in the saint’s Revelations The unusual renderings and placements of the figures in the image have puzzled many scholars and have thus led to a wide range of interpretations regarding the subject of the image.