JESSE, Tree of. - From the passage in Isaiah "egredietur virga de radice Jesse et flos de radice eius ascendet" (11:1), medieval iconography has imagined the patriarch J. mostly lying on a bed or sleeping; from him rises a great tree whose branches support the kings who are his descendants, according to the genealogy of Mt. 1:1-17 or Lk. 3:23-32, up to Joseph, the spouse of Mary, and to Jesus Christ. Sometimes, especially in the 13th century, at the top of the tree is God the Father with the Child Jesus, as in the cloister of Silos; or the Most Holy Mary with the Divine Infant (Psalter of Queen Ingeborg, now at Chantilly in the Musée Condé). At the sides of the tree are often the Prophets and sometimes also Virgil and the Sibyls, or even Moses and the Synagogue set opposite Peter and the Church (Bible of St-Bertin of St-Omer: Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, cod. Lat., 1647, fol. 7).
In one of the stained-glass windows of St-Denis, commissioned by Abbot Suger in 1144, seven doves hover on high, symbols of the gifts of the Holy Spirit; the divine hand or the dove above the Prophets marks them as inspired; this window still exists but is heavily restored (E. Mâle, L'art religieux en France, I, Paris 1925, p. 169, fig. 133). A copy of it was made around 1150 in one of the stained-glass windows of the cathedral of Chartres (op. cit., p. 170, fig. 134).
According to E. Mâle the window of St-Denis would constitute the archetype of the figurations of the tree of J. (La part de Suger dans la création de l'iconographie du moyen âge, in Revue de l'art ancien et moderne, 1 [1914], p. 91).
But in the chronicle of William of Thorney we read that Abbot Hugh of Fleury had acquired in 1901 on the continent a great bronze candelabrum "quod Jesse vocatur" for the abbey of Westminster. According to E. Mâle the representation of the t. of J. would have derived from the representations of prophets, drawn from a sermon in the Middle Ages attributed to St. Augustine, which were held in France on Christmas night or on the first day of the year. But already in a manuscript of the 10th century coming from St-Martial of Limoges there is found the representation of the t. of J. with Virgil and the Sibyls.
It may be, therefore, that the origin of the scene is to be sought rather in the miniatures that fused the concept of Isaiah's prophecy with the genealogy of the Savior, and likewise in the commentaries of certain Fathers of the Church who identified Mary in the branches of the tree and Jesus in the flower that blossoms at the top.
Certainly, especially in France, the theme is reproduced frequently in the 12th-16th centuries in the stained-glass windows of cathedrals, in frescoes, on portals, in tapestries, in enamels, in ivories, in illuminated Bibles, in Evangeliaries, Psalters, Books of Hours, etc.
In Germany it is found in the ceiling of Hildesheim, 12th century; in Austria in the vault of the central nave of Maria Saal (ca. 1480). In Italy in the Romanesque pulpit of S. Piero in Scheraggio, today in S. Leonardo in Arcetri near Florence; on the portal of the cathedral of Genoa, in the baptistery of Parma, in the door of S. Zeno in Verona, in a fresco of the cathedral in Naples, on a pillar of the cathedral of Orvieto, etc.
In Spain on a pillar of the cloister of S. Domingo de Silos, on the portal of Glory of St. James of Compostela, in the cloister of the cathedral of Pamplona in Burgos, in the chapel of the Conception erected by Bishop Luis de Acuña, attributed to Diego la Cruz; at Zamora on the tomb of the canon Juan de Grado (d. 1507).
In England in the cathedral of York. In 1169 the Crusaders had the t. of J. executed by the mosaicist Ephrem in the church of Bethlehem, as is learned from a 16th-century copy by the pilgrim Quaremius. Also in Bucovina the t. of J. is painted on the exterior of the church of Suscevitza. - See pls. XXXVII-XXXVIII.
Bibliography4 works
Enrico Josi