ABSTRACT
This study argues the fundamental importance and influence of iconography, generally speaking, and Marian iconography, in particular, over the liturgical drama of Philippe de Mézières written in the context of the promotion of the feast on Mary’s Presentation to the Temple in 1372.
Historians and previous scholars have recognized the significance, contribution, and place of this particular source in the history of the dramaturgy of the Middle Ages and offered diplomatic, political, and/or iconographic hypotheses for the origin and purpose of the play. The chapter applies a different perspective by concentrating on the extensive and meticulous descriptions of characters and their interactions with space that made it possible to enact specific iconographies. As the characters interact and engage with each other during the play, iconographic themes are brought to the fore: Ecclesia and Synagogue, Archangel Michael binding the Devil, Mary as the Woman of the Apocalypse, the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, and the Presentation of Mary in the Temple.
The play proposes the visualization of a certain temporal circularity from Genesis to the end of times, from the creation of the world, with the promise of salvation, to the Last Judgment, and from the Fall of humankind to the binding of Evil. It unites several layers of time, the eschatological times of the Last Judgment (suggested by the binding of the epitome of evil and by the Woman of the Apocalypse); the present time of the performance (the play with the actors), the religious past (Mary’s presentation in the Temple and allusions to Genesis), the present-day (of the audience), with the cosmological–liturgical time of the Mass with Mary at its core.
It also demonstrates the use of canonical iconography to construct a non-canonical event, that of the Presentation of the Virgin to the Temple, visualized in a liturgical context—a liturgical drama. The performance of Mary’s Presentation in the temple is connected to a large triumphant eschatological imagery as the action of the play takes place mostly in heaven(s).
