Hortus Conclusus: A Mariological Symbol in Some Quattrocento Annunciations, According to Church Fathers and Medieval Theologians
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis is an excellent and interesting study of the patristic sources of the hortus conclusus and its later adoption in a variety of ways in 15th century central Italian painting. My only critique is that if the article is principally about the interpretation of 7 quattrocento paintings, that this be brought up in the first paragraphs, which while interesting and relevant, are about the early Church. As it is, the purpose of the article is only articulated in paragraphs 5 & 6. This could be adjusted quite easily.
In the section on the painters, it would be nice to have an idea of how they arrived at including these interpretations. Were these interpretations discussed in homilies of the 15th century? Were these patristic texts widely diffused or translated? A few paragraphs on these questions would bring a lot of immediate context to what is already a convincing argument.
Two tiny corrections:
p.10: it is a pity (one t)
p. 11: Holmes is a she
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageEnglish is fine--just a few corrections noted above.
Author Response
Thanks for your review, please see the attached.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Hortus conclusus
This paper argues that many art historians have failed to observe the central imagery employed in many important Quattrocento images of the annunciation is patristic understanding of Mary as hortus conclusus, as explained in the Song of Songs 4,12: ‘She is a garden enclosed, my sister, my promised bride’. Yet the first sentence of the abstract implies this paper is about interpreting the Song of Songs in terms of Mary. Surely the first argument of this paper is that these images of the Annunciation need to be interpreted in the light of patristic and medieval understanding of this image of Mary as hortus conclusus.
This paper is very learned, but the direction of the argument is not clearly visible. The first paragraphs, about orthodoxy and Mariology say nothing about the devotional role played by image in the Song of Songs. It begins as if this is a paper about Christological orthodoxy rather than about the doctrines underpinning 15th century Marian imagery. The opening of the paper needs clearer signposting as to where the argument is going. The most important argument that emerged in this paper only comes in the second page, namely the failure of many art historians to observe the impact of the meaning and imagery of the Virgin as hortus conclusus. This needs to be presented, before giving the background to the Song of Songs. The opening detail in this paper is simply a distraction. The central thread must be imagery of the annunciation, and its relation to this verse (Cant 4:12).
There is an existing tradition of scholarship on the hortus conclusus in relation to mystical literature. Thus there is It should be noted that others work on thius imagery.There is for example a classic monograph by Urban Küsters on this theme relating to the 12th century, Der verschlossene Garten. Volkssprachliche Hohelied-Auslegung und monastische Lebensform im 12. Jahrhundert . - Düsseldorf (1985). There is an English version of his coments on the influence of the Speculum virginum in the 15th cent. , Küsters, Urban. (2001) - In: Listen, daughter , The Speculum virginum and formation of religious women, ed. Mews, p. 245-261. There is a lot on the theme of hortus conclusus in German, perhaps not accessible to the author. Nonetheless, looking through a database such as Regesta Imperii we find links to theses and publications that could be relevant.
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The Virgin in the Hortus conclusus: Healing the Body and Healing the Soul |
A phd thesis might be worth studying
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The hortus conclusus: Marian iconography in the late Middle Ages |
The opening focus of this paper is doctrinal, as a defence of Christological orthodoxy .We get t he sense is that for a 1000 years there was complete agreement about how the song of songs was interpreted. This is not the case. The bride is not just Mary, for Origen the bride is Ecclesia vel anima. It needs to be exoplained that there was an explosion in understanding of the image in the 12th century, embodied by Bernard of Clairvaux, who offers Mary as a model of focus for engagement with the divine. The context is spiritual not dogmatic.Her virginity is presented as an exemplar of the human soul in our experience of the divine. The patristic and medieval texts relating to hortus conclusus are listed rather than analysed, No reference is made to which texts are of influence to the art works presented in the paper. The fact that we have to wait till page 8 out of 18 pages to get to the art works, suggests that the balance of the paper has got out of hand. Even in the conclusion, we find quite separate arguments being made, rather than a single cohesive argument. Thus the first claim that hortus conclusus for dogmatic purposes (not in terms of spiritual experience), has really very little to do with the theme of the annunciation. This argument about orthodox dogma was simply not convincing. In terms of the images presented, it is surely the huge influence of Bernard of Clairvaux (and subsequently Bonaventure) who writes about the visiting of the Word of God to the soul that is shaping this personal attention to the experience of the Virgin as the paradigm of spiritual of life that matters for these artists.
There are also minor technical problems raised by the identification of certain authors (for example one should refer to Honorius Augustudonensis, not to Honorius of Autun). The Bibliography needs be consistent in using either Latin or English (Bernardus Claraevallensis OR Bernard of Clairvaux). Rreferences in the index need to be to the complete works (with complete page references), not just repetition of a single page reference made in a footnote. There is no point to listing patristic and medieval authors just because they mention the image hortus conclusus in the Song of Songs. The paper could be developed to give more attention to the spiritual function of this image in the art of the annunciation, not of Mariological dogma. Individual images are presented rather briefly as in an introductory lecture rather than a research paper. A point of styoe, the paper should avoid colloquial references to “you can see”.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageOK, but avoid references to you, as in a lecture.
Author Response
Thanks for your review, please see the attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsReview of
Hortus conclusus. A Mariological symbol in some Quattrocento Annunciations, according to Church Fathers and medieval theologians [hyphen, if needed should be in theo-logians, not the-ologians]
This paper has been improved for greater internal cohesion which is good. The core argument about the image of the enclose garden as incorporated into15th cent art of the Annunciation is better explained. The paper still suffers from excessive wordiness. The author may have misunderstood certain comments in the earlier report. In particular the introduction of “the author” to replace I comes across as giving unnecessary attention to the author. The problem was not with using the first person, but with over using it.
The abstract is still rather wordy, and should avoid speaking of the author (used twice in one sentence with different meanings). The first sentence of the abstract should not bring in what the title says, that it is about the meaning of the image of hortus conclusus in art of the Annuncation. I would suggest:
Abstract:
This paper seeks to interpret the biblical metaphor of the hortus conclusus (closed garden) according to a Mariological projection, as presented iconographically in various Quattrocentro Annunciations. This exegesis was developed by many Latin and Greek-Eastern Church Fathers and theologians, who considered this Song of Songs' metaphorical expression to symbolize Mary's virginal divine motherhood and perpetual virginity. Their textual interpretations of this doctrine helps elucidate the Mariological meaning in six Quattrocento paintings that include a more or less explicit “closed garden.” These six paintings present a closed garden as a visual metaphor illustrating the Mariological dogmas unveiled by the Church Fathers and theologians when explaining this biblical metaphor. [in one place in the article reference is made to seven paintings so I am not sure which is correct]
The first footnote responds to a comment made in the report, but makes the argument more confusing, by implying that the author is not interested in spiritual or devotional aspects of the image, which would run counter to patristic tradition, which never separated spiritual and devotional elements from theology. The current footnote seems to claim that Kusters departs from patristic tradition which is simply not true. I suspect the author has not read the book in question. “Therefore, the author has not considered in his article this devotional or spiritual interpretation of the hortus conclusus given by some, such as Urban Küsters in his book Der verschlossene Garten. Volkssprachliche Hohelied-Auslegung und monastische Lebensform im 12. Jahrhundert, Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1985.” This book is about the image of the enclosed garden within vernacular German commentaries on the Song of Songs. This article is about visual art, not vernacular German literature. The current footnote should best be removed, as it implies that the author has not actually read the book in question, but is making a dogmatic claim outside his expertise. In the abstract "mainly explicitly" is simply bad English. Better to say: This paper seeks to (and avoid raising the question of the spiritual and devotional aspect of this art, which certainly IS central these images).
Smaller details (with line numbers)
19 second century of our era, and especially during the 3rd and 4th centurie] third and fourth centuries [if you write second, then write third and fourth
In this context of heterodox deviations, the entire Church, hand in hand with many influential Church Fathers, was forced to develop] deviations, many influential Church Fathers were forced [The paper does not comment on the fact that Augustine does not speak about this doctrine, but Ambrose does: avoid implying that there was a single institutional response on the matter in these early centuries. They also had different ways of looking at the image. Better just to say: In this context of heterodox deviations, many influential Church Fathers...
Inserting “the author” in place of I does not work well. There is nothing wrong with using the first person (and it is better than “the author”. The problem comes with it being used too much, as if in a spoken lecture. There are too many words in the paragraph that begins:
To make the explanation more eloquent, the author will analyze the topic in the current paper from two complementary perspectives. ...
Better: For greater clarity, I analyze the topic from two complementary perspectives: that of various Greek and Latin Church Fathers, and then through several paintings.. To conclude, I consider relationships between these patristic and theological texts, and the pictorial Annunciations commented on here.
The author does not pretend to exhaust the countless exegetical comments by which many Fathers and theologians of the Eastern and Western Churches established a formal parallelism/identification between the hortus conclusus and Mary's perpetual virginity and 124 her virginal divine motherhood] Shorten the first sentence to : Many Fathers and theologians of the Eastern...
161 (also 267, 281 ( Honorius of Autun] Honorius Augustudonensis [Autun is NOT the translation of his cognomen, which in fact refers to Regensburg; no serious modern scholar calls him H of Autun The effect of using an outdated version of his name suggests a serious lack of familiarity with scholarship on twelfth century religious writers. Just refer to him in subsequent references as Honorius
263 , conspicuous leader of the Victorins' School, ] the eminent founder of the Victorine school
This paragraph is another example of a paragraph in which repeating the word “author” is simply unnecessary, and too many unnecessary words and phrases.
As the author did with the texts, from which he choses only a few representative examples, he will now select only seven pictorial Annunciations, which will be analyzed as representative examples of the topic under study. He has chosen these seven paintings since they seem adequate to fully illustrate the iconographic theme of the hortus conclusus in Italian Quattrocento's Annunciations. He does not mean by this that the Italian artists of that period are the "inventors" of this iconographic subject
Just as a few texts can be studied to illustrate the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity, so seven Quattrocento paintings can be examined as illustrating the theme of the hortus conclusus. This does not mean that the Italian artists...
560 many Fathers, and theologians of the Greek and Latin Churches agree to interpret the expression ]... Churches interpreted [They did not agree on how they did so, so just say “interpreted”
563 This millenary exegetical c ] omit millenary, as this is incorrect use of that word; it implies the tradition stopped after a thousand years precisely
Bibliography: Avoid mixing English and Spanish. If you say Bonaventure of Bonareggio, then you should say Bernard of Clairvaux, rather than Claraval
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe problem is not the English, but excessive wordiness.
Author Response
I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Reviewer 2 for his kind remarks and suggestions in his 2nd report. I have considered all to improve the final version of my article.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
