The bed in images of the Annunciation (14th-15th centuries): An iconographic interpretation according to Latin Patristics

The images of the Annunciation of the 14th and 15th centuries often include in their scene a bed with evident prominence, which allows us to conjecture that this piece of furniture contains some symbolism of particular relevance. Given such unusual detail, this article seeks to interpret the possible doctrinal meanings that this bed could provide. In this sense, twelve Annunciations of this period, which include a bed, are analyzed first with a personal interpretation that stands against some inadequate “interpretations” proposed by other modern authors. We will try to justify our interpretations based on an abundant corpus of texts through which many Latin Fathers and theologians see the thalamus concept as two complementary metaphors: a metaphor of God Son’s incarnation in Mary's womb, and also a metaphor of Mary’s virgin divine motherhood.


Introduction
The artistic representation of the event of the Annunciation to Mary experienced a significant evolution over the centuries, as evidenced by some iconographers, such as Manuel Trens (1947), 3 Louis Réau (1957), 4 Giuseppe Toscano (1961), 5 Gertrud Schiller (1971), 6 or Timothy Verdon (2004). 7 During the first nine centuries of the Christian era, the depiction of this Marian episode was expressed according to a straightforward, stripped scene, usually reduced to the only presence of the two protagonists, the angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary, in static attitudes, cut out on an abstract neutral background, usually without any accessory.
In the Romanesque period, the scene of the Annunciation began to include a series of increasingly numerous compositional, narrative elements. These concretize in two complementary aspects: firstly, in its protagonists, since the Virgin progressively com-plemented her figure with a prayer book, a seat or a recliner, while the angel holds a staff of herald; secondly, concerning the scenography, usually embedded as a narrow architectural framework like a niche, or an increasingly large room or structural element, which suggests the Virgin's home.
In the Late Middle Ages, especially in the 14th and 15th centuries, the images of the Annunciation quickly acquired a progressive complexity. 8 They begin to include numerous narrative elements, such as a stem of lilies in the angel's hands and or in a vase, 9 a beam of rays descending towards the Virgin, carrying in its wake the dove of the Holy Spirit, Mary's home shaped like a luxurious abode or a temple, and abundant and precious furniture enriching the scene. Not a few of these details, besides their apparent compositional function, also contain a specific symbolic value related to some essential doctrinal meanings.
One of these narrative elements that many images of the Annunciation of the 14th and 15th centuries incorporate into the composition is precisely a bed, displayed prominently, usually in the center of the scene and almost always with large dimensions. Now, most art historians not even mention such a bed, and, when some allude to it, they usually do so to consider it a mere decorative detail, without any significant interest. In contrast, others bring some arbitrary and undocumented "interpretations" on it.
Therefore, given such inexplicable silence and unjustified "interpretations" on the bed in the images of the Annunciation, we will address this problem in the current article through two complementary objectives: 1) First, and above all, to undertake an in-depth research in primary sources of Christian doctrine, to verify if, and to what extent and meaning, some Latin Church Fathers and theologians have doctrinally mentioned and interpreted some biblical expression referring metaphorically to a bed or other similar symbolic object; we should note here that in another article, we deal with offering an analogous set of exegetic glosses on the bed by Greek-Eastern Fathers. 10 2) Based on our conceptual findings when analyzing Christian doctrinal texts, our second methodological objective is to examine some paintings of the Annunciation of the 14th and 15th centuries that include a bed, and eventually to highlight the silence and, in particular, some unacceptable "interpretations" which some art historians and iconographers had done on that bed 8 On that subject in this period, see, for example, David M. Robb, 1936, "The Iconography of the Annunciation in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries," The Art Bulletin 18, 480-526. 9 We have analized this subject of the stem of lilies in the following papers: José María Salvador-González, Flos de radice Iesse. A hermeneutic approach to the theme of the lily in the Spanish Gothic painting of The Annunciation from patristic and theological sources," Eikón Imago 4 (2013): 183-222; José María Salvador-González, "In virga Aaron Maria ostendebatur. Nueva interpretación del lirio en La Anunciación gótica española a la luz de fuentes patrísticas y teológicas", Anales de Historia del Arte 24 (2014a): 37-60; José María Salvador-González, "Flos campi et lilium convallium. Third interpretation of lily in the iconography of The Annunciation in Italian Trecento art from patristic and theological sources", Eikón Imago 5 (2014b): 75-96; José María Salvador González, "Sanctitate vernans virga Aaronis. Interpretation of the stem of lilies in the medieval iconography of the Annunciation according to theological sources". Oxford Academic Studies Press. Art Studies and Architectural Journal 10 # 9 (2015b): 2-32. 10 José María Salvador-González, "The bed in images of the Annunciation of the 14th and 15th centuries: a dogmatic symbol according to Greek-Eastern Patrology," Imago. Revista de Emblemática y Cultura Visual, 12 (2020), (in press).

Exploring the primary sources of Christian doctrine on thalamus Dei and other similar metaphors
This first analysis of texts is structured in two complementary phases: first of all, the study of the writings of many Church Fathers and medieval theologians on the metaphors in question; second, the scrutiny of some medieval liturgical hymns.

Latin Fathers and theologians' interpretations on thalamus
A thorough investigation in primary sources of the Latin and Greek Patristics soon revealed progressively the answers to the problems raised by that surprising bed (thalamus) in images of the Annunciation. Let us specify, first of all, that Latin concept thalamus means both "nuptial bed" (or only "bed") and "nuptial room." These two complementary meanings are precisely those that almost all the Christian writers which we consulted have in mind in their exegeses by glossing expressions that include the term thalamus. Now, the enormous amount of comments we have found on thalamus among the Latin and Greek-Eastern Fathers and theologians forces us to a double effort of taxonomic selection and ordering. In this sense, in the current article, we will present only a range of exegetic texts of Latin Church Fathers and theologians. At the same time, we set aside for a second article a similar selection of comments of Greek-Eastern Fathers.
In the second half of the 4th century, St. Ambrose of Milan (330-397) refers in one of his hymns to the virginal conception of Jesus, as God the Son incarnate in Mary's womb, and to his supernatural birth preserving his Mother's virginity. So Ambrose praises Christ with these poetic terms: Leaving his bridal bedroom The royal palace of purity, Giant of two twin substances, For running the road fast. 11 Some decades later, St. Maximus of Turin ( † c. 420), taking up the thalamus metaphor, points out that God had planned to associate Mary as Christ's marital bed, in which he became incarnate as a man from her fleshly substance (Praevidebat enim in spiritu Mariam de germine suo Christi thalamo sociandam), according to the passage of Psalm 18: "He proceeds from his nuptial bedroom as a husband." 12 Right away, after remembering that David sang and danced with joy before the ark of the covenant, 13 the holy bishop of Turin argues that the Virgin Mary is a sacred ark better than ancient Jewish ark of the covenant, because, if it contained the Old Covenant slabs, Mary gestated the heir of that same Testament; and, if that held the old law, Mary contained the Gospel; and, if the ark of the covenant contained the voice of God, Mary contained the right Word (Verbum) of God; and, if that one shone inside and outside with the glow of earthly gold, Mary shines inside and outside with the brightness of the heavenly gold of virginity. 14 Perhaps for the same years, St. Augustine of   15 imagines in his Sermon 70 -if this attributed sermon is his own 16 -a rhetorical dialogue with the Virgin Mary, in which he says that "God prepared in your nuptial bed [womb] the wedding for his Son: and in that same joyful betrothal the world was freed from all that had offended [God]." 17 A couple of decades later St. Peter Chrysologus (c. 380-451), in a homily on Christ's incarnation, after asking who, being unworthy, could approach the gates of the divine palace, replies by saying that nobody is admitted for approaching the husband's nuptial bedroom, except the only one who is quite close and intimate to him, having a good conscience and worthy standing. On the contrary, only the Virgin fits within the bridal bedroom itself (of God the Son); God receives only the immaculate virginity. 18 Almost a century and a half later, St. Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530-c. 607/609) takes up the thalamus symbol in some hymns, in one of which he asserts: The chaste members of the maiden are the Creator's temples, Furthermore, God himself inhabits that nuptial bedroom. "Who will approach the same gates of the palace being vile, being unworthy? Certainly no one who is not close enough, who is not intimate enough, who is not of good conscience, who is not of praiseworthy fame is admitted to approach the husband's nuptial bedroom. But within the nuptial bedroom itself it is only possible to enter a virgin; only an immaculate virginity is received." ( "For the Lord our God Jesus Christ was born admirably and by his power, as the husband came out from his nuptial bedroom (Ps. XVIII, 6), that is, from the womb of the Virgin, after whose birth we confess that no man maintained intercourse with Mary, that no other son was begotten from her womb." (Isidorus Hispalensis, De fide Catholica contra Judaeos. Liber Primus, X, 10. PL 83, 470). 22 "This virgin in the psalm is the nuptial bedroom of God (thalamus Dei), because this incarnate God came out from her womb as a husband, preserving in her intact the precious attribute of perpetual virginity (Psal. XVIII Several decades later St. Isidore of Seville (c. 556-636) states in a book against the Jews that Christ was born marvelously as a husband who comes out from his bridal bedroom, scilicet, from Mary's womb, after whose childbirth she did not have intercourse with anybody, nor did she engender another child. 21 Approximately one generation later, St. Ildefonsus of Toledo (607-667) asserts in a dissertation about Mary's perpetual virginity that she is the God's nuptial bed, as God the Son incarnate came out from her womb, as the husband referred to in Psalm 18, preserving her perpetual virginity. 22 More or less four centuries later, St. Peter Damian (1007-1072) undertakes several times the thalamus metaphor as a symbol of God the Son's incarnation and Mary's virginal divine motherhood. Thus, in a sermon on Mary's birth, the author maintains that, just as humankind's redemption could be impossible without the Son of God being born of a Virgin, so this Virgin needed to exist from whom the divine Word would incarnate; thus, it was essential that a house where the King of heaven, descending to earth, condescended to have as lodging, be built. 23 Similarly, it was first necessary to create a nuptial bedroom that could receive the Husband who was coming to espouse his Church, this Husband (Christ) whose epithalamium David sang when says exultantly in Psalm 18: "The Lord is coming from his bridal bedroom as a husband." 24 In another sermon on the Annunciation, the author states that Jesus, as an intense lover, sings the epithalamium with praise, where the Husband enters exhaling a heartfelt love. 25 Furthermore, in other writing about the Annunciation, Peter Damian retakes once again with lyrical emphasis the metaphor under scrutiny. After pointing out that God the Son, eternal in his divine majesty, covered himself with the veil of weak human flesh, he ensures that, by joining the Word of God to human nature, the heavenly Husband associated himself in the nuptial bedroom of Mary's virginal womb to her holy Church, for the love of which he whose infinite immensity heaven cannot contain did not despise the narrowness of mother's womb. 26 A few decades later, St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) takes up almost obsessively the doctrinal metaphor of thalamus in some canticles in praise of Mary. In one of them, he proclaims: Mary, the God's nuptial bed, Ask those who revere you May they gloss with the virtues, Who are obscured by their sins. 27 Moreover, in another stanza of the same hymn he proclaims: Hail, the lawyer's mother, Who, joyful with the news, Came out of the palace of the incorrupt womb As his nuptial bedroom. 28 23 "For as it was impossible for the redemption of the humankind to take place, unless God the Son was born of a Virgin; so it was also necessary that the Virgin, from whom the Word [of God] became flesh, was born. In fact, it was convenient to build the house first, to which the King of heaven, when going down [to the earth], deigned to have as his". (Petrus Damianus, Sermo XLV. II. In Nativitate Beatissimae Virginis Mariae. PL 144, 741-742 (PL 144, 740-748). 24 "It was first necessary to erect the nuptial bedroom, to receive the Husband of the Holy Church who was coming to marry, whom David, exulting in his spirit, sang the epithalamium, saying: 'The Lord who leaves his nuptial bedroom as a husband (Psal. xviii)'." (Ibid.).

25
"That vehement lover sees and burns, and sings all his epithalamium with praise, in which the husband is manifestly induced by inspiring a very sincere love". (Petrus Damianus, Sermo XI. De Annunciatione Beatissimae Virginis Mariae. PL 144, 558). 26 "The one who was omnipotent in the majesty of his eternal essence covered himself with the veil of the weak flesh; and, while the Word of God the Father joined human nature, the heavenly husband associated himself with the holy Church in the nuptial bedroom of the virginal womb [of Mary], in favor of whose love [of the Church] He who does not fit in the infinite width of heaven did not spare the narrows of the mother's womb." ( "For she was a holy Virgin before childbirth, and a virgin more holy in childbirth, and the most holy virgin after childbirth, because the greater the works the divine intervention did in her, the greater holiness and religion grew in her." (Goffridus Vindocinensis, Sermo IV. In Nativitate Domini IV. PL 157, 250). Furthermore, in a new stanza of this canticle the Archbishop of Canterbury reiterates: Hail, from whose virginal Nuptial bed God comes, Bringing himself to us as grace in grant In the betrothal. 29 A few verses later, the hymnographer continues his praises to Mary with these poetic words: Hail, a mother whose bridegroom And creator and son, Is God, the enlightenment, The salvation and the protection. 30 Some stanzas later, St. Anselm completes his congratulations to the Virgin as the nuptial bedroom of God, expressing: Hail, this pacific Zion, Where the hymn outfits God, Who turned for himself into a nuptial bedroom The palace of your virginity. 31 About a generation later, the Benedictine theologian Rupert of Deutz (c. 1075/1080-c. 1129) praises the Virgin Mary by calling her "templum Domini, sacrarium Spiritus sancti, thalamum sanctitatis, triclinium divini consilii," in which God, coming to save us, clothed himself with our flesh. 32 On the other hand, the Benedictine abbot Geoffrey of Vendôme (c. 1070-1132), in a sermon on Jesus Nativity, states that Mary was a holy virgin before delivery, and an even holier virgin in childbirth, and the holiest virgin after birth, as the higher the divine involvement was in her, the more sanctity and religion developed in her. 33 And then he points out that the door of Mary's womb was never open, but always closed and sealed, through which God Himself became incarnate, like the bridegroom from his bridal bedroom; that is why, one designates Virgin Mary's womb as the nuptial bed, for the Godhead is united in it with our human flesh, and our flesh is united with the Deity. 34 A few years later Honorius of Autun (c. 1080-c. 1157) states that the Virgin Mary is the tabernacle of God or the Church, according to what Psalm 18 says "He put his tabernacle in the Sun," in which God the Son rested when becoming human, and from which he came out as a husband exits from his nuptial bedroom. 35 More or less by the same years St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) declares in a lecture that Mary is the royal road by which the Savior comes, coming from her womb like the bridegroom from his bridal bedroom; therefore he requests the Virgin for having access to her Son by her so that he who was given to us by her will receive us. 36 Furthermore, in another text in praise of Mary, St. Bernard asserts on the Annunciation: How much is God's dignity! How great Virgin's excellence! Run, mothers, run, daughters, run all who after Eve, and by Eve, and give birth sadly, and give birth. Go to the virginal nuptial bedroom [Mary], come in, if you can, in your sister's chaste nuptial chamber. 37 Approximately half a century later, Peter of Blois (1135-1204), in a sermon on Mary's birth, points out that she is the nuptial bedroom of God the Son, for he could enter into communion with human nature. From it, Christ was born of her as the bridegroom from his bridal bedroom. 38 The Benedictine bishop Peter of Celle (c. 1115-1183) in his famous Liber de Panibus alludes numerous times to the metaphorical expression thalamus Dei -complementing it with that of the bread oven and the temple-as symbols of Mary. Thus, in one of the numerous passages in this book dealing with these three metaphors, Peter of Celle states: 34 "For the door of the womb of the mother of the new Savior was never opened, but it was always closed and sealed, through which God Himself became man, like a husband who gets out of his nuptial bedroom (Psal. XVIII, 6 ). The womb of the good and blessed Virgin Mary is called the nuptial bedroom (thalamus), because in it the Godhead is associated with our flesh, and our flesh is associated with the Godhead." (Goffridus Vindocinensis, Sermo IV. In Nativitate Domini IV. PL 157, 250). 35 "The blessed always Virgin Mary is the tabernacle of the Church or of God, according to what is said: She put his tabernacle in the sun (Psal, XVIII, 6). In which the Son of God rested when he became a man, and from which he came out as a husband from his nuptial bedroom (ibid. This Virgin [Mary], I say, is not only a bread oven, when she receives the Holy Spirit, but she is also a nuptial bed when she conceives God [the Son], and she is also a temple, living chastely. She is a bread oven, for conversing with dignity; she is a nuptial bed, to conceive in an ineffable way; she is a temple, offering herself to God as a living, holy and pleasant host. She is an oven to prepare bread; a nuptial bed to receive the Bridegroom [Christ]; a temple to introduce the pontiff [Christ]. 39 Almost a century later St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (c. 1221-1274) asserts in a sermon on the Annunciation that the Creator rested in the tabernacle of Mary's virginal womb, for having put there his nuptial bedroom to become our brother, for having prepared there the royal throne to become our prince, and for having taken the priestly ornaments to become our Pontiff. 40 The author states that, by this nuptial union, Mary is the God's Mother; by the royal throne, she is Queen of heaven; and by the priestly vestments, she is an attorney of Humanity; and for all those merits the Virgin Mary was quite suitable, for being of the human race, royal line and priestly lineage; therefore she can say rightly: He who created me has rested in my tabernacle. 41 Then Bonaventure goes on saying that He [God the Son] put his nuptial bedroom in it [Mary's womb]; and he did so just to espouse the human nature in the virginal womb, anticipating what the prophet David said with prophetic certainty by the divine Spirit: He put his tabernacle in the sun. In the sun, he says, that is, in the Holy Virgin, who is rightly entitled as the sun, as she was covered with the sun and fulfilled with the light of eternal brightness, as stated in chapter 12 of Apocalypse: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet. 42 To complete his reasoning, St. Bonaventure adds: So, he indeed says: In the sun, that is, in the blessed Virgin. And then he enhances as a husband, for the womb of the Virgin was the nuptial bed in which God joined human nature, and embracing it, merged it with a conjugal union. [...] In this [...] sacrosanct uterus God the Son put the human nature, to marry it: so our Creator of the universe became our brother, and the blessed Virgin became the Mother of all Saints. 43

The thalamus Dei and other similar metaphors in medieval liturgical hymns
At this point, it is essential to note that these countless patristic and theological interpretations of the thalamus Dei metaphor and other similar metaphorical expressions find a symptomatic reflection and a concordant echo in many medieval liturgical hymns, which, more or less explicitly, allude poetically to those same metaphors. To tell the truth, nothing else could be expected, considering that medieval hymnographers compose their liturgical and devotional songs and poems inspired by the official doctrine of the Fathers, Doctors, and theologians who are recognized as the genuine masters of Christian orthodoxy.
We are lucky that the prestigious German historian Franz Joseph Mone collected and edited in the mid-19th century most of these Latin liturgical hymns in three volumes: 44 the first dedicated to God; 45 the second, to the Virgin Mary; 46 the third, to the saints. 47 The fragments of the medieval liturgical hymns we will cite below have been extracted from the second volume of F. J. Mone. Here are some samples.
Hymn 373, dedicated in the 14th century to the Virgin, praises her in its fourth stanza with these compliments: Another 14th-century liturgical canticle, Hymn 473, written for the hour of Vespers in a liturgical office in honor of Mary, manifests in its fourth stanza a warm tribute to the Virgin with these joyous praises: Rejoice, you who in the nuptial bed of your womb Gestate as your own when incarnating To God the Son, And you fed him with the balsam of your milk. 49 And several stanzas later the devotional song insists on similar metaphors, proclaiming: Rejoice, you who sing to the husband With a song that has no end, Your epithalamium be Own just for you. 50 In turn, Hymn 400, composed in the 15th century inspired by each of the words of the Ave Maria prayer, manifests in its second stanza: Mary, mother of God, Bridal bed of love, Mary, the bosom of rest, Source of sweetness, Mary, the port of our hope, Bridge against terror, I beg you, remember me blind sinner. 51 Finally, Hymn 491, also written in the 15th century in honor of Mary, exalts her for her privileged status as virginal mother of God the Son incarnated with these lyrical metaphors: Palace of the Supreme King, Emperor's Throne, Back of the bed of the Bridegroom, You are the wife of the Creator. 52

Analyzing ten images of the Annunciation with a bed in the 14th-15th centuries
After collecting many testimonies from Latin Fathers, theologians and hymnographers, who unanimously interpret the thalamus Dei metaphor and other similar analogical expressions with the Christological and Mariological meanings already explained, it is time to verify if these dogmatic symbolisms contained in those metaphors are reflected in the artistic images of the Annunciation. We focus the analysis on the plastic representations of the Annunciation, and not on other Marian episodes and iconographic typologies, because all the interpretations of the Fathers, theologians, and hymnographers on the metaphorical expressions studied here refer to the dogmas of God the Son's incarnation and Mary's virginal divine motherhood. And these two dogmas are precisely those that become real in the event of the Annunciation, when the Virgin accepts, with an unrestricted obedience as ancilla Domini, the will of the Most High to make her mother of his divine Son incarnate memento quaeso mei caeci peccatoris." ("Hymnus 400. Ave Maria". In Mone, Hymni Latini Medii Aevi, Tomus Secundus, 107). as man. Let's start with the iconographic analysis of some Annunciations.
At first, it should be noted that the presence of a bed in images of the Annunciation during the 14th and 15th centuries is a characteristic quite common to artists from the most diverse regional backgrounds, be they Italian, Flemish, Spanish, French, German and other European countries. The ten paintings to be analyzed in this paper -as well as many other Annunciations of the 14th and 15th centuries not included in this short sample-incorporate a bed in the scene. However, the finding that this bed almost always stands out for its large size, its splendor, order, and cleanliness, its prominent position (usually in the center of the scene), and its clear function as the prolongation/identification with Mary or as a link between the angel and the Virgin allows to conjecture that it contains some outstanding doctrinal significances in this crucial event of the Annunciation to Mary.
Besides, the undeniable fact that so many different artists from such diverse sociocultural fields, as Italy, Flanders, Spain, France, or Germany, include so repeatedly and so prominently a bed in some Annunciations raises a disturbing problem. It is worth asking whether this reiterative and prominent bed is a pure coincidence, or a mere painter's whim, or a simple, insignificant decorative detail, or if, on the contrary, it is a connoted symbol which contains some crucial doctrinal meaning. The iconographic analyzes that we propose below on these ten Annunciations will try to shed some light on this problem. Barna da Siena (or, according to other experts, Lippo Memmi), when painting the fresco The Annunciation, c. 1340, in the Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta in San Gimignano (Fig. 1), represented the house of Mary as a simple, bare room. On its left, a stairway porch leads to the entrance, where the angel entered. On the right, a narrow enclosure lodges a maid spinning the wool. Bringing her ear closer to the wall, she spies the conversation that the angel and the maiden have in the main room.
Apart from the engaging anecdote of the indiscreet spinner, we are interested in highlighting in this simplified, geometric scenery the bedroom located at the bottom, with Mary's bed visible through the half-open curtains. By this relevant bed -the 53 When commenting this painting, Joachim Poeschke is content just to say: "Derrière elle [Mary], une tenture à moitié ouverte laisse apercevoir sa chambre." (Joachim Poeschke, Fresques italiennes du temps de Giotto, 1280-1400, Paris, Citadelles & Mazenod, 2003. Poeschke says nothing about the bed and ignores its outstanding doctrinal meaning. 54 We have iconographically interpreted the house of Maria shaped as a temple in images of the Annunciation in the article José María Salvador-González, 2020a, "The temple in images of the Annunciation: a double dogmatic symbol according to the Latin theological tradition (6th-15th centuries)", De Medio Aevo, 14, 53-65. only piece of furniture in the scene (except the table next to Mary), occupying all the backward space, in a central position and as a link between Gabriel and Mary-, the painter wanted to highlight the great importance of that bed. Nevertheless, this bed has been ignored by most experts, as, for instance, Joachim Poeschke. 53 Tommaso dal Mazza (act. 1377-1392), when depicting The Annunciation, c. 1390, from The Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles (Fig. 2), prefers to place this Marian event in the context of a building with some temple characteristics. 54 These are mainly the niche or small chapel where the Virgin seats, and above all, the precise aspect of a nave, with large windows and its facade crowned by a gable with pinnacles, which fills the painting's left sector.
Kneeling in the outer space of that strange "house/temple," the angel Gabriel, holding a massive stem of lilies in his left hand, blesses Mary with his right while pointing to the dove of the Holy Spir-it, who flies towards Mary. Interrupting her prayer in the book kept on her knees, she receives in a submissive and crestfallen attitude the angel's message that communicates to her the plan of the Most High, who appears levitating on the upper-left edge of the panel.
It is interesting to note that the room of this house -in the form of a church nave, with large windows and a facade topped with a triangular pinion-is precisely the nuptial chamber of Mary, whose bed with a red cover you can see through the open bay of the door, just between Gabriel and Mary. Not to doubt it, the author of the panel wants to highlight in this scene the bed and the nuptial bedroom (thalamus) of Mary, for the relevant doctrinal meanings of which they are 55 We have dealt with that thesis in the paper José María Salvador-González, "Per aurem intrat Christus in Mariam. Aproximación iconográfica a la conceptio per aurem en la pintura italiana del Trecento desde fuentes patrísticas y teológicas," Ilu. Revista de Ciencias de las Religiones 20 (2015a): 193-230. 56 As far as we know, no commentator of this painting by Pere Serra has interpreted this bed conceptually.
invested, as we have explained in the second part of the article.
The Catalan painter Pere Serra (active between 1357 and 1406), when expressing his Annunciation, c. 1394, a panel of the Altarpiece of the Holy Spirit at the Collegiate Church of St. Mary in Manresa (Fig. 3), gives the Virgin's bed a leading role. All the scenery of this narrow, tiny enclosure -with an artificial linear perspective-is reduced to the nuptial room, filled by a huge red bed. In that capricious scenery the angel, kneeling before the seated Virgin, announces to her that, by God's design, she will be the mother of his divine Son without manly intervention, because "the Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." That is why the painter captures the dove of the Holy Spirit, touching Mary's ear, for illustrating the curious thesis of conceptio per aurem. 55 Seated on the bed's platform, Mary submissively bows her head to show her compliance with the Almighty's will.
The circumstance that in this painting the bed acquires such an invading prominence, almost filling the small space of the house and in close proximity/continuity with Mary -almost identifying it with her-reveals that the intellectual author of this painting seems to be aware of the significant value of this nuptial bed. 56  (Fig. 4), according to a unique narrative structure. Even placing, as expected, the Virgin inside her home -expressed here in the form of a cubic enclosure decorated in Cosmatesque style-, he places the angel exceptionally outside the house before its closed door (porta clausa). With this fine detail, the intellectual author of this fresco would undoubtedly mean the patristic interpretation of Ezekiel's porta clausa as a symbol of the virginal divine motherhood of Mary and the supernatural conception/incarnation of God the Son made man in the Virgin's womb. 57 However, for the purposes we are looking for in this article, it is convenient to highlight the bridal bedroom in the center at the bottom of the scene, whose open door shows the red bed through the halfopen white curtains that protect its privacy. Located in a prominent place, at the center of the composition and serving as a link between the heavenly messenger and the recipient of the divine message, this con-57 On this specific Mariological metaphor see our paper José María Salvador-González, "Haec Porta Domini. Exegeses of some Greek Church Fathers on Ezekiel's porta clausa (5th-10th centuries)", Cauriensia, 15 (2020): 615-633. 58 When comenting this fresco, which she attributes to Jacopo di Cione, Vera-Simone Schulz (2018, "Infiltrating Artifacts: The Impact of Islamic Art inFourteenth-and Fifteenth-Century Florence and Pisa," Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History 87 / 4, 218, Fig. 4) does not mention the bed. noted thalamus -the nuptial room and its bed-translates as a visual metaphor the deep dogmatic meanings that, as we have seen above, the Latin Fathers, theologians, and hymnographers were able to see in the textual metaphor of thalamus Dei. Therefore, it is incredible that the commentators we know about this painting, including Vera-Simone Schulz, do not realize these meanings of the bed. 58 Bicci di Lorenzo designs The Annunciation, c. 1430, of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland (Fig. 5), in a relatively similar way as Tommaso del Mazza did in his newly analyzed Annunciation, c. 1390, of the Paul Getty Museum. When structuring his panel, Bicci di Lorenzo also places Gabriel kneeling in the outer space, outside the house (shaped like a thin parallelepiped) where the seated Mary interrupts her prayer for the unexpected arrival of the angel. At the same time, in the middle of both the Virgin's nuptial bedroom stands, through whose open door you can see the red bed. With such details, the intellectual author of this painting marks the doctrinal importance of that thalamus, in the same epistemic sense that we have already indicated, and following the same theological interpretation that we have explained in the second part of the article. 59 In his coment on this Annunciation, Giuseppe Marchini (1979, Filippo Lippi, Milano, Electa, 204, n. 22, fig. 39) says nothing about the bed. Fra Filippo Lippi structures his Annunciation with donors, 1450, from the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome (Fig. 6) in the context of a luxurious Renaissance palace, full of precious polychrome marbles and splendid decoration. Framed in the central arch and the vaulted gallery that communicates with a closed garden (hortus conclusus) in the background, the majestic upright figure of the Virgin constitutes the physical and conceptual center of the composition. The kneeling angel gives her a stem of lilies -a symbol of her already imminent virginal divine motherhood-as an eloquent metaphor for the heavenly message, announcing to her that God has chosen her as the mother of God the Son incarnate.
As a complement to that symbolic stem of lilies, the red bed of embroidered bedspread that one can see in the upper left of the painting is also affirmed as an analogous symbol of Mary's virginal divine maternity as well as God the Son's conception/incarnation in the Virgin's womb, as we have shown in the second part of this study, based on the multisecular exegetic tradition of Latin Patristics. In that sense, it is quite strange that most commentators of this Lippi's painting ignore the doctrinal content of this bed, just as Giuseppe Marchini 59 and Jeffrey Ruda 60 do.
Rogier van der Weyden plans a similar situation in The Annunciation of the left panel of the Altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi (St. Columba Altarpiece), painted around 1455 for the main altar of the church of St. Columba in Cologne, which is exhibited today at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (Fig. 7). Here too, van der Weyden places a large, luxurious red bed, protected by canopy and curtains of the same color, inside a living room (not a bridal bedroom): the large windows and the door with direct access from outside to the house reveal that it is a living room.
In any case, as in the other similar paintings analyzed so far, this nuptial bed stands out with evident prominence for its grand size (which fills a large part of the compositional space), for its vibrant and symbolic red color, for its luxury, order, and neatness, and for placing it in perfect continuity/identification with the Virgin's figure. All these details reveal that the 61 In commenting this St. Columba Annunciation, Max Julius Friedländer (1967b, Early Netherlandish painting. Vol. 2, Rogier van der Weyden and the Master of Flemalle, Leiden, A.W. Sijthoff, plates 70 and 72) not even mentions the bed. 62 Speaking on Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, Erwin Panofsky states: "It is not by a chance that the scene takes place in a bedroom instead of a sitting room, for the matrimonial bed was so sacred that a married couple in bed could be visited and blesed by the Trinity, and even the scene of the Annunciation had come to be staged in what was officially referred to as the thalamus Virginis." (Panofsky,Early Nederlandish painting,Vol. I,203). In our opinion, Panofsky does not seem to be right when he states that the scene of the Annunciation happens in Mary's bedroom, and not in the sitting room of her house. In fact, in this Annunciation by van der Weyden, as well as in other analogous Flemish Annunciations of the fifteenth century, the scene depicted is a living room, as suggested by the furniture, the windows (and sometimes also the door) open to the outside, and the usual presence of the fireplace. The surprising inclusion of a matrimonial bed in that living room is, on the contrary, strictly due to doctrinal reasons, to symbolize the Christological and Mariological contents that we will explain in the second part of this article. Panofky also does not justify documentary why he claims that the scene of the Annunciation was "officially referred to as the thalamus Virginis", nor does he tell us what exactly that thalamus Virginis means from the dctrinal perspective. 73 With a certain stubbornness Panofsky insists again: "In Roger's Louvre panel the Annunciation chamber itself is conspicuously and unequivocally characterized as a thalamus, a nuptial room not unlike the interior in the Arnolfini portrait, and the symbolic significance of the bed is clearly manifested by the fact that the chased medal lion suspended from its headboard bears the image of the Lord." (Panofsky,Early Nederlandish painting,Vol. I,254). To affirm with such forcefulness as Panofsky does that, in this van der Weyden's painting in the Louvre, "the Annunciation chamber itself is conspicuously and unequivocally characterized as a thalamus, a nuptial room" does not seem convincing. In fact, the luxurious furniture, the refined lamp, the large windows generously open to the outside, and above all the large fireplace, are more typical of a living room than of a nuptial room (thalamus). iconographic programmer of this panel seems to be aware of the deep doctrinal meanings that this bed contains. So it is impressive that most commentators of this painting have silenced all reference to this bed, as Max Julius 1967), 61 Martin Davies (1973), 62 Odile , 63 Paul Philippot (1994), 64 Albert Châtelet (1999ª and1999b), 65 Elisabeth Dhanens and Jellie Dijkstra (1999), 66 Dirk De Vos (2002), 67 and Stephan Kemperdick (2009) do. 68 Furthermore, when someone alludes to this bed, they do so by giving some inadequate interpretation of it, as Erwin Panofsky (1953), 69 Dirk De Vos (1999), 70 and Lorne Campbell and Jan van der Stock (2009) 71 do. Panofsky begins by relating the bed included in Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait with this one contained in Rogier van der Weyden's Annunciations, 72 as in that one of the Louvre, on which he states that it clearly expresses the idea of symbolic thalamus. 73 Then, in specific reference to the Annunciation of St. Columba Altarpiece, Panofsky assures that in this painting, van der Weyden is 74 Speaking on the Annunciation of the St. Columba Altarpiece, Erwin Panofsky asserts: "And he [Rogier van der Weyden] was also the first to throw full light upon the idea of the thalamus Virginis. Where a bed appears in such contemporary or slightly earlier renderings as the Brenken altarpiece or the 'Annunciations' by Masolino, Fra Angelico and Bicci di Lorenzo it is removed into an alcove in the rear or nearly hidden in an adjacent room, a modest footnote to the main text." (Panofsky,Early Nederlandish painting: vol. I,254). It is unnecessary to repeat here the same critical observations we have just made to Panofsky in the preceding footnotes, in the sense of rejecting his "interpretation" of the St. Columba Annunciation's room as the thalamus Virginis.
the first painter to want to signify this bed as the symbolic thalamus Virginis. 74 The anonymous South Nederlandish Painter who depicted The Annunciation, c. 1460, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, fully expresses the symbolic meanings that we have elucidated here. On the one hand, in effect, he adopts the usual narrative elements in this Marian event: the angel, with his herald stick and the phylacteria with the inscription (almost illegible) ave gratia plena dominus tecum, kneels reverently before the Virgin; seated on a red cushion on the floor, like Madonna of Humility, Mary lowers her head and eyes demurely at the unforeseen irruption of the heavenly messenger, while, in a gesture reminiscent of that of the priest officiating the Mass, she opens in parallel the hands before her chest to manifest her unrestricted acceptance of the will of the Most High; at her feet a conventional stem of lilies stands upright in a beautiful vase; on the furniture in front of the Virgin an open book in which she meditated refers to the Old Testament prophecies that are being fulfilled in the Annunciation; next to the book an apple appears, undoubtedly alluding to the apple of Eve, who by sinning in the Earthly Paradise was the cause of sin and death, an apple that, now before the Virgin, symbolizes the new Eve=Mary, who, by begetting the Redeemer, will make redemption and new life possible.
However, along with those relatively predictable narrative elements, this South Nederlandish Painter surprises us with the unusual bed of the Virgin depicted on this panel. Against all logic, this green bed appears --the bed only, not the nonexistent bedroom-inexplicably "embedded" in the middle of the wall, as if it and its external implements (canopy and curtains) were an extension in depth of the wall.
It is evident that, by giving this bed such an impossible situation and such a prominent role --filling half of the pictorial space and in perfect continuity/ identification with Mary's figure--, the intellectual author of this painting wants to highlight the deep Mariological and Christological meanings of the thalamus Dei that, based on the coinciding testimonies of Latin Fathers, theologians, and hymnographers, we have explained in the first part of the article.
The Master of Sopetrán organizes The Annunciation, c. 1470, of the Prado Museum in Madrid (Fig. 9) reversing the traditional placement of the two protagonists of the event: he places Gabriel on the right, initiating the kneeling gesture, while the Virgin appears kneeling on the left of the composition. The author of the painting stages the Marian episode in the living room of the Virgin, with its elegant furniture, its large windows open to the outside, its pavement of polychrome tiles, and its large fireplace. For our research purposes, the most exciting item in this painting is the luxurious, unpolluted red bed covered by an elegant canopy and green curtains. es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/la-anunciacion/a1f4b7a1-b596-4934-95ef-4433554ef1f0 (Last access: 05/02/2020) The unusual fact that, against all objective logic, the intellectual author of this Prado Museum painting has placed a matrimonial bed (thalamus) in the middle of the living room of Virgin's home clearly shows that he wanted to highlight the profound doctrinal symbolism that this bed encloses in its essential relationship with Son of God's incarnation and with Mary's virginal divine motherhood, which are the two essential dogmatic contents in the event of the Annunciation.
Domenico Ghirlandaio poses The Annunciation, painted in fresco around 1486-1490 in the Tornabuoni Chapel of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence (Fig. 10), through a risky, although bright, synthesis, due to the hard compositional space, coercively limited by two decorated a candelieri pilasters. In this narrow, high parallelogram, the artist manages to include in-depth Mary`s home, represented as a luxurious Renaissance palace, through one of whose geminated windows a vast landscape of sea and mountains is perceived. Trimming on that precious background, the angel kneels before the shy Virgin, while conveying the good news of her election as Mother of the divine Son incarnate, symbolized by the stem of lilies he carries in his left hand.
Concerning the analyzed subject, it is worth highlighting the large red bed that, behind Mary in this Tornabuoni Annunciation, seems to manifest itself in continuity/identification with her. With this eloquent detail, the intellectual author of this fresco appears to want to illustrate, as a visual metaphor, the doctrinal meanings revealed by the Fathers and theologians when interpreting the textual metaphor of thalamus, as we have explained above. As if that were not enough, these meanings continue in the white curtain, protective of the secret of the nuptial bed, drawn back in a curve in the upper right corner of the painting.

Conclusions
The two complementary types of research undertaken on images and texts seem to be reliable enough bases to justify the following essential conclusions: 1. All the Latin Fathers, theologians and hymnographers studied above concord in interpreting the biblical expression "bed" or "bridal bedroom" (thalamus) as a symbol of the Virgin Mary and her virginal womb. They understand this metaphorical expression in a double sense: a) the virginal womb of Mary is the bridal bed in which God the Son, when incarnating, "espouses" his divine nature with human nature; b) the virginal womb of Mary is also the bridal bed where God the Son marries spiritually his virginal Mother (and, according to some authors, also marries the Church). 2. The bed (thalamus) is an object frequently included by many European artists in a prominent position -almost always large, tidy, elegant, and in the center of the scene-in some images of the Annunciation of the 14th and 15th centuries. Such a recurrent and relevant bed in these Annunciations manifests that it is likely a symbol embodied of some essential doctrinal meanings. 3. The strong and coherent patristic, theological, and liturgical tradition on the metaphorical expressions like thalamus, Sponsus, Sponsa, exemplified in this paper only by some Latin writers, legitimizes interpreting the bed in the images of the Annunciation of the 14th and 15th centuries as two complementary dogmatic symbols, in parallel Mariological and Christological projections. 4. Based on this double dogmatic interpretation of the textual metaphor of thalamus, revealed by the millenary patristic, theological and liturgical tradition, the intellectual authors of some artistic images of the Annunciation include a bed in their scene to illustrate, as a visual metaphor, these two complementary dogmas: a) the hypostatical union of the two natures, divine, and human, in the unique person of Christ, after the Son of God incarnates as a man; b) Mary's virginal divine motherhood, as a necessary consequence of the dogma mentioned firstly.