The House/Palace in Annunciations of the 15th Century. An Iconographic Interpretation in the Light of the Latin Patristics and Theological Tradition

. This article seeks to highlight the doctrinal meanings enclosed in the representation of the house of Mary in the form of a palace or an aristocratic residence in seven images of the Annunciation of the 15th century. To justify our iconographic interpretations in this sense, we based on the analysis of many exegetical comments with which many Latin Fathers and theologians interpreted several metaphorical expressions with dogmatic projection, such as domus Sapientiae , domus Dei , aula regia , palatium Regis , domicilium Trinitatis , and other analogous terms. As a methodological strategy, we use here a double comparative analysis: in the first instance, analyzing a series of patristic and theological texts that exegetically interpret the metaphors above; secondly, relating these exegetical texts with the eight Annunciations explained here. Summary. 1. Introduction 2. Interpretations of Latin Fathers and theologians on the “house of Wisdom” ( domus Sapientiae ), the “royal palace” ( aula regia ), or similar metaphorical expressions. 3. Iconographic interpretation of the house/palace of Mary in seven Annunciations of the 15th century.


Introduction 2
During our systematic and accurate research into primary sources of Christian doctrine, an important finding was confirmed with increasing force and insistence: for more than a millennium, from at least the middle of the 4 th century to the end of the 15 th century, countless Greek-Eastern and Latin Fathers and theologians agreed to interpret certain metaphorical expressions -taken literally or paraphrased-from the Old Testament with dogmatic scope. We refer in this case to expressions such as "house of Wisdom" (domus Sapientiae), "dwelling place of the Most High", "house of God" (domus Dei), "palace of the King" (palatium Regis), "royal palace" (aula regia), "throne of divinity", "domicile of the Trinity" (domicilium Trinitatis), and other analogous Mariological orthodoxy against the heretics were the Greek-Eastern Fathers. Logically also, after the anti-heretical controversies have subsided, many other Fathers, Doctors, and theologians of the Greek-Eastern and Latin Churches will continue in the following centuries reiterating exegetical comments on the metaphorical expressions under study. Thus, they forged and consolidated a compact doctrinal tradition in the East and West, based on interpreting the aforementioned Old Testament expressions as Christological and Mariological symbols.
The preceding paragraphs summarize the results obtained in our research in primary Greek-Eastern and Latin Christian sources. Now, since the corpus of patristic and theological quotations discovered in that specific topic is so abundant and complex, we have decided to divide the study into two different articles, although closely interconnected. In this first article, we restrict ourselves to analyzing the exegetical comments of Latin theologians on these metaphors. In a second article, we will study the glosses of the Greek-Eastern Christian thinkers on the matter.

Interpretations of Latin Fathers and theologians on the "house of Wisdom" (domus Sapientiae), the "royal palace" (aula regia), or similar metaphorical expressions
In the second half of the 4 th century, St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan (c. 339 / 340-397), adopted the two exegetical variants, Mariological and Christological, on the "house of God" (domus Dei) as the simultaneous symbol of Mary (her virginal womb) and Christ (his human body). From the outset, in a series of texts of different kinds, he seems to adhere only to the restricted interpretation, reserved only to Mary. Thus in a treatise on virginity, he states that, when the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, he entered through the closed door of the virginity of Mary and sat in it 5 , as the King who sits (that is, resides) in the royal palace (aula regia) of the virginal womb of Mary, as this is the royal palace not subject to any male, but only to God 6 . In his 63rd Epistle, Ambrose insists on this same Mariological projection, when he asks rhetorically how we could ponder how great was the grace of Mary's virginity, who deserved to be chosen by Christ to be the bodily temple of God, in which fullness dwelt of the godhead, keeping herself at the same time virgin by begetting the Savior of the world, and by giving birth to the Life of all people. 7 As if that were not enough, the Milan bishop 5 St. Ambrose refers here to Ezekiel's prophecy about the eastern porta clausa of the temple. 6 "Ipse ergo Rex Israel transivit hanc portam, ipse dux sedit in ea; quando Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis (Joan. 1,14), quasi Rex sedens in aula regali uteri virginalis, vel in olla ferventi […]. Utrumque enim diversis in codicibus invenitur. Aula regalis est virgo, quae non est viro subdita, sed Deo soli." (Ambrosius Mediolanensis, De institutione virginis, XII,79. PL 16,324). 7 "Quid autem loquar quanta sit virginitatis gratia, quae meruit a Christo elegi, ut esset etiam corporale Dei templum, in qua corporaliter, ut legimus (Coloss. 2,9) habitavit plenitudo divinitatis? Virgo genuit mundi salutem, virgo peperit vitam universorum". (Ambrosius Mediolanensis, Epistula LXIII, 33. PL 16, 1249-1250). terms alluding to some kind of sumptuous dwelling or protocol space for the exclusive use of God or the king. One of the primary sources of inspiration in this regard is the biblical sentence "Sapientia aedificavit sibi domum; excidit septem columns", included in the book of Proverbs 3 . Now, according to the results of our research, the most surprising finding in this regard is that, regardless of their respective historical periods and their different geographical-cultural contexts, all those masters of Eastern and Western Christian doctrine substantially agree in interpreting these expressions as symbols or metaphors of God the Son's incarnation in Mary's virginal womb. This substantial agreement is, however, articulated in three possible exegetical variants, which, although different, interrelate and complement each other necessarily. According to the first variant, strictly Mariological, the expressions of reference symbolize Mary and, specifically, her virginal womb. According to the second version, strictly Christological, they symbolize the body or human nature in which God the Son incarnated. According to the third double variant, Mariological and Christological, at the same time, such metaphorical expressions symbolize both Mary and the human body of Christ.
It is also worth noting a fourth interpretative variant of the Fathers on those metaphors under analysis: the ecclesiological one. This fourth interpretation is based on the fact that many Christian doctrine teachers consider Mary as a symbol, model, or paradigm of the Church. Thus, according to these influential authors, everything we affirm about Mary refers equally to the Church: it follows that the Mariological interpretation of the symbolic expressions above becomes necessarily an ecclesiological interpretation. However, the strict limits imposed on us in an academic article of this nature force us to put aside that ecclesiological interpretation 4 .
In the context of the heated controversies lived in Christianity against the different heresies that arose in the 3rd and 4th centuries (especially Arianism), the efforts of the great leaders of Christian orthodoxy become more and more intense and reiterated to defend two great essentially complementary dogmas: first of all, the duality of Christ's natures, divine, and human, hypostatically united in a single and indissoluble person; secondly, and as a necessary correlate, the virginal divine motherhood of Mary, defined then as Theotókos (Mother of God), and not only as Christotókos (mother of Christ as a man). Precisely in this hostile atmosphere of the frontal struggle between Christian orthodoxy and the various heresies, many Church Fathers interpret the Biblical metaphors mentioned above as rhetorical arguments to demonstrate the truth of the two dogmas just mentioned. Not surprisingly, the first to use these exegetical resources to confirm the Christological and 3 Prov. 9, 1. Translated in English: "Wisdom has built her house; she has carved out her seven pillars". 4 The iconographic interpretation of the image of the Virgin Mary as the Church, and vice versa, has been brilliantly studied by Marie-Louise Thérel, Le triomphe de la Vierge-Église. Sources historiques, littéraires et iconographiques (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1984). holy one to be born will be called the Son of God" 13 , and according to what is written in Proverbs: "Wisdom has built her house" 14 .
Around the same dates that St. Jerome did, Bishop St. Maximus of Turin ( † c. 420) joined those who supported the Mariological interpretation of the Biblical metaphors under scrutiny, proclaiming Mary as a worthy abode for Christ, not according to the laws of physical nature, but by the original grace of the Holy Spirit: the Virgin -the holy Prelate of Turin asserts-mysteriously carried as in the tabernacle of her womb the priest, Christ God, priest and host, God of the resurrection and priest of the oblation 15 . A few lines later, St. Maximus goes on to say that instead of the womb, he prefers to call the womb of Mary a temple since this is the temple in which all the holy things existing in heaven (Christ) dwells, more valuable even than heaven, almost as if the divine mystery were installed in the most secret tabernacle 16 .
Not many years later, St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) opted instead for the Christological interpretation, considering that this domus Dei or domus Sapientiae signifies the body or human nature of God the Son incarnate. Augustine, in effect, interprets the sentence above of Proverbs "Wisdom has built her house" in the sense that we recognize that the divine Wisdom, that is, the Word of God, coeternal with the Father, built for himself in the virginal womb of Mary the temple of his body or human nature, a body to which he would later unite the Church, as the members are united to the head 17 .
Perhaps for the same decades Arnobius Junior ( † post 455), bishop in the Roman province of Gaul, in a comment to the Psalms, after affirming that every pure person will enter the Lord's tabernacle and there will be purified, assures that the immaculate Jesus, the only one who entered the virginal royal palace (aula) of Mary (her womb), freed her from the carnal stains and gave her much higher sanctification than he received from her 18 . "Mariae ergo uterum non uterum dixerim fuisse, sed templum; templum plane est, in quo habitat sanctum quidquid in coelo est: nisi quod super coelos aestimandum est, ubi quasi in secretiore tabernaculo mysterium a divinitate disponitur, quemadmodum a pluribus ascendatur ad coelum". (Taurinensis,Homilia V…,236). 17 "'Sapientia aedificavit sibi domum (Prov. 9, 1)'… Hic certe agnoscimus Dei Sapientiam, hoc est, Verbum Patro coaeternum, in utero virginali domum sibi aedificasse corpus humanum, et hunc tamquam capiti membra Ecclesiam subiunsisse". (Augustinus Hipponensis, De Civitate Dei, 17, 20. PL 41, 583, in Corpus Marianum Patristicum, ed. Sergio Álvarez Campos, vol. 3, Burgos: Aldecoa, 1974, 325 However, in a second instance, St. Ambrose unequivocally adopts the double Mariological and Christological interpretation of the domus Dei or the aula regia. In his 30th Epistle, in effect, he maintains that, when Jesus Christ wanted to find a temple in which to live for redeeming humankind, he did not look for stones or wood worked with human hands, but instead chose the womb of the Virgin Mary to make it the royal palace (aula regia) and in the temple where the King of heaven lived so that the human body became the temple of God, which would be resurrected three days after death. 12 Thus it is clear that for St. Ambrose, these building metaphors mean both the virginal womb of Mary and the human body of Christ.
Two or three decades after St. Ambrose expressed such concepts, St. Jerome of Stridon (c. 347-420) joined the Mariological variant, assuring in a comment to Isaiah that the Lord of the virtues and King of glory will descend into a virginal womb and, as Ezekiel predicted, will enter and exit through the eastern door, which is always closed, according to what Gabriel announced to Mary "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; that house (being conceived as a man), God the Son did not remove the seals of his mother's virginity, and when leaving (at birth), he enriched her with integrity (perpetual virginity) 24 . In another sermon on the Assumption of Mary attributed to him 25 , St. Ildefonsus describes Mary as a "Good house" into which the Deity of the Word enters, sliding into the house in which the Wisdom of God the Father erected his seven columns 26 , which sustain the whole house and construct the Church 27 .
Towards the middle of the 9th century, the Benedictine monk Retramnus of Corbie (c. 800-c. 870) assures in a book on the Nativity of Jesus that the virginity of Mary before childbirth, in childbirth, and after delivery can be affirmed because "the royal palace of her modesty" (the vulva) remained inviolate; therefore when recognizing the truth of the birth of Christ, we acknowledge the reality of the birth of his mother, Mary 28 . Because -Ratramne asks rhetorically-what else does it mean that Mary is a virgin before childbirth but that her virginity was fertilized? And what else does it mean that Mary is a virgin in childbirth but that she gave birth being a virgin? And what else does it mean that Mary is a virgin after delivery, but that she kept her virginity perpetually? 29 A couple of centuries later, the Benedictine monk St. Peter Damian, bishop of Ostia (1007-1072), in his 15th Sermon for the Nativity of Mary, declares that, as it was impossible for the redemption of Humanity if Christ had not been born of the Virgin, it was necessary for the Virgin to be born in which the Word of God was incarnated; therefore, it was convenient for the King of heaven to build a house first -as Solomon said when he pointed out that "Wisdom had built her house"-, in which he wanted to have his lodging when he descended to earth, a house that the eternal Wisdom has built in such a way that it was worthy to receive him and to procreate him from the womb of her immaculate flesh 30 . 24 "Hanc domum ingrediens non pudoris spolia tulit, sed egrediens integritate ditavit." (Toletanus,Liber de virginitate…,61 Towards the end of the 5th century or in the first decades of 6th St. Eleutherius (c. 456-531), the first bishop of Tournai, says in a sermon on the incarnation of Christ that, entering the Holy Spirit in the royal palace of modesty (the womb) of the Virgin Mary, made her give birth to Christ, God the Son made man, who would redeem the sins of all people by shedding his innocent blood for the redemption of humanity, also making the invisible God appear visible before people through his visible only-begotten Son made man 19 .
About three generations later, the exquisite Italian lyric poet St. Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers (c. 530-c. 607/609), praises the Virgin Mary in one of his poems with these metaphorical concepts: The royal palace (aula) of God, the ornament of paradise, the glory of the kingdom; The shelter of life, the bridge that penetrates heaven. Glowing ark and mighty scabbard of a doubly sharp sword, For the ascendant of God, the high beacon of light 20 .
More than half a century later, St. Ildefonsus of Toledo (607-667), in a book on Mary's virginity written against three infidels, criticizes Helvidius for daring to defame the virginity of Mary by begetting Jesus 21 , then rhetorically he asks him not to oppose the power of this majesty, so as not to diminish the property of God with his reckless daring nor to damage with his presumption the mansion of the godhead, and not to collapse the house of the Lord with insults of corruption, and let it not pretend to affirm that the door of the house of God, closed after He passed, can be passed through by anyone 22 . The bishop of Toledo goes on to say that the God of virtues is the Lord of this possession, that the King of Heaven is the owner of this property, and that Almighty God is the builder of this house, the only one who enters it and the custodian of the door through which he entered 23  kind for her healthy fertility, venerable for her inestimable holiness," he asserts that she showed God to the world which did not know him, she made her Creator visible to the world, which did not see him; and she begot and gave birth to the reconciler that sinners needed 36 . In another sermon in honor of Mary, the prelate of Canterbury exclaims: "Oh, blessed Mother of God, Virgin Mary, the temple of the living God, the palace of the eternal King, the tabernacle of the Holy Spirit!" 37 Then, in a series of hymns of a Psalter that he composed in honor of the Virgin, St. Anselm repeatedly praises her with some poetic compliments related to the house of God, as when he says: Hail, mother of the lawyer [Jesus], Who, happy with his advice, Left the royal palace of the virgin womb As if coming out of a bridal room 38 .

Some verses later, he insists, saying:
Hail, singular Virgin, Rewarding virginal palace, In whose temple the Lord stands Who is also based in heaven 39 .
After several stanzas, he goes on: Hail, the entrance of heaven, Divine room Of the one who is to us son, Brother and redemption 40 .
And shortly afterward, he stresses: Hail, heavenly mansion, Through whose temple, We receive the incarnate The mercy of God 41 . 36 "Tu namque Domina admirabilis singulari virginitate, amabilis salutari fecunditate, venerabilis inaestimabili sanctitate, tu ostendisti mun do Dominum suum et Deum suum quem nesciebat, tu visibilem exhibuisti mundo creatorem suum quem prius non videbat, tu genuisti mundo restauratorem quo perditus indigebat, tu peperisti mundo reconciliatorem quem reus non habebat". (Cantauriensis,Orationes…,316 Later, in a series of lyrical poems in honor of the Virgin, Peter Damian reiterates similar ideas. Thus, for example, in one of them, he exclaims: The beautiful royal palace of the heavenly King, Supported by the seven columns of wisdom: You lock up in your belly The One whom the entire universe cannot contain 31 .
And in another Marian canticle, the holy poet expresses Mary, splendid honor of humankind, Throne of the Eternal King House [built] by Wisdom 32 .
In another ode, the bishop of Ostia praises the Virgin Mary in these metaphorical terms: You are the closed door of the temple, Palace of the Supreme King: Treasury of wealth For which we are redeemed 33 .
In an umpteenth poem, Peter Damian proclaims: The whole Trinity, God the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, Made you his mansion and fixed his seat; So now you offer yourself in greater abundance As a lesson for the devotion of the faithful 34 . A few lines later, Peter of Blois goes on to say that the Wisdom of which we speak when we say that "Wisdom has built her house" is Christ, power, and wisdom of God, because Christ chose the womb of Mary as his shelter, and she, Mary, is "the house of the modest breast," "the house of God and the door of heaven" 48 .
About three generations later, the prestigious Franciscan teacher St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (c. 1217 / 21-1274), Church Doctor and cardinal, assures in a sermon on the Assumption that the entire divine Trinity, with favorable influence, with great joy and with the glory of divinity, knew Mary (in the sense of maintaining a symbolic marital relationship with her) as a wife of chaste love, a palace of holy cohabitation, a factory of admirable operation, for which we must explicitly say that God the Father knew the blessed Mary as the home of his royal majesty 49 . Now, at the end of this incursion into the Latin patristic sources, it is time to bring to light an extremely significant fact, namely: the symbolic identification of the Virgin Mary with the "palace of God," the "throne of divinity," the "royal palace" of God the Son, the "house of Wisdom" and with other similar expressions is not only found in the explanatory texts of well-known Latin Fathers and theologians. Still, it is also documented in countless medieval liturgical hymns, almost all of them anonymous. Let us see then, by way of representative examples, some passages of those Latin hymns -which we extract from the outstanding collection compiled and critically edited by Franz Josef Mone 50 -that metaphorically allude to the Virgin Mary as the palace or throne of God or the house of Wisdom. We designate each one of these hymns with the number and title with which they appear in the compilation above by F. J. Mone.
Hymn 335, in honor of the conception of Mary, states: Hail, the palace of the Word, The comfort of sinners, Oh, how clean shelter! Mary, take us, save. A couple of generations later, the Benedictine abbot Geoffrey of Vendôme (c. 1070-1132), in a sermon on the Nativity of Jesus, reiterates that the Virgin Mary, worthy of God, is called "house of the Lord," whose eastern door was always closed; and with complete justice, Mary is called by the name of the house, that is, the temple of God, because God himself dwelt in her both for the sanctification of the Holy Spirit and for human conception 42 . Therefore -the abbot of Vendôme goes on-, preserving the property of his divine nature, God the Son became flesh in the womb of the Virgin and, after becoming a true man in body and soul, was born of a virgin mother leaving for the eastern door of the temple, which neither suffered in its integrity by him nor was opened by any other man 43 .
In another Marian sermon, Geoffrey of Vendôme affirms that God the Father sent his Only-Begotten Son to the Virgin Mary so that he would become her son and husband at the same time 44 . God the Father arranged it by for his charity, God the Son perfected it by his will, and the Holy Spirit prepared and decorated the nuptial room, cleaning the womb of the Virgin from all corruption of sin and filling it with multiple sanctities. There God, who had previously created all things, created in Mary his royal palace 45 .
Some fifty years later, Peter of Celle, bishop of Chartres (c. 1115-1183), affirms in a sermon for Advent that Mary is "the palace built with wonderful efforts, but enriched with incomparable treasures, enriched only for God and for God the Son" 46 .
A couple of decades later, the diplomat and poet Peter of Blois (c. 1135-c. 1203) states in a sermon on the birth of Mary that For her strength she is the city founded by the Most High; for the integrity of her virginity she is the closed garden, the sealed fountain, the closed door, the uncut [cedar of] Lebanon; for her holiness, she is the temple of God, the door of the sanctuary, the ark of God, the tabernacle of the Holy Spirit; for her glory, she is the King's palace, the cell of scents, the source of the orchards, the paradise of delights 47 . In a similar wave of praise, Hymn 508 lauds Mary with these heartfelt compliments: Hail, the palace of the supreme King, You illustrate the heart from the laws, You cover the crime of the desperate And you drive to paradise Who loves you 57 .
Hymn 619, composed to praise the royalty of the Virgin, proclaims with lyrical outbursts: God sits down On a special throne of clouds, Like on a sapphire throne And of solar flames. But the womb of the Virgin is an ivory throne, In which the King of Heaven, Holy man-God, Remained bodily Supernaturally For the condemned humankind Live spiritually 58 .
After this lengthy analysis of texts through which for more than a millennium -from the 4th to the 15th century-many medieval Fathers, theologians, and hymographers insisted on interpreting, with Christological and Mariological projection, some expressions such as ora pro nobis benedictum ventris tui fructum". ("Hymnus 505. Letania de domina nostra Virgine Maria",in Hymni Latini...,[260][261] tions to be analyzed next had sufficient doctrinal culture to be aware of the dogmatic meanings of each symbolic element --in this specific case, the palace-shaped house of Mary--included in those Annunciations. It is logical to suppose, in fact, that, except for some exceptional painters, such as Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi, who, due to their condition of friars, had a vast theological culture, most artists of the period were not especially experts in profound doctrinal questions. Faced with such a problem, we believe it is legitimate to propose two different responses, even if not antithetical, but complementary. The first, and simplest, answer is that, regardless of their degree of doctrinal instruction, every artist in charge of an Annunciation had before him a compositional model or iconographic type multisecularly configured for that Marian theme, namely, an angel and a Virgin respectfully dialoguing, a beam of light, the dove of the Holy Spirit, a bust or a half-length figure on top representing God the Father, a book, a stem of lilies 59 , and some other elements: thus the artist could rightly fulfill the commission received by repeating "automatically " (with the compositional variations that his imagination dictates to him) this conventional compositional model. The second answer, the most satisfactory, although not necessarily the most frequent, is to suppose the existence of an iconographic programmer or intellectual mentor (probably a clergyman, a monk, or a humanist) who instructed the artist on the convenient way to illustrate the conceptual contents that they wanted to transmit when representing the Annunciation. Thus, this iconographic programmer, the genuine intellectual author of the image represented, dictated to its material author, the artist, the narrative guidelines (characters, attributes, posturing, objects, etc.) that allowed illustrating the doctrinal meanings embodied in one or the other of the symbols included in these Annunciations: the stem of lilies, the beam of light, the dove, the prayer book, the closed door, the bed or, in our specific case, the house of Mary shaped like a palace. We have already said that, except for Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi or Fra Bartolomeo, who, as friars they were, could have been at the same time the intellectual and the material authors of their paintings, it is to be expected that most of the other authors of the images of the Annunciation had as their inspiration an external "iconographic program," conceived by the genuine "intellectual author" of the artistic work. This does not mean, however, that 59 We have studied the symbolic meaning of the lily stem in the Annunciations of the XIV and XV centuries 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, no. domus Sapientiae, domus Dei, palatium Regis, and other analogous terms, we now have to see if and to what extent these texts are reflected in the images of the Annunciation of the 15th century. This raises two crucial problems at the outset: first of all, whether it is possible to justify in any way the intrinsic relationship between these images and those texts, many of them produced several centuries before those; secondly, the problem of knowing if the artists who depicted these Annunciations had sufficient doctrinal culture to be perfectly aware of the precise meanings of each of the symbolic elements that they included in their images of the Annunciation.
We think that the first problem can be solved based on the Christian doctrinal tradition that, from the early centuries of our era, countless Fathers and theologians have been building and consolidating to explain the dogmatic contents of the Christian faith, to combat heresies, to defend Christianity against other beliefs, and, ultimately, to try to verbalize the ineffable, as well as to convince the faithful to "believe what we do not see." This doctrinal tradition, started in the first centuries with certain insecurity and a variety of criteria -to the extent, for example, that the divine nature of Christ or the virginal divine motherhood of Mary were not yet entirely clearquickly became uniform and strengthening. In this order of ideas, it is well known, as those who frequent the primary sources of Christian doctrine soon find out, that the successive Fathers and thinkers of the Eastern and Western Churches knew the systematic thought of their predecessors. The writings of the prestigious formerly teachers, often translated from Greek to Latin, were copied over and over again in monasteries and religious teaching centers to serve as conceptual and spiritual nourishment for other later teachers and enlightened collectives, such as the monks, the ecclesiastics, and the students in the developing universities. For the rest, the successive teachers of Christian thought did not hesitate to repeat --sometimes ad pedem litterae, without fear of plagiarism; other times through paraphrases--many concepts, arguments, and conclusions of their predecessors, thus producing other doctrinal texts (treatises, sermons, commentaries, apologies, etc.) in which it is easy to appreciate, like a patchwork, a set of ideas of different authorship, now consolidated into "new" documents. Thus all along the centuries, a definitive and irrevocable dogmatic corpus was finally established, which constituted the vital atmosphere of beliefs in which Christians of all times and regions lived, even when many of them were not aware of it, in the same way, that many living beings, including man, are not conscious of the air they breathe so naturally. This means that although most of the 15th century Christians did not know the dogmatic meanings brought out by the medieval Fathers, theologians, and hymnographers when interpreting the abovementioned metaphorical expressions, the intellectuals of that century (monks, clergymen, humanists), aware of these meanings, could correctly communicate them to the artists in charge of pictorially or sculpturally representing the salvific episode of the Annunciation This leads us directly to the second problem: that of knowing if the artists who represented those Annuncia-ticoed atrium, while in the outer garden Adam and Eve, recently expelled from Paradise by the angel located in the upper left border, wander with sadness.
More than about the elements usually included in this event -the presence of the Most High (pictured here aniconically by two luminous open hands in the upper left corner), the beam of rays of light (symbol of God the Son), and the dove of the Holy Spirit in flight to the Virgin-, it is worth highlighting here the fantasy "house" where the scene takes place. Indeed, this arcaded building with vaulted naves cannot be the actual home of the humble Nazarene girl.
A house whose interior is completely open and exposed (it is a small porch), and whose bedroom -which can be seen in the background by its open door-cannot reveal its privacy to prying eyes, being open to the porch and outside garden. Neither can a "building" be real that, in its vaulted naves, lacks the indispensable dividing column, on which the four central vaults must necessarily be lowered, which start from the four central supports -the two second columns and the two intermediate corbels-, and that should end precisely in this nonexistent central column 64 .
Thus the absence of that dividing column and the total opening of this construction reveal that this porticoed building does not represent the objective reality of the Virgin Mary's humble dwelling in Nazareth, but rather a double metaphorical or symbolic ideality: the house painted here by the wise friar-painter Fra Angelico is an ideal symbol of "Mary as the palace or domicile of God" and, at the same time, a symseo del Prado, eds. Avigdor Arikha, Michel Laclotte, et al. (Madrid: Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado, 1996), 17-25. 64 The portico or loggia that Fra Angelico includes in this Annunciation of the Prado Museum is made up of four groin vaults (volta a padiglione). Now, any groin vault necessarily requires four supports, be they columns (or pillars) or modilions (corbels) embedded in the wall. This "house" painted by Fra Angelico has four interconnected groin vaults each of which requires its corresponding four supports. In this specific case, one of these four supports, the central one --precisely the central column that is missing in the painting--must serve as a common support in which four arches get off the edge, one for each of the four groin vaults. each artist always had an iconographic programmer at his side who dictated to him how to paint the Annunciation: as we said before, the artist had only to "copy" in a mechanical way the established structural model or iconographic type of the Annunciation, whose essential narrative components we have just indicated.

Iconographic interpretation of the house/palace of Mary in seven Annunciations of the 15th century
The iconography of the Annunciation showed all along the centuries an extended and profound evolution 60 . During the Late-Antiquity and the High Middle Ages, its composition was straightforward, with the mere representation of the angel Gabriel and Mary in hieratic dialogue in front of a bare scenography, almost always reduced to a piece of furniture (recliner, seat) or some synthetic architectural element, as a metonymy of the home of the Virgin or the village of Nazareth. In this long period, the two protagonists appear frequently cut out on an abstract background, such as the brilliant gold leaf in paintings on wood or a flat color in the frescoes. All along with the Late Middle Ages, the images of the Annunciation gradually incorporated some architectural components and furniture and reached an extreme complexity in the 14th and 15th centuries 61 . Due to the growing approval of the earthly world, during these two centuries, the artists depicted the scene of the Annunciation with a realistic portrayal of houses, furniture, tools, everyday devices, clothing, landscapes, and even episodes of contemporary urban life. Now, in the growingly complex images of the Annunciation produced in Europe throughout the 15th century, some of them depict the modest home of the humble Virgin of Nazareth 62 as a luxurious construction that looks more or less like a palace or an aristocratic abode. We will now analyze seven European paintings in which the home of Mary is shaped in such unusual appearance of a royal residence or palace.
Fra Angelico (c. 1395-1455) staged The Annunciation Altarpiece, c. 1425-1426, from the Prado Museum ( Fig. 1)  It seems logical to suppose that in a small town like Nazareth in Biblical times there should not have been many palaces; and, if there were any, it probably would not be the property of the humble couple of Josef and Mary, who nine months after the Annunciation did not have anything to pay for a lodging in Bethlehem or some simple clothes to cover the newborn. opening it 66 , transmits the message of God to her. On her knees before a luxurious lectern, Mary turns her head towards Gabriel to hear the surprising announcement of her choice as the mother of God the Son incarnate.
More than the symbolism inherent in the bouquet of lilies and the spotless bed that you can perceive at the back of the room 67 is interesting to highlight here the palace's appearance that the house of the simple maiden of Nazareth presents. That aspect of a palace -whose doctrinal meaning Francisco Javier Panera Cuevas 68 ignores, when commenting on this painting-seems to want to illustrate, as a visual metaphor, the dogmatic implications deciphered by the Fathers and theologians when interpreting in a Mariological and Christological sense the textual metaphors of the "house of Wisdom," "palace of God," "royal palace," "throne," and other expressions referring to royal spaces, as we have explained before. Dello Delli (1404-c.1466) staged his Annunciation of the Main Altarpiece of the Old Salamanca Cathedral, c. 1434-1345 (Fig. 2) 65 inside a luxurious building with a particular aspect of a Renaissance palace. This is evidenced, among other elements, by its semicircular arches on columns of composite order, its vaulted gallery with cassettes, its beautiful furniture, and the upper body of the tower-shaped building with battlements and twin windows. For the rest, there is no lack here of the foreseeable presences of God the Father -blessing Mary from the top left of the scene -and the Holy Spirit, who flies like a white dove towards the demure Virgin. The angel Gabriel, kneeling in the courtyard that precedes the main hall and bowing reverently to his heavenly Lady in front of a closed-door (porta clausa), through which he has entered without 65 This altarpiece has deserved a monographic study by Francisco Javier Panera Cuevas, El retablo de la Catedral Vieja de Salamanca (Salamanca: Caja Duero, 2000). seum in Madrid in a small place with the appearance of a royal palace, an aristocratic hall, or a chapel. Kneeling reverently in his luxurious cope, the angel points her right index finger at the Virgin to signify that she has been chosen by the Most High to be the mother of God the Son incarnate. Mary, on her knees, before a prayer book open on a bench, extending her right hand forward and resting her left arm on her chest, shows her surprise at the mysterious message that Gabriel transmits to her. In tune with the well-known dogmatic tradition that intrinsically links the Annunciation (of the Redeemer) with Original Sin and the Redemption of Humankind, Bouts represents in the sculptures of the precious Gothic portal framing the scene two prophets who announced the Messiah, and six scenes from Genesis that relate from left to right, the creation of Eve, the prohibition against eating the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil, the Original Sin, the expulsion from Paradise, the labors of Adam and Eve on earth, and Cain killing Abel. Most significant for our purposes in this study is the shape of the elegant "house" in which the episode stages 74 , structured in a rated by a painted red column: The Visitation and The Nativity with the adoration of the angels. The left wing represents The Annunciation, and the right wing depicts The Adoration of the Magi.   Filippo Lippi (1406-1489 69 in the L'Annunciazione delle Murate, c. 1443-1450 (Fig. 3) 70 -initially painted for the Suore Murate convent in Florence, and today in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich-, represents Mary's house as a royal marble palace, built with arches, entablatures, columns, and Renaissance-style pilasters.
In that elegant palatial construction, the angel kneels reverently before Mary, holding a massive stem of lilies. In contrast, behind her, a second angel peeks out the side door with another stem of lilies in her left hand. Standing before them, Mary, surprised and frightened by the heavenly messenger's unexpected appearance, seems to have suddenly risen from the kneeler in which she prayed with the prayer book which appears open on the armrest.
As expected, in the upper left corner of the painting, the figure of God the Father radiating with his open hands towards the Virgin the fertile beam of rays of light (God the Son) carrying in his wake the dove of the Holy Spirit symbolizes the instantaneous conception/incarnation of God the Son in Mary's virginal womb, thus materializing the divine plan announced by Gabriel: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you". Even without expressing it with written inscriptions on the painting, as other artists do, Fra Filippo Lippi illustrates here that immediate conception of Christ -verified at the very moment that Mary accepts the divine plan unrestrictedly-with the submissive gesture of the Virgin bowing the head, squinting and putting the right hand on her chest, in a clear sign of unconditional submission as a humble "slave of the Lord" (ancilla Domini).
Apart from these familiar elements in the Annunciations from the period, it is essential to highlight here the leading presence of this open and luxurious palace in which the scene takes place, a palace that, far from objectively representing the physical home of the Virgin in Nazareth, ideally symbolizes Mary and the human body of Christ, according to the double exegetical interpretation offered with a full agreement for more than a millennium by the Latin and Greek-Eastern Fathers.
Dirk Bouts (1415-1475) 71 depicts the scene of The Annunciation (Fig. 4)  This triptych from the Prado Museum consists of four Marian episodes, all of them framed by a "Gothic" portico decorated with sculptural scenes from the Old Testament, painted in grisaille. The central panel of this triptych is made up of two similar scenes sepa-side a splendid and neat Renaissance palace with pillars, arches, and vaults devoid of any decoration, balancing the compositional elements around the dominant axis of the central support in the foreground, although without insisting on perfect symmetry, thanks to the light sliding perspective to the left. On the left side -framed by the vaulted anteroom and the porticoed courtyard, through one of whose arches one perceives the closed garden (hortus conclusus) of the Song of Songs-, the angel already touches the ground after completing his flight, with the stem of lilies in his left hand, while blessing the Virgin with his right hand. Located in the right room, at the end of which you can glimpse the bedroom with its symbolic bed, Mary is standing, having suddenly risen from the kneeler in which she prayed, surprised by the unexpected appearance of the heavenly messenger. Raising his cloak to cover her body modestly, she bows the torso and lowers the head and eyes as a sign of humble compliance with the divine design announced by Gabriel. Crossing the opening on the left, the beam of rays of light (God the Son) emitted by God the Father reaches the head/ear of Mary, as a sign of her instantaneous supernatural fertilization (conceptio per aurem), after unconditionally accepting the will of the Most High like humble ancilla Domini.
Apart from the foreseeable narrative resources in the representation of this Marian event, it is interesting to highlight in this Annunciation in Glasgow the monumental palace with which Botticelli depicts the modest house of the maiden of Nazareth. Undoubtedly the painter -almost certainly induced by some ecclesiastical mentor-wants to illustrate through this, like a visual metaphor, the dogmatic Christological and Mariological meanings explained by the Latin Fathers and theologians when interpreting the biblical textual metaphors that we are analyzing.
Pedro vaulted palatial hall, an aristocratic residence, or a small chapel. Thus, by depicting the austere Nazarene home of Mary with the appearance of a palatial room or chapel 75 , Bouts seems to illustrate the interpretation of the Fathers and theologians about the domus Dei or the aula regia as a double metaphor that simultaneously symbolizes Mary -in whose womb God the Son became incarnate-and the human body that God the Son took ("has built") from the Virgin's womb to dwell in it like a true man 76 . In his study on this painter Maurits Smeyers, (Dirk Bouts. Peintre du silence. Tournai: La Renaissance du Livre, 1998) says nothing about the dogmatic symbolisms embodied in this Annunciation. 77 Bernardino di Betto, better known as Pinturicchio (1454-1513) 81 , locates his Annunciation, 1501, of the Cappella Baglioni in the Collegiata di Santa Maria Maggiore in Spello (Fig. 7) 82 , inside a monumental and spectacular classical palace, of vast arches and splendid pilasters decorated a candelieri. The room where both protagonists of the story dialogue and the large gallery that prolongs the building space open onto a fenced garden and a vast landscape, beyond the pergola that delimits the palace's domains.
In this precious environment, Gabriel kneels respectfully while blessing the Virgin with his right hand and holding a stem of lilies in his left hand. Mary, interrupting her meditation before the book, surprised by the unexpected arrival of the celestial messenger and the mysterious content of his message, opens her hands and lowers her head and eyes humbly, to indicate her full obedience to the design of God by choosing her as the virginal mother of God the Son incarnate. Such design is made visible here by the presence of God the Father who, blessing the Virgin among clouds and cherubs, sends to her right ear the beam of rays of light (God the Son) with the dove of the Holy Spirit flying in his wake 83 .
Undoubtedly Pinturicchio (or the iconographic mentor who would have guided him doctrinally in this painting) even goes so far as to exaggerate in this fresco the appearance of a luxurious and splendid palace when depicting the humble house of the Virgin in Nazareth, to insist on the already explained symbolic meanings of the palatium Regis or the aula regia as metaphors that simultaneously identify Mary (her virginal womb) as the body or human nature of God the Son incarnate.

Conclusions
At the end of this double comparative analysis of texts and images, we can draw the following conclusions: For more than a millennium, from at least the middle of the fourth century to the end of the fifteenth century, many Latin Fathers and theologians agreed to interpret with a dogmatic projection some metaphorical expressions like "house of Wisdom" (domus Sapientiae), "house of God" (domus Dei), "palace of the King" (palatium Regis), "royal palace" (aula regia), "domicile of the Miraflores in Burgos (Fig. 6) 80 in a refined building with a bright appearance of a royal palace or ecclesial construction. That palatial character is revealed by the pointed double-headed window on the far wall and the "Gothic" cover framing the scene in the foreground: in its jambs, you can see the sculptural figures of Adam and Eve (in allusion to Original Sin) and six prophets which announced the coming of the Redeemer, who is being conceived by Mary at the very moment when, at the end of the Annunciation, she gives her full consent to the divine design proclaiming "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word." In this elegant palatial setting embodied by Berruguete, the angel, clad in a cope, bends his right knee before the Virgin while giving her the laudatory salute that appears inscribed in the meandering phylactery that floats before him. Kneeling on her kneeler in front of the prayer book, Mary turns with surprise and demure towards Gabriel, opening her hands in a gesture similar to that of the priest celebrating Mass. With this "liturgical" gesture, the Virgin implies her unconditional obedience as ancilla Domini to the will of the Most High, designating her as the mother of her divine incarnate Son. This is also revealed by the Holy Spirit's active presence as a dove and the beam of rays of light projected towards the head of Mary to signify the immediate Christ's conception/incarnation. It is vital for our aims in this study to emphasize that Berruguete, by depicting Mary's house with this appearance of a royal palace or ecclesial construction, seems to want to visually illustrate the symbolic Christological and Mariological meanings already explained by Fathers and theologians. Cappella Baglioni. Source: ©Collegiata di Santa Maria Maggiore, Spello. 80 in this article show an eloquent conceptual concordance by using identical or very similar arguments when interpreting the metaphorical expressions under analysis. This undoubtedly reveals a strong influence of the most prestigious teachers on other authors of lesser category. Regarding the seven Annunciations analyzed here, we can also infer several conclusions. Although the artist, the material author of the painting, was at the same time -as in the cases of Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi-its intellectual author, it seems unquestionable that every painter of medieval Annunciations had to abide for an "iconographic program", perfectly suitable for this topic. Now, each artist could have followed this iconographic program either by mere mechanical "copying" of the prevailing structural model to capture that Marian episode, or, at best, by having had an intellectual mentor next to him who personally dictated to him the narrative/conceptual guidelines necessary to reflect the doctrinal content of the topic.
In any case, it seems evident that the house of Mary shaped with a more or less explicit form of a palace or royal residence that appears included in the seven pictorial Annunciations analyzed above seems to illustrate, as a visual metaphor, the deep Christological and Mariological meanings brought to light by the Latin Fathers, theologians, and hymographers when deciphering as symbols of Christ's incarnation the textual metaphors "house of Wisdom" (domus Sapientiae), "house of God" (domus Dei), "palace of the King" (palatium Regis), "royal palace" (aula regia), "domicile of the Trinity" (domicilium Trinitatis), and the other similar expressions abovementioned. So, this depicted house/ palace is a Mariological symbol of Mary, in whose virginal womb Son of God was conceived and inhabited, and simultaneously is a Christological symbol of the human body and nature of God the Son incarnate, as many Fathers, theologians, and medieval hymnographers have put into light. terms alluding to some kind of sumptuous dwelling or protocol space exclusively reserved to God or the king.
The comparative analysis of these exegetical comments reveals a substantial concordance because, except for some small differences, all these Latin masters consider those metaphors as eloquent symbols of God the Son's incarnation in Mary's virginal womb, as well as symbols of Mary's virginal divine motherhood.
Nevertheless, despite this essential concordance, the positions of these Latin Fathers and theologians on the matter assume three different interpretative variants, although not antithetical, but substantially complementary: one strictly Mariological, another one strictly Christological, and a third double, at the same time Christological and Mariological.
The The Christological variant -which interprets these metaphorical expressions as a symbol of the human body that God the Son took from Mary's womb, and to which substantially united his divine nature to configure a single person with two natures, human and divine-is sustained only by St. Augustine of Hippo.
The double interpretative version, Mariological and Christological simultaneously, is mastered only by St. Ambrose of Milan. Now, regardless of which of those three exegetical variants each one adopts, all the Latin authors studied