NO. 8 BARTOLOME BERMEJO FRIEDMANN 9 



In the upper left portion of the arch framing the door leading from 

 the saint's room to the corridor beyond is a small cage with a bird in 

 it. This is a borrowing from Italian, Flemish, and Germanic icon- 

 ographic usage and is a motif that appears to occur very rarely in 

 Spanish painting. The concept of the small bird in a cage is a symbol 

 of the human soul imprisoned in the body, awaiting the release that 

 comes with the promise of redemption after death. Bergstrom (1957) 

 and, earlier, Male ( 1928) have shown that this concept stems from 

 medieval allegorical representations of Hope (Spes), often shown as 

 a woman standing on a cage containing one or more small birds, and 

 sometimes with a ship on her head, a spade in one hand, and a bee-hive 

 in the other, as in our figure 6, taken from a miniature of 1511 in the 

 royal library in The Hague (Ms 76E13), reproduced in Bergstrom's 

 study of the symbolism of the caged bird. In this illuminating paper 

 Bergstrom demonstrates that the motif of the caged bird probably 

 entered into the iconography of the Madonna before that of Spes. 

 That it became associated with the concept of Hope undoubtedly 

 strengthened its usage in connection with pictures of the Madonna. 

 We can also point out, as collateral argument, that the Madonna was 

 frequently referred to as "Sancta Maria, nostra spes vera" (Holy 

 Mary, our true hope). A somewhat later, more mundanely philosoph- 

 ical parallel concept, but not demonstrably derivative, is expressed by 

 Leonardo da Yinci on a sheet of drawings of birds in cages (Codex 

 Atlanticus, 68, v., b.) where he writes "the thoughts turn toward 

 hope" (I pesieri si voltano alia speranza). 



In the present picture the bird in the cage is definitely identifiable 

 as a goldfinch. As shown in an earlier study (Friedmann, 1946, pp. 

 46-51) this bird was used in Spanish art from the middle of the 14th 

 to the middle of the 17th century. It was the most frequently chosen 

 bird in Italian devotional art because it not only represented the human 

 soul but was a symbol of resurrection as well, and particularly because 

 it came to be used as a sign of protection from the plague. From 

 Italy this use of the goldfinch was carried to Spain by the early Flor- 

 entine painters, such as "Stamina" and his contemporaries, and by the 

 Sienese artists who worked nearby in southern France, chiefly at 

 Avignon, whence their influence spread westward. Post ( 1930, 

 pp. 177, 182) was led to conclude that the Italianization of late Gothic 

 painting of the 14th century was more noticeable in Spain than almost 

 anywhere else in Europe. The little goldfinch was one of the pictorial 

 devices these Italian artists introduced into Hispanic art. 



The caged goldfinch in the Bermejo picture reminds one of the 

 detailed intarsia panel (see fig. 7) by Fra Giovanni da Verona in the 



