Giotto, The Presentation in the Temple

1303-1305
Fresco
Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

The fresco includes the usual figures in images of this episode (Luke 2:22-39): Mary, Simeon, and the child in the center; St. Joseph and Anna on their left and right; and a young woman on the far left. The doves are in St. Joseph's hands, and the Temple is expressed simply by an altar below a ciborium.

The young woman is not in Luke or the Golden Legend, but she often appears in Presentation images carrying either the doves or (as here) a candle. The candle refers to Simeon's prophecy that the child will be "a light to the revelation of the Gentiles."

In Luke 2:38 Anna tells everyone that the child will be the redemption of Israel, but her scroll says he will be the redemption of "the world" (seculi), that last word being darker and slightly out of alignment with the others. It may have been a later emendation.

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Photographed at the chapel by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.