Iconology of the Wayfarer Triptych

The pack is first and foremost a large basket. There is no way for the viewer to know what it contains or whether those things are for sale as they would be in a pedlar’s pack. Small late-fifteenth-century prints are known in which Christ is shown as a child with a pack on his back. This can contain virtues, but also the weight of the world [Schreiber, 1926, 32-33, no. 820-825]. (p. 334, note 10)

As the preeminent Franciscan virtue, poverty was frequently illustrated virtue cycles, including those in the Bardi Chapel and the Baroncelli Chapel of S. Croce [Workshop of Taddeo Gaddi, 14th century], in the choir vault of S. Francesco in Pistonia, and in the Strozzi Chapel of S. Maria Novella [Workshop of Orcagna, 15th-16th century; Offner & Steinweg, 1979, IV, n. 10; Allegory of Chasity at the Bardi Chapel, ca. 1325]. In these cycles, cycles Poverty has begun to bear a number attributes that will later appear with the figure Haywain and the Rotterdam tondo. Rotterdam tondo. In each case the is dressed in ragged clothing, carries a walking stick, flees from an attacking dog while turning back to it [Tuttle, 1981, 91:note 26; Dante, ca. 1308-1321, XXI, v. 68-69]. These pictorial details also derive from descriptions poverty in the Franciscan texts. Franciscan texts. The bride of Saint Francis is called a homeless wanderer, “a fugitive upon earth,” [Habig, 1973, 1568-69] whom avarice has caused all men to despise [Habig, 1973, 1569, 1571]. She is explicitly associated with the suffering of Christ his Passion: “You were with him when the Jews him, when the pharisees insulted him, when the priest cursed him; you were with him when he was feted, spat upon, and scourged … you suffered him.” [Habig, 1973, 1563] The association of Poverty’s suffering with Christ’s Passion seems to be expressed in the Franciscan virtue cycles and in Bosch’s paintings by means of the dog that harries the poor man. (p. 91-92)

The poor man in this painting has a bandaged sore on his left leg, and he has apparently lost one of his shoes and replaced it with a slipper. He has several new possessions, including a small hoof tucked into his vest, a purse hanging conspicuously at his side, a catskin on his basket, and a hat stuck with an awl holding a loop of thread, which he carries in his outstretched hand. These alterations in Bosch’s… representation of the poor man create an image that is antithetical to the concept of Christian virtue. (p. 93)

The figures on the Haywain exterior and the Rotterdam tondo thus illustrate quite aptly the two contrasting attitudes that existed toward poverty in the Middle Ages. Voluntary poverty, promoted by the Franciscans and the Devotio Moderna, was the most admirable of virtues, the symbol of Christian perfection. perfection. Bosch represented voluntary poverty on the outside of the Haywain triptych as the Christian alternative to, and protection against, For the Rotterdam tondo, Bosch used essentially figure to represent the same idea – poverty. However, the changes that he made in the secondary imagery terdam tondo changed the interpretation of that of the most Christ-like virtue to one of sin. (p. 95)