MYSTICAL NATIVITY
by Sandro Botticelli
1500, 109 x 75 cm
Inscribed in Greek at the top:
“This picture, at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, I Alessandro, in the half-time after the time, painted, according to the eleventh [chapter] of Saint John, in the second woe of the Apocalypse, during the release of the devil for three-and-a-half years; then he shall be bound in the twelfth [chapter] and we shall see [him buried] as in this picture.”
The Mystical Nativity shows angels and men celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. The Virgin Mary kneels in adoration before her infant son, watched by the ox and the donkey at the manger. Mary's husband, Joseph, sleeps nearby. Shepherds and wise men have come to visit the newborn king. Angels in the heavens dance and sing hymns of praise. On earth they proclaim peace, joyfully embracing virtuous men while seven demons flee defeated to the underworld.
This painting has long been called the Mystical Nativity because of its mysterious symbolism. It combines Christ's birth as told in the New Testament with a vision of his Second Coming as promised in the Book of Revelation. The Second Coming — Christ's return to earth — would herald the end of the world and the reconciliation of devout Christians with God.
The picture was painted a millennium and a half after the birth of Christ, when religious and political upheavals prompted prophetic warnings about the end of the world. It was probably painted as a private devotional work for a Florentine patron.