Thousands of images of the Gospel scene of the three wise men bringing gifts to the newborn Jesus have come down to us from the Middle Ages. Among the ivory reliefs, book miniatures, mosaics, frescoes, altar panels and stained glass windows, one image stands out that has long intrigued historians - the triptych "Adoration of the Magi" painted by Hieronymus Bosch.

It is full of iconographic "anomalies". Who is the bearded man standing in the doorway of the hut? He has a red cloak draped over his naked body, a turban entwined with thorns on his head, and his ankle is enclosed in a glass vessel through which a bleeding wound can be seen. Why are sirens and fish devouring each other painted on the clothes of the black magus and his servant?


"A visual message is not the sum of its parts; the meaning intended by the artist and/or his client does not necessarily coincide with what the viewers, his contemporaries, see in the image; a visual statement is by its nature open to a greater number of interpretations than a word, spoken or written."

In the West, the three "kings" who came to Bethlehem were revered as saints, and these details do not fit well with righteousness. To decipher Bosch's message, medievalist historian Mikhail Maizuls turns to medieval demonology, anti-Jewish polemics, astrological theories, and apocalyptic myths about the end times and the Antichrist.

"In Christian iconography and in the Christian tradition as a whole, the Adoration of the Magi is a joyful celebration, the appearance of God to the nations whom he will convert and save at the cost of his death on the cross. However, the world that Bosch depicted is not at all joyful and is filled with a vague sense of threat." For whom
For those interested in medieval art.