Scripture · Psalm 139:13-16
Psalm 139:13-16
Nativity of the Virgin
For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.
Anne lies beneath patterned bedclothes while women tend the newborn in a house that continues across the panel’s three-part frame.
About the artwork
Lorenzetti makes the Gothic divisions serve as the structure of a continuous interior. Painted columns, a tiled floor and a vaulted ceiling give the room a coherent depth. An opening at the left reveals another domestic space, extending the family’s world beyond the birth chamber.
Lorenzetti painted the work in 1342 for the altar of Saint Savinus in Siena Cathedral. Its three-part frame could have separated the figures into distinct compartments; instead, he uses it to help construct one inhabited house. The tiled floor carries the eye through those divisions, while the door at the left allows life to continue beyond the chamber we can see.
What does Psalm 139:13-16 mean?
Psalm 139:13–16 directs attention into an interior that human observers cannot enter: the mother’s womb. The speaker remembers that hidden formation as a work fully known to God. Lorenzetti’s opened house offers a visual analogy for this movement of attention, though the room and the womb are not the same image.
The traditional story of Mary’s birth supplies the painting’s subject, outside the canonical Gospel narratives. The psalm instead gives a first-person account of being made and known. Looking through the frame toward the women’s care can slow our attention enough to consider that earlier, unseen beginning.
Lorenzetti opens an enclosed household to view; Psalm 139 considers a beginning still further hidden, already known by God.
Sources
Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena. Exact 1342 work and its original Saint Savinus altar in Siena Cathedral.
Psalm 139 — Berean Standard Bible. Context for Psalm 139:13-16.
Also from Psalm:NativityMorning Prayer