Annunciation to the Virgin,

late 15th–early 16th century

European stained glass, a highly valued architectural material, received a place of honor in many churches and civic institutions, where it communicated religious and social values. How it did so varied across region and time, as seen in the diverse examples on view here. A royal commission depicting Louis IX (1214–1270), France’s sainted king, or an image of an archangel’s visit to the Virgin Mary to announce that she would be the mother of Christ, show rich colors in stained glass as well as glass painted with neutral line and shading. By the late fifteenth century, realistic three-dimensionality as well as large compositions in uncolored glass became standard. With a transformed economy, and in some cases, early democracy, middle-class individuals commissioned windows. A Swiss rural pastor proclaimed his admiration for the theo-logical insights of the fifth-century North African Saint Augustine and for the preaching skills of John the Baptist. A seventeenth-century town council used one of Aesop’s fables to encourage Swiss solidarity. The inscription extols service and fraternal ties, exclaiming that “unity is your strength!”

Virginia Raguin, Distinguished Professor of Humanities Emerita, Visual Arts, College of the Holy Cross