Domus SapientiaeDoctrinal explanation and iconography in images of the Annunciation

This book, which significantly expands and deepens some articles published by the author, intends to interpret the doctrinal meanings that the symbol of Virgin Mary’s house shaped as a palace in images of the Annunciation carries. To this end, many texts are documented and explained with which for more than a millennium numerous GreekEastern and Latin Church Fathers, theologians, and hymnographers deciphered in a Mariological and Christological sense the biblical reference to the house that Wisdom has built and to other similar metaphorical expressions, alluding to spaces reserved only for God or the king. This allows verifying that all these patristic, theological, and liturgical texts constituted a solid dogmatic tradition in the Church, considering in full agreement that such metaphors mean the supernatural human incarnation of the Son of God and the virginal divine maternity of Mary. The final analysis of a series of paintings of the Annunciation in which the Nazarene house of the Virgin appears figured as a palace allows us to appreciate that palace as a visual metaphor that illustrates the textual metaphor of the Domus Sapientiae and other similar metaphorical expressions.