Lower Galilee, Israel
Nazareth
What is there today
The basilica of the Annunciation stands over a house carved into rock, reached by stairs down from the nave. Beside it is the church of Saint Joseph, over what tradition marks as the workshop. In the time of Jesus, Nazareth was a village of some four hundred people.
Why this image comes from here
Two scenes that hold up half of Christian iconography happen here: the Annunciation, and the thirty years of hidden life the gospel dispatches in two lines. From a village of which it was said nothing good could come, comes half the imagery painted ever since.
Pieces from this place
- The Annunciation
- The house where it happened lies under the basilica of Nazareth, and you can still go down to it. The icon does not depict a past moment: it sets it in front of you again.
- The Holy Family
- Thirty years of this life fit into two lines of the gospel. All we know of Nazareth is that nothing worth telling happened there, and that is where the force of this image comes from.