2-sided St. Ambrose with Flowers, Bees, and Hive Garden Flag
Of late, pollinator gardens—whether for butterflies or for bees—have become increasingly popular as a partial remedy to the dwindling populations of these important insects. Butterflies and bees are responsible for pollination which is crucial to the food supply chain. It is estimated, for instance, that bee pollination is responsible for a third of global food production. + Add a spiritual dimension to your bee-friendly garden with a St. Ambrose of Milan Garden Flag from Saints_Aplenty on Zazzle! + Born Aurelius Ambrosius (c. 340–397), one day so his patronage origin story goes, the infant St. Ambrose was asleep in his cradle when suddenly a swarm of bees descended upon his face. The bees did not harm him, but rather they left behind a drop of honey on the baby’s lips. His astounded Christian parents took the event as a sign from heaven that their offspring would grow up to be an eloquent, honey-tongued speaker. They weren’t wrong: The child grew to manhood, studied literature, law, and rhetoric, that is, advanced public speaking, entered public life, served as a Roman governor, and eventually became a priest and Bishop of Milan. + Later in life, in Chapter VIII of a letter ‘On Virgins’ to his sister Marcellina, a nun, St. Ambrose would compare consecrated virgins to bees, the hardest working and most industrious of all God’s creatures. Nuns, he opined, were like bees working industriously in community and striving for a common goal of bringing about the Kingdom of Heaven on earth by prayer and good works. Small wonder, St. Ambrose is patron saint of bees, beehives, beekeepers, and candle makers! + Incidentally, in Greek mythology, ‘ambrosia’ was the food or drink of the gods that conferred their immortality. Bee bread, the food made from nectar, pollen, and bee saliva that worker bees feed to larvae in the honeycomb cells of hives is sometimes called ‘ambrosia’. Some beekeepers believe this synonym perpetuates the name of the Saint. + Here, we have combined two antique images: a portrait of St. Ambrose from a late 19th- century devotional print and a print from a book on insects from the mid-17th century. + A seated St. Ambrose is clad in bishop’s garb: miter, white alb, and cope that is dark violet in color with a rose-pink lining. His crosier (not visible here) leans against a column on his right (our left). He is writing. He holds a quill pen in his right hand and balances a book on his knee. On the windowsill behind him sits a beehive, his principal attribute. + Feast: December 7 + We have surrounded the portrait with a frame of bee-friendly flowers populated with insects by Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). Merian was a gifted scientific illustrator and amateur naturalist who discovered the metamorphosis of butterflies at the age of thirteen. Although famous in her own lifetime, Merian was largely ignored by the professional scientific community after her death because of her amateur standing and gender. After languishing for some 300 years in relative obscurity, Merian’s contributions to entomology and her artistry have received renewed interest and much-deserved appreciation in the last fifty years. + Image Credit (BEN 001): Antique image extracted from an oleograph of St. Ambrose of Milan, originally published by Benziger, Einsiedeln, Switzerland, late 19th century, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera. An oleograph is a special kind of chromolithograph with a shiny or polished coating to make its image more closely resemble an oil painting. + Image Credit (Wreath): Antique hand-colored copper engraving of a Wreath with Insects, from Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung und sonderbare Blumennahrung [The Caterpillar's Wonderful Transformation and Strange Flower Food](Vol. 2; Nuremberg, 1683), frontispiece. From WikiMedia Commons, Public Domain. The image file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.
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