The Black Madonna
According to tradition, the Black Madonna was painted from life by St Luke on a beam from the Holy Family's house in Nazareth. This explanation is accepted without question by most believers, though the official view is kept deliberately ambiguous. Scientific tests have proved the icon cannot have been executed before the sixth century, and it may even have been quite new at the time of its arrival at the monastery. Probably Italian in origin, it's a fine example of the hierarchical Byzantine style , which hardly changed or developed down the centuries. Incidentally, the "black" refers to the heavy shading characteristic of this style, subsequently darkened by age and exposure to incense. What can be seen today may well be only a copy made following the picture's first great "miracle" in 1430, on the occasion of its theft. According to the official line, this was the work of followers of the Czech reformer Jan Hus, but it's more likely that political opponents of the monastery's protector, King Wladyslaw Jagiello, were responsible. The legend maintains that the picture increased in weight so much that the thieves were unable to carry it. In frustration, they slashed the Virgin's face, which immediately started shedding blood. The icon was taken to Krakow to be restored, but in memory of the miracle, two wounds (still visible today) were scratched into the left cheek of the Madonna. Sceptics have pointed out that during the Swedish siege, usually cited as the supreme example of the Black Madonna's miracle-working powers, the icon had been moved to neutral Silesia for safekeeping. Yet, such was its hold over the Polish imagination, that its future seemed to occasion more anguished discussion at the time of the Partitions than any other topic. In the present day, the pope's devotion to the image has helped to focus the world's attention on Poland, simultaneously supplying ample fodder for the more archaic and nationalistic strains of Polish Catholicism
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