The Archangel Michael

A rank with no verb

Eight titles in this catalogue name Michael, and most attach an action: defeating Satan, a battle, an altar, a Last Judgment. This one attaches nothing. It states the rank and the name and stops, which makes it the plainest statement of hierarchy the catalogue contains — an archangel identified as an archangel, with no episode to be identified by.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1479 and gives Hans Memling, filed as Flemish and Northern Renaissance. It measures 37 x 16 cm. By the record's own numbers that is more than twice as tall as it is wide, and very small — the proportions of a panel belonging to a larger structure rather than of a picture meant to stand alone. The measured colour family is yellow. No location is recorded for this entry, so no collection is named here. The record files the subject under landscape as well as religion.

Where the archangels sit

Archangel is the eighth of the nine orders, second from the bottom, immediately above the plain angels and below every rank a painter never drew. That is the durable oddity of the scheme: the beings this catalogue names most often occupy one of its lowest positions. Michael, Gabriel and Raphael are the three names the tradition supplies, and of the sixteen titles here that name an archangel, fifteen name one of those three.