1-sided St Ambrose with Flowers, Bees and Beehives Garden Flag

Also available as a two-sided variant for an additional cost. NOTE WELL: This flag has printing only on the front. The back is totally blank. Adding ANYTHING to the backside—a word, an icon, a picture, even a white or solid background color—will trigger a surcharge/an upcharge! + 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 print from a book on insects from the early 18th century and a devotional print from the late 19th. The image in the upper left depicts a floral wreath with bees among bee-friendly flowers surrounding a vignette of a beehive. The image on the left portrays St. Ambrose. + Standing, a gray-bearded St. Ambrose is clad in bishop’s garb: miter, white alb, and a pea-green dalmatic and matching cope with a dark rose lining. With his right hand he points to a passage presumably in the Bible or in one of his own extensive writings. At his feet is a beehive, his principal attribute. + Feast: December 7 + Image Credit (Beehive in Wreath): Antique hand-colored engraving of a Wreath Surrounding a Beehive, from De Europische insecten [European Insects], by Maria Sibylla Merian (Amsterdam: J. F. Bernard, 1730), Plate LI No. 1, f. p. 28. From the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives at the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) site, Public Domain. Merian (1647-1717) was a gifted scientific illustrator and amateur naturalist who discovered the metamorphosis of butterflies at the age of thirteen. + Image Credit (P 007): Figure of St. Ambrose of Milan extracted and adapted from a late 19th-century devotional print in chromoxylography bordered with pressed lace, originally published by Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg, New York, and Cincinnati. From the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.