12de-eeuws harnas uit het leger van Lodewijk VI van Frankrijk, uit de collectie van het Musée d'Artillerie in Parijs before 1882

This photograph depicts a 12th-century suit of armor from the army of Louis VI of France, once held in the Musée d'Artillerie in Paris. Note the shield, its surface adorned with what appears to be a stylized, flame-like motif. The flaming emblem, a symbol of purification and perhaps divine wrath, carries echoes from antiquity, surfacing in various guises across time. We see it in the winged figures of classical art, and later adapted into Christian iconography of angels and divine messengers. It resurfaces during the Renaissance as symbolic of passion, later morphing into a symbol for revolutionary zeal. Here, on the shield of a medieval knight, the flame transcends its literal form, evolving into an expression of collective anxieties and aspirations. It speaks to the cyclical nature of symbols, continuously adapting and reappearing, their meanings shaped by the shifting sands of cultural memory and experience.