Medieval Examples
While art historians working on the early-modern period adopted this term and interpreted it as showing artistic "self awareness", medievalists tended not to use it. Many examples, however, can be found in the pre-modern era, as in a mosaic from the Hagia Sophia dated to the year 944. To the left, Justinian I offers the Virgin Mary the Hagia Sophia, which contains the mosaic itself. To the right, Constantine I offers the city of Constantinople (now known as Istanbul), which itself contains the Hagia Sophia.
More medieval examples can be found in the collection of articles Medieval mise-en-abyme: the object depicted within itself, in which Stuart Whatling conjectures that the self-references are sometimes used to strengthen the symbolism of gift-giving by documenting the act of giving on the object itself. An example of this self-referential gift-giving appears in the Stefaneschi Triptych in the Vatican Museum, which features Cardinal Giacomo Gaetani Stefaneschi as the giver of the altarpiece.
Read more about this topic: Mise En Abyme
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