The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Handmade Greek Orthodox icon, Byzantine art wall hanging of Ladder of Paradise, religious icon decor

A wonderful lithography with a varnish layer and high quality paint depicting The Ladder of Divine Ascent or Ladder of Paradise. An icon aesthetically upgraded with collective value due to the handmade artificial ageing it has undergone. This is an exact copy of a Byzantine hagiography.

The Scala, which obtained an immense popularity and has made its author famous in the Church, is addressed to anchorites and cenobites and treats of the means by which the highest degree of religious perfection may be attained. Divided into thirty parts, or "steps", in memory of the thirty years of the life of Christ, the Divine model for the faithful Christian, it presents a picture of all the virtues and contains a great many parables and historical touches, drawn principally from the monastic life, and exhibiting the practical application of the precepts.

At the same time, as the work is mostly written in a concise, sententious form, with the aid of aphorisms, and as the reasonings are not sufficiently closely connected, it is at times somewhat obscure. This explains its having been the subject of various commentaries, even in very early times. The most ancient of the manuscripts containing the Scala is found in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and was probably brought from Florence by Catherine de' Medici. In some of these manuscripts, the work bears the title of "Spiritual Tables" (Plakes pneumatikai).

Can be hung on a wall or placed on a flat surface.

The item is sold without the stand depicted.