Christian art includes a great many representations of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child. Such works are generally referred to as the “Madonna and Child” or “Virgin and Child”. They are not usually representations of the Nativity specifically, but are often devotional objects representing a particular aspect or attribute of the Virgin Mary, or Jesus. Nativity pictures, on the other hand, are specifically illustrative, and include many narrative details; they are a normal component of the sequences illustrating both the Life of Christ and the Life of the Virgin.

Significant among the narrative, symbolic images of the life of Christ are scenes concerning the birth of Jesus, and hence the birth of the Church. This lecture looks at the Nativity cycle – the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Annunciation to and Adoration of the Shepherds, and the Adoration of the Magi – from the earliest days of the Christian church through the Renaissance.