In Murillo’s masterpiece, ‘La Purissima’ of the Prado, the flowers indicate Mary’s virtues. The rose, symbol of love and mercy, show her as the Mater misericordiæ; the lily shows her purity—she is ‘La Purissima:’ the palm of triumph is hers as the Queen of Heaven and the olive tells of the healing she brings to mankind; she is the Consolatrix Afflictorum.
And the Church having identified the Virgin with the ‘Wisdom’ of the 24th Chapter of Ecclesiasticus, these symbols are also her direct emblems, for, says Wisdom:
‘I was exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and as a rose-plant in Jericho, as a fair olive-tree in a pleasant field.’
And the lily is always her emblem as ‘The lily of the valleys.’
It is noticeable that this figure of the Virgin, realized from the word picture of the Revelation of Saint John, was one that appealed strongly to the Spanish. She is ‘clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet.’ The moon is represented as the crescent moon which was the sacred device of the followers of Mahomet, and which had surmounted innumerable mosques throughout the Iberian peninsula for more than five hundred years. Ferdinand, husband of Isabella, put an end to the Moorish dominion in 1492, but the impress of the Moor is to this day strong on the land, and in the 17th century it seemed a fitting thing that the Virgin’s foot should be upon the hated crescent which symbolized Moorish rule and the faith of Islam. It was therefore, as a symbol of the Mohamedan faith [rather than as a symbol of chastity through its connection with the Goddess Diana, as is sometimes suggested], that representations of the Virgin with her feet upon a crescent, became so popular in Spain.
Murillo
Photo Anderson
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
(Prado, Madrid)