Mary, Mother and Warrior: The Virgin in Spain and the Americas

chapter three

discoverers, conquerors, and mary 


Discoverers,Conquerors, andMary chapter three


It was Isabel’s and Fernando’s mission of Christianity and conquest that led to the voyage of Christopher Columbus to America, and Columbus carried this intense devotion for Mary across the ocean. In a real sense, his mission was a continuation, both spiritually and spatially, of the Spanish Reconquest of the peninsula. But the discoverer was by no means the only European to bring the Mother of God with him as he encountered what was for him a New World. Virtually all of the leaders who initially came to explore and conquer shared the reverence for Santa María that characterized the Spanish monarchs and Columbus and his men.Their invoking of María in new locations and contexts repeated the patterns being used in Europe, as they wrote to the crown, composed their wills, and wrote their remembrances. Though these patterns could be dismissed as formulas, in my opinion the formulas and their ritualistic nature are significant and meaningful, and Saint Mary’s position at the center of them is significant and meaningful as well. Not only did she continue to nurture and comfort those far from home, now in even more unfamiliar and dangerous circumstances and territory, she also animated them as a warrior leading them against hostile forces. For Columbus, his voyage into the unknown was closely connected to his religious beliefs. In his own spirituality, the devotion to and reliance on the Virgin was intense. His voyage was wrapped round with Marian imagery; his progress was marked with geographic locations dedicated to Mary. This reverence, within the context of expanding Spain, was entirely natural. The Reconquest had been placed securely in a context of Marian devotion and protection against hostile, non-Christian foes, and Santa María had long
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been viewed as particularly concerned with mariners and protection from the dangers of the deep. A number of the Cantigas of Alfonso X involved rescues of imperiled sailors; Alfonso’s father-in-law, Jaume, credited a maritime escape of his own to theVirgin, as Columbus would later. Mariners of the time were accustomed to singing the Ave Maria at sundown to guard against the perils of the night and perhaps to welcome her star—Polaris, the North Star—so essential at that time to navigation.We know that Columbus himself prayed regularly to theVirgin Mary, and he is believed to have carried a Book of Hours with him on his voyages. A beautiful Book of Hours belonging to the admiral after the Discovery still exists in the Biblioteca Corsiniana of Rome. Of course, it contains, most importantly, the Office of the Virgin, a guide to daily prayer. According to one authority, Columbus balanced perPlate III. In this early-sixteenth-century painting the Virgin is depicted spreading her mantle over the Spanish. King Fernando is depicted to the left of the painting, while Columbus, Vespucci, and one of the Pinzón brothers are shown kneeling on the right. Note that they soar with her on clouds above the sea. Many contemporary vessels are shown in the water beneath her feet.This image was produced during the lifetimes of Cortés and Pizarro. Virgin of the Navigators, Alejo Fernandez, ca. , Real Alcazar, Seville, Spain. discoverers, conquerors, and mary 

sonal, guided prayer with the more general devotions fixed by the Church; it is touching to imagine him using this volume. He often included invocations to Mary and Jesus in his letters, asking for them to accompany him as he went about his life. Though these might be read as formulaic, his naming of his discoveries in the European New World further attested to his piety for theVirgin. There have been persistent rumors that Columbus was Jewish or of Jewish descent. If so, it would not have been unusual for him to practice his Christian beliefs with a special emphasis on Marian devotion, as was the case of the converted rabbi Paul of Santa María, who became bishop of Burgos (see Chapter II). Columbus’s own “Mystical Signature,” a much-analyzed and debated formal signature that is more a signifier of his identity than a rendition of his name, includes important references to Mary. Although it varied from time to time, typically it looked roughly like this: .S. .S. A .S. X M Y El Almirante [The Admiral] Alternatively, the last line sometimes read...