Our Lady of the Flower of Lis

The oldest Marian image in Madrid · crypta de la Almudena

Fragment of a 13th century mural painting of the late church of Santa Maria, Our Lady of the Flower of Lis is the oldest Marian image preserved in Madrid; the Virgin holds a flower of lis, symbol of her triple virginity.

Origin and history

Our Lady of the Flower of Lis is today the fragment of an ancient mural painting that decorated the apse of the disappeared church of Santa María de la Almudena, in the medieval villa of Madrid. The art history studies put it at the end of the 13th century, in the transition from late-century to Gothic. It is a front image of the Virgin with the Child on her knees, which holds in her right hand a flower of lis, attribute that gave her name since the 17th century, when she began to receive self-worship. Taken from the wall and protected as a table, it came from the ancient parish demolished in the 19th century; in 1834 a Congregation of Gardeners chose it as a patron, and since 1911 it was venerated in the crypt of the Almudena Cathedral.

The Madrid tradition closely links this image with the reconquest of Madrid by Alfonso VI and with the "Marian origin of the villa": the king would have ordered to paint on the wall of the main altar of the ancient mosque transformed into church an icon of the Virgin, while seeking the hidden image that would later be the Almudena. Some versions add that the artist was inspired by the face of Queen Constanza of Burgundy, wife of Alfonso VI, thus linking the flower of lis with French symbolology. They are stories of popular piety without coetanea documentation, as stylistic studies place the work century and a half after Alfonso VI. The flower of lis symbolizes Mary's triple virginity: before, during and after childbirth.

Canonical coronation: not found in the sources.