En Route to the Ave: Rogier van der Weyden's Miraflores Altarpiece and the Nascent Rosary

Abstract

Rogier van der Weyden's Miraflores Altarpiece (c. 1440) was installed in the Carthusian Monastery of Miraflores, Castile, during a period when early rosary meditation cycles were gaining popularity, particularly amongst Carthusians. This previously unexplored historical context offers a rationale for the innovative iconographic content and structure of the work, as well as for the ways in which it had meaning for its viewers. Like early rosary meditations, the Miraflores Altarpiece combines diverse meditational cycles including life of Christ and the Virgin narratives with the tripartite division of the Marian Psalter. The altarpiece has much in common with the later standardized form of the rosary, which indicates that this format had much earlier roots than had been thought previously. The Miraflores Altarpiece contributes to our understanding of the way visual media participated in the rosary tradition, and of the ways that tradition developed and changed over the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.