Our Lady of the Rosary
7 October · Memorial · White
Our Lady leans from her throne to lay a garland of roses on one bowed head while the Christ Child crowns another, and two angels hold a crown over her own. The feast began with a victory: Don John of Austria defeated the Turkish fleet at Lepanto on the first Sunday of October in 1571, the same day the members of the Rosary confraternity walked in procession at Rome, and St Pius V ordered that a commemoration of the Rosary be made on that day. Gregory XIII in 1573 allowed the feast in every church with an altar of the Holy Rosary. After Prince Eugene's victory over the Turks at Peterwardein, in Hungary, on 6 August 1716, Clement XI commanded the whole Church to keep it. Leo XIII raised its rank and added to the Litany of Loreto the invocation Queen of the Most Holy Rosary. The garlands are roses in the painting and beads in your hand.
Herbert Thurston, “Feast of the Holy Rosary”, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13 (1912).
The mysteries of the Rosary for each day.
The Virgin of the Rosary in painting
Albrecht Dürer
1506, Národní galerie Praha (National Gallery Prague)
About this painting
Caravaggio
c. 1603, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
About this painting
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
c. 1675–1680, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
About this painting
Domingo Martínez
c. 1745, Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville
About this painting
Unknown artist
18th century, Museo Colonial, Bogotá
About this painting
How the Rosary is prayed, and the twenty mysteries in sacred art
Today's masterwork, each morning
One sacred painting a day, chosen by the liturgical calendar and captioned only from the museum's record: the feast, the color of the day, and the Scripture the scene depicts.
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