*3.2. Mary as Porta Paradisi in Some Temple's Portals*

The central portal of the west façade of the Leon Cathedral, known as the *Portal of the Last Judgment* or *Portal of the White Virgin* (*Virgen Blanca*), from the middle of the 13th century (Figure 4), is a perfect example of an artwork that reflects the theme we are studying. This portal in Leon is a monumental sculptural-architectural representation of the Virgin Mary's exceptional power of intercession and salvation in favor of the human gender under the formula Mary *porta Paradisi* or *ianua Coeli*.

**Figure 4.** León Cathedral, mullion with the *Virgen Blanca* at the *Portal of the Last Judgment*. Central portal of the West Facade, mid. 13th century.

The tympanum of the Portal of the "*Virgen Blanca*" brings the traditional tripartition. In the lower strip, the two sets of blessed and reprobate, on the right and the left of the archangel Michael with his balance scale, head, respectively, towards Heaven or the cauldrons of Hell. In the central sector, much more significant, the scene of the Last Judgment stands out, with the enthroned and half-naked Christ raising his arms to show his stigmata between two standing angels bearing some insignia of the Passion while Mary and John the Evangelist, kneeling with their hands in prayer in the ends of the compressive space, intercede before the Supreme Judge, begging for his clemency in favor of faithful. Finally, on the reduced apex of the tympanum, other angels carry the remaining *Arma Christi*. With this first presentation of the Virgin asking the Pantocrator for mercy, she already manifests herself in the tympanum as the mediator and facilitator of the entrance of believers to Heaven, that is, as the open "gate of Paradise".

In addition, in the mullion separating both doors, Mary reappears as an imposing standing figure (the "*Virgen Blanca*") with her divine Child in her arms and her head encircled with a large crown, which accredits her as the Queen of Heaven. It is evident that—with her role as pleading intercessor before her adult Son as judge in the scene of the Last Judgment on the tympanum, and with her majestic display on the mullion as Queen of Heaven,—the nurturing mother of the infant King of the universe, whom she shows to the faithful carrying him in her arms—the Virgin Mary affirms herself in this portico of Leon Cathedral as an effective mediator to obtain the salvation of the believer, scilicet, as an open "door of Heaven". Not in vain, the ecclesiastical hierarchy has reserved for the Virgin this privileged space (tympanum and mullion) of the door through which the faithful enter the temple (an earthly symbol of Heaven) to make them see that, to achieve their entry to the heavenly Paradise, they need to turn to Mary Mediatrix.

The north portal of the west façade of the Notre Dame of Paris, known as the *Portal of the Virgin*, c. 1210–20 (Figure 5), also has—as in the case of the recently analyzed *Portal of the Virgen Blanca* in Leon—for the subject under study two large nuclei: the tympanum and the mullion. This tympanum from Paris is divided into three registers. The lower one includes six seated figures with phylacteries, three Old Testament prophets, and three kings of Israel. The intermediate register presents the scene of the burial of the Virgin (inspired by the Apocrypha), presided over by Christ in the presence of the twelve apostles, with two angels introducing the corpse into the tomb. The upper register narrates the Coronation of the Virgin—a theme we have studied in another paper (Salvador-González 2022a)—with Christ blessing Mary, both enthroned between two kneeling angels, while a third angel at the top places the royal crown on the head of the Virgin. In turn, the mullion presents the majestic figure of Mary as the crowned Queen with her Son in her arms, under whose feet the plinth or pedestal of the mullion describes some scenes of Adam and Eve in the Earthly Paradise, of which the central scene represents Original Sin, with Adam and Eve eating the apple before the serpent coiled in the Tree of Good and Evil.

As in the case of the Cathedral of Leon just analyzed, this Portal of the Virgin in the Notre Dame of Paris illustrates the same thesis about the mediating and saving capacity of the Virgin, emphasizing now her privileged position as Queen of Heaven.

The one known as the *Portal of the Majesty*, from the late 13th–early 14th century, in the Collegiate Church of Santa María la Mayor of Toro (Zamora) (Figure 6), poses almost the same compositional-narrative structure and the same symbolic meanings as the just analyzed *Portal of the Virgin* in the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Additionally, in Toro, the tympanum is filled with the scene of the Coronation of the Virgin (in the large central sector) and her burial (in the lower strip). The mullion also houses the upright figure of the crowned Queen of Heaven with her little Son in her arms. As if that were not enough, this Portal of the Majesty in Toro adds the representation of the Last Judgment in its last archivolt, whose center is occupied by the enthroned Pantocrator between the kneeling figures of Mary and John the Evangelist.

The mullion of the central portal of the West façade of the Reims Cathedral, c. 1260–70 (Figure 7), houses the monumental figure of the Virgin Mary with her Child in her arms, crowned as the Queen of Heaven. This appearance and this position between the two entrances of that portal to the temple want to highlight the power of Mary as the "gate of Heaven". She is represented as the facilitator of the believer's entrance to the heavenly Paradise and—for being the mother of the Redeemer, whom she displays in her arms before the faithful—as a collaborator in the redemption of humankind, as the scene of Original Sin sculpted on the plinth of the mullion also reveals. As if this explicit message were not enough, in the culminating part of the gable of this central portal, the scene of the Coronation of the Virgin as the Queen of Heaven appears, thus reinforcing her exclusive power to collaborate in the eternal salvation of the believer.

**Figure 5.** Notre-Dame of Paris Cathedral. *Portal of the Virgin*, North bay of the West façade, c. 1210–20.
