*3.3. The Virgin as the Gate of Heaven in the Scene of the Annunciation*

Robert Campin stages *The Annunciation*, c. 1420–25, from the Prado Museum in Madrid (Figure 8), in a monumental Gothic temple. Mary is seated inside its central nave, absorbed in reading her prayers, next to a precious vase with a stem of lilies, a vase whose doctrinal meanings we have explained in another paper (Salvador-González 2022b). Outside the temple, before one of its side doors, the archangel Gabriel remains kneeling. In turn, God the Father, levitating in his splendid mandorla in the upper left-hand corner of the painting, sends the fecundating ray of light towards the Virgin. Significantly enough, this ray, before falling on Mary, passes through a stained-glass window without breaking or staining it, a circumstance whose theological meaning we have explained in another article (Salvador-González 2022c).

**Figure 6.** *Portal of the Majesty*, late 13th–early 14th century. Collegiate Church of Santa María la Mayor of Toro (Zamora).

By configuring the modest house of Mary in Nazareth as a monumental Gothic temple, the mastermind of this painting wants—in addition to tangentially designating the Virgin as the personification of the Church (Mary as *Ecclesia*)—to directly illustrate various Mariological and Christological meanings, referring to God the Son's supernatural human incarnation, and to Mary's virginal divine motherhood, which we have explained in other articles (Salvador-González 2017, 2020b, 2020c, 2020d, 2021b), and which other commentators on this painting ignore (Panofsky 1953, vol. I, pp. 133, 175; Campbell 1974, pp. 634–46; Dijkstra 1994, pp. 312–29; Châtelet 1996, pp. 305, 306; Thürlemann 2002, p. 196).

**Figure 7.** Reims Cathedral, Mullion of the central portal of the West façade, c. 1260–70.

**Figure 8.** Robert Campin, *The Annunciation*, c. 1420–25. Prado Museum, Madrid.

However, we are most interested in highlighting in this panel by Robert Campin that he has placed the Virgin framed/focused by a large arch (one of those in the nave vault), which at first glance appears to be the main entrance to the temple. With this resource

of framing Mary in that enormous arch/entrance, the intellectual author of this painting seems to want to identify the Virgin with that arch/entrance, as if aiming to illustrate with this visual metaphor the textual metaphor that designates Mary as *ianua Coeli* or *porta Paradisi*. Being that this painted Gothic temple is a symbol of Heaven, this Virgin framed by that open arch/entrance reveals Mary's privileged capacity for mediation and intercession before her divine Son to facilitate the entry of the faithful to the heavenly Paradise, just as many liturgical hymns that we set out proclaim with determination.

In *The Annunciation (The Friedsam Annunciation)*, c. 1450, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Figure 9), Petrus Christus—if he is the author of this work attributed to him—poses this Marian episode in a very innovative way. He places the scene outside a large Gothic temple, at the open door of which stands the Virgin with a prayer book in her left hand, raising her right one. The dove of the Holy Spirit, flying high, sends the fertilizing ray of light toward Mary, a ray whose theological symbolism we have explained in another context (Salvador-González 2020a). Meanwhile, the archangel Gabriel, covered in a splendid cope, with the herald's staff in his left hand and pointing his right forefinger upwards to indicate the origin of the announcement he is communicating to the Virgin, remains outside the temple facing its door.

**Figure 9.** Petrus Christus (attributed), *The Annunciation (The Friedsam Annunciation),* c.1450. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

We will not dwell here on certain elements highlighted by some art historians who comment on this work (Panofsky 1953, pp. 133–34, 230–32; Schiller 1971, pp. 49–50; Ainsworth 1994, pp. 117–25, 179), nor in the stem of lilies that protrudes behind the lintel on the left side, stem of lilies whose multiple and profound Christological and Mariological meanings we have explained in other works (Salvador-González 2013, 2014, 2016). Due to its direct relationship with the subject we are studying, we are interested, instead, in highlighting two important conceptual decisions that the intellectual author of this painting has adopted in this scene: first, configuring the humble house of Mary in Nazareth in

a monumental Gothic temple; second, placing the Virgin right at her open door. In the analysis of the previous painting by Robert Campin, we already explained the doctrinal symbolism of Mary's house shaped as a temple. On the other hand, the decision to place the Virgin at the open entrance to the temple implies assuming the thesis according to which Mary is the effective mediator in the eternal salvation of the believers who facilitate their entry into Heaven: in other words, Mary as an open *porta Paradisi* or *ianua Coeli*—once again, with the temple painted in the panel as a symbol of Heaven, following what many liturgical hymns presented here exhaustively affirm.

Additionally, Gentile Bellini offers in *The Annunciation*, c. 1475, from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid (Figure 10), a compositional-narrative approach relatively similar to Robert Campin's in the recently analyzed panel from the Prado Museum. However, Gentile Bellini stages the episode not in a Gothic temple but in a splendid Renaissance palace inserted in a city of large porticoed buildings. It should be noted that representing the humble house of Mary in Nazareth as a luxurious royal palace—about the biblical sentence "Wisdom has built her house" (Prov 9:1)—obeys the purpose of illustrating several deep Mariological and Christological meanings that we have already explained in other articles (Salvador-González 2021a, 2021c).

**Figure 10.** Gentile Bellini, *The Annunciation*, c. 1475. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. Madrid.

The painter placed Mary inside the palace, kneeling in prayer before a lectern. At the same time, the angel, carrying the stem of lilies and pointing his right index finger towards the heights, remains on his knees outside the palace in the middle of the street.

Now, apart from other details of this painting, we are interested in highlighting that its intellectual author framed/focused the praying Virgin through a monumental arch/open door to identify Mary with this open "door" that allows entry to the palace (the palace as an analogy for Heaven). In other words, he wanted to express, through the visual metaphor of this arch/open door, the textual metaphors *ianua Coeli*, *porta Paradisi*, and other similar expressions with which numerous medieval liturgical hymns proclaimed Virgin Mary's effective mediation and saving power for achieving the entrance of the believers to the heavenly Paradise.
