"Madonna of Victory"

This lush work presents Madonna as both the queen of fertility and an icon of purity, offering a typical synthesis of classical pagan and Renaissance Christian ideals. The fruit, coral, and abundance of greenery around the arch stand for life, nature, and fecundity. Fruit had also connoted the cycle of the seasons since ancient times, both for obvious reasons and because of its connection to the myth of Persephone and the pomegranate. (Hades had tricked Persephone into eating pomegranate seeds while she was his captive in the underworld, binding her to remain below the earth for part of the year, thus creating the winter months during her absences.) At the same time, fruit has traditionally refered to purity, in particular melons, an image strongly related to the rituals of cleansing in Christian ceremony. The presence of the apples nuances the work's thematic scope further, representing not only fertility but also temptation and the fall, through its connection to the story of Adam and Eve. This may subtly position Madonna and child as Adam and Eve, a theory reinforced by the presentation of Saint Elizabeth as a patron Jewess with a yellow turban.