The Battle of Lepanto commemorated in a South Carolina parish

On October 7, 1571, things weren’t looking good for nations in Europe and the Mediterranean region. The Ottoman Empire, seeking to expand its influence throughout Europe, aimed its fleet of galleys and galleasses—with 12,000 to 15,000 Christian slaves as rowers—toward the Gulf of Patras, on the west side of Greece. Defending against the Muslim Turks was the Holy League, a much smaller fleet of Catholic ships from Spain, Venice, and Genoa, under the command of Don Juan of Austria.

However, St. Pope Pius V, realizing that the Turks had a decided material advantage, called upon all of Europe to pray the Rosary, asking Mary for victory. Christians gathered in villages and towns to pray as the sea battle raged; at the hour of victory the Pope—who was hundreds of miles away at the Vatican—is said to have gotten up from a meeting, walked over to an open window exclaiming, “The Christian fleet is victorious!” and shed tears of joy and thanksgiving to God.

The toll of the sea battle was great: The Holy League lost 50 of its galleys and suffered some 13,000 casualties. The Turks, however, lost much more: Their leader Ali Pasha was killed, along with 25,000 of his sailors. The Ottoman fleet lost 210 of its 250 ships, of which 130 were captured by the Holy League.

Coming at what was seen as a crisis point for Christianity, the victory at Lepanto stemmed Ottoman incursion into the Mediterranean and prevented their influence from spreading through Europe. Through the intervention of Our Lady, the Hand of God prevented the Muslims of the East from overcoming the Christian West.

Recognizing the importance of the victory, Pope Pius instituted a feast on October 7th in thanksgiving for Mary’s patronage.

Pope Pius originally named the feast for Our Lady of Victory. Two years later, in 1573, Pope Gregory XIII changed the title of this feast day to “Feast of the Holy Rosary.”

A new painting of Our Lady of the Rosary

Since the feast day was established in the 1500s, many artists—ranging from Caravaggio to Venezuelan Juan Pedro López, to the Italian late-Baroque artist Luca Giordano and others—have honored Mary in her role as Our Lady of the Rosary.

American artist Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs recently completed a painting of Our Lady of the Rosary which will be displayed in the church of the same name in Greenville, South Carolina.

Thompson-Briggs, who creates modern-day images of Catholic saints in oils, spoke recently about her inspiration for the project.

“Originally, I was going to do a copy of another painting,” she said. “But the museum that possessed the original refused to release the rights. They said it was a corruption of its original purpose for it to be in a church.”

She smiled a little about that—noting that the original work had been created for a church, and only later was placed on exhibit in a museum.

Thompson-Briggs worked closely with the pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary parish, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, to design her new painting.

“I had planned to depict Our Lady as ready for battle,” she explained. Her research had led her to an original statue, which had been on the ship as they went into battle at Lepanto. “The statue still exists today,” she said. “Our Lady is covered with armor! I thought that was so powerful—I was prepared to use this image.”

Fr. Longenecker, though, preferred a painting that depicted Mary like the original, dressed in red and blue. Thompson-Briggs painted the Virgin Mary in a scarlet and blue gown with gold trim, and a sheer white veil.

She retained a residual nod to the battle scene: “I have a strong wind blowing her hair and veil to the side. The Christians won, we know from history, when the winds turned in their favor. So that’s kind of a testament.”

Gwyneth added a couple of other notes about the painting: The figure of Christ (a child in his mother’s arms) is holding a small ship, a copy of the Spanish galley Real, the flagship of the fleet that Don Juan of Austria sailed into battle. There is a full-scale image of the ship in Barcelona, Gwyneth reported; and she actually built a small-scale model herself before she painted the image, so that she could see exactly where the light hit it.

On the child Jesus’ head, she painted a baby-sized papal tiara—indicating his spiritual authority. “And the only other thing I might note,” Gwyneth added, “… is that for Our Lady, I was hoping to create a more Spanish or Mediterranean type of beauty—a timeless, almond-shaped face. There’s a serenity or a confidence, or perhaps a sense of humor about our small human concerns.”

The background of soft green and brown is a map of Lepanto and the surrounding waters.

Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs’ painting of Our Lady of the Rosary will be permanently installed in Our Lady of the Rosary Church on October 6, as the parish commemorates the feast.

Displayed in the narthex, the painting will be the parish’s second remembrance of the historic battle. Fr. Longenecker explains how the Battle of Lepanto is commemorated in the sanctuary.

“Because the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary has a historical link to the Battle of Lepanto,” he says, “we ensured that the design of our new Our Lady of the Rosary Church would commemorate the battle.”

“One of the ways we have done this,” he notes, “in addition to Gwyneth’s new painting, is the starry dome in the ceiling of our magnificent baldacchino. Through computer technology,s it is possible to ascertain the appearance of the night sky at any place and date in history. Therefore, the starry dome portrays the night sky over the Bay of Lepanto on October 7, 1571—the date of the battle.”

Catholic World Report