María Luisa Gabriela de Saboya as the Woman of the Apocalypse: Ceremony, Oratory, and Millenarianism in New Spain, 1701-1714

Abstract

Organizers of public commemorations held in early eighteenth-century New Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession characterized Philip V as a defender of the faith and queen consort Maria Luisa Gabriela de Saboya and crown prince Luis I as agents of providence. An examination of a corpus of sermons given between 1707 and 1710 reveals that orators assured novohispanos that the birth of Luis I of Spain would inaugurate a messianic age, marked by fecundity and prosperity. The queen, moreover, put the rebirth of the empire in motion before her death. As various orators suggested, her role in bringing about a sort of «Bourbon millennium» had been foretold in the Book of Revelation. In cities throughout New Spain, orators characterized the queen as the fecund vehicle of God’s providence, or the Woman of the Apocalypse, a figure associated with the Immaculate Conception. As the mother of Spain’s messiah, the queen assured the prosperous future of the empire.