In what is now the stairway at Madrid’s Royal Palace, Corrado Giaquinto developed a program depicting the Spanish Monarchy, its virtues and its historical mission to serve and defend Religion. Allegorical representations of Religion and the Catholic Church appear at the centre of Spain pays homage to Religion and to the Church, 1759. Religion is depicted as a woman carrying a cross in her left hand and resting her right on a pagan-looking altar. The white veil that hides her face alludes to religion’s incomprehensible mysteries. The Catholic Church is represented by a young woman being crowned. She reaches towards a tiara held by an angel. Around a palm-and-laurel wreath above them are allegorical representations of the virtues associated with Catholicism: Truth, which is a prerogative of Catholic faith; Strength, which sustains truth; Vigilance, insuring obedience to God’s laws; Reason, which vanquishes passion; and, finally, Counsel, which guides Christians to their salvation. Above them is a coat of arms of the Spanish monarchs, beneath which a shining dove of the Holy Ghost illuminates the entire composition.

Beneath Religion and the Catholic Church, Spain is represented by a woman wearing warrior’s garb and offering wheat spikes to the two figures above. This common representation of Spain appears in numerous seventeenth-century engravings, always dressed in Roman style and with one or more darts (arrows), wheat spikes and a shield. In the painting at Madrid’s Royal Palace, Spain’s shield rests on the ground at her feet. The origin of this image lies in Roman coins from the time of Augustus, Hadrian and Galba, on which Spain was frequently represented this way as an allusion to the bellicosity of its inhabitants and the abundance of its wheat. To the right and slightly below this figure, Giaquinto presents the virtues associated with Spain: Prudence, Steadfastness, Justice and Religious Zeal.

The lower part of Spain pays homage to Religion and to the Church is occupied by the continents, to which Fame announces the virtues and victories of the Spanish Monarchy. Curiously, given the relative importance of each continent in Spain’s history, pride of place is occupied not by America but instead by Africa, which takes the form of a black woman petting a griffin and standing in front of a group of captives. Asia appears to the right of the latter group and farther from the viewer in the form of a woman sitting on a camel. To the far right, and smaller, America is represented by a woman fleeing from the rays of light emanating from the Holy Ghost.

Overall, this work closely follows another Giaquinto painted, in 1744, for the dome of the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome. The group that crowns Saint Helen and the Emperor Constantine presented to the Trinity by the Virgin Mary is similar to the one in Madrid’s palace stairway (Úbeda de los Cobos, A.: Italian Masterpieces. From Spain´s Royal Court, Museo del Prado, 2014, p. 242).