ABSTRACT
In his 1657 Jardín de María plantado en el principado de Cataluña, the Dominican Narciso Camós presented Nature as the sacred space in which chapels and churches are constructed. With animal intermediaries often helping to locate images of Mary and places where shrines should be dedicated, at least some early moderns could see sacred space embedded in the natural world. Some images and their associated sacred spaces were said to bring rain, heal sick animals, and help women in childbirth. Camós’ Catalonia was a place where Nature, domesticated or otherwise, bowed before the Virgin Mary serving as a type of nature goddess, and, rather than being peculiar to Catalonia, this theme reappeared in other places in the Spanish Empire, as well as other European sites, intimating some persistent themes in Marian devotion.
