ABSTRACT
This chapter examines merchant-commissioned, sculpted altarpieces from the chapels in early sixteenth-century Burgos, which reflect aspects of lay devotional life in the city. The altarpiece portrays the Adoration of the Magi in the center with Christ as the Man of Sorrows and fifteen large effigies of saints in the surrounding niches. The central quadrant of the altarpiece features Christ bearing the cross with the figure of Veronica kneeling before him. The last altarpiece further reflects the concerns that Burgalese merchants had for establishing the intercessory role of their personalized heavenly representatives and showcasing those personages in the iconography of their altarpieces. The presence of Mary Magdalene and St. Katherine in all three works, as well as the inclusion of several other female saints in the Polanco altarpiece, indicates that the devotional lives of the merchants’ wives and daughters were significant to the overall design of their retables.
