Heraldic Commentary Update 2

to suggest that she is with child, as per the vision of St. John (cf. Rev 12:2). The shape of the shield, which is a simplified Baroque car- touche, refers to this period also. The hitherto used Gothic- styled shield has been accused of anachronism. The rays surrounding the Immaculate Mary are pained in the Baroque style, which also finds its reflection in the old im- ages of the engravings on the Order’s seals. The figure of Mary, which is the crest of the coat of arms, has been enlarged and now affords a greater readability should the arms be significantly reduced in size. In addition, it answers the good tradition of heraldic styling, which commands to fill the field of the shield most fully but without “cramming” it. In view of the necessity to apply the rule of heraldic alter- nation to the main crest of the arms, which prohibits placing a color over another color and a metal over another metal, a need arose to separate Mary’s figure with its dominant blue color of the edges from the blue of the shield. The attempt made in the previous coats of arms to use various shades of blue is a heraldic mistake. The heraldry does not recognize shades of color and the blue is always described as just blue, without specifying if it’s dark or light. The principle of alternation governs also the placement of the rays around Mary, which was done in such a way so that all colored elements were placed as much as possible on the metal, and vice versa. It was not always possible, but this is no longer a mistake because the principle of alternation applies to the main color of the crest, and it may be broken in some minor de- tails, which is noticeable in many arms from the period of live heraldry . In its general outline, the shape of rays surrounding Mary’s figure is reminiscent to the radiant aureole ( mandorla – in Italian ), which appears on the earlier images of the Order’s emblem and also, through the differentiation in the rays’ length, to the presentation of rays, halos, and aureoles around figures of the saints as well as in Baroque monstrances. 24