THE SLAVES OF THE VIRGIN HALL

The enslavement of Nuestra Señora de las Nieves was founded by Don Juan Pinto de Guisla in 1681, perpetuating his memory and that of his family with the patronage of the sanctuary and the Virgin. Pinto de Guisla’s main objective, which he passed on to his entire family, was to foster devotion to the Virgin of Las NIeves, considering that this patronage was what kept the family together, distinguished by the worship and devotion they professed to the Patron Saint. Under the patronage of Pinto de Guisla, the so-called Slaves’ Quarters were built over the sacristy of the parish church of Las Nieves in 1684, for the purpose of spending the night there on those occasions when they visited the sanctuary. In 1685, Bishop García Ximénez granted permission to open a tribune overlooking the main chapel so that the holy image of the Virgin could be seen through it, behind a lattice so thick that the people inside could not be seen from the church. The founder of the Slavery even placed a bed to contemplate the Virgin from it.

The Slaves’ Room had everything necessary to spend some time in retreat: a small library with unique books, cutlery and silver kitchenware, bed linen, furniture, and a collection of fourteen canvases on the life of the Virgin, of which only nine have survived to the present day. They are the work of an anonymous local artist, but some of the figures are reminiscent of the style of the Palmero painter Juan Manuel de Silva, from the first half of the 18th century.

This slavery was the driving force, with its founder at the head, of the devotional patronage of the Virgin on the island and of the definitive impulse to the Lustral Descent of the Virgin to the City, founded by Bishop Bartolomé García Ximénez in 1676 and of lustral character since 1680, fixing it in the calendar in the octave of the Feast of the Presentation in the Temple, that is to say in the Octave of the feast of Our Lady of Candelaria, the main feast of the Slaves. For this reason, a painting of the Veta Efigie de Nuestra Señora de Candelaria is kept in this room and, next to it, there is a candle or painted wooden candle, which was placed on the Virgen de las Nieves on this important feast.