Santa María de Salas

The Virgin of the Cantigas · Huesca

On the outskirts of Huesca, the shrine of Santa Maria de Salas was in the Middle Ages one of the most famous and miraculous in northern Spain: to him dedicated Alfonso X seventeen Cantigas, the only Aragonese advocation sung by the King Sage.

Origin and history

The hermit-sanctuary was raised at the beginning of the 13th century at the expense of Dona Sancha de Castilla, Queen of Aragon, to receive a growing devotion, dedicated first to Santa Maria de la Huerta. There was venerated an image of the Virgin of Salas to which many miracles were attributed, narrated in the Cantigas of Santa Maria de Alfonso X, which he dedicated to him seventeen - the advocation with more cantigas and the only aragonese -.

King Peter IV, the great devotee, took his jewels to pay for troops and, repented, donated a silver altarpiece today at the Diocesan Museum of Huesca. The image appears on the shield of the old University of Huesca and is linked to the immaculist vote of the city. Reformed in the Baroque, it is Monument (BIC since 1951), with rosemary on the first Sunday of May.

Canonical coronation: not recorded.