Our Lady of Valvanera

Patrona de La Rioja · Spain

In the Sierra de la Demanda, hidden among oak trees, the Benedictine monastery of Valvanera preserves a Romanesque size of the Virgin, venerated as Mother and patron of all La Rioja.

Origin and history

Devotion goes back to the Middle Ages. The tradition tells that a penitent, Nuño Oñez, who was taken to the Riojana saw, received in the dream the indication of an image of the Virgin hidden in the mountain: he found it in the hole of an oak, next to a fountain, in the place that named "Valvanera" (from Latin). vallis venaria, "valley of the water veins").

Around the place came a community that adopted the rule of Saint Benedict, the origin of the present Benedictine monastery of Valvanera, the focus of pilgrimage throughout La Rioja for centuries. The image, a Romanesque size of Our Lady sedent with the Child, was crowned canonically and the Virgin of Valvanera proclaimed patron of La Rioja.