La Moreneta de Montserrat
Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain · Finding c. 880 AD
The mountain of the hermit
Montserrat - "mountain serrado" in Catalan, for its peculiar rock needles - has been a place of spiritual retreat since the early centuries of Christianity. Eremites and monks found in their caves and slices the silence necessary for contemplation. Before any monastery existed, four medieval hermitage - Santa María, San Acisclo, San Pedro and San Martín - pointed the slopes of the mountain.
Legend places the image finding in the year 880. A group of pastors from the area observed an intense light coming down from the sky accompanied by heavenly music. As they approached, inside a cave they found a small image of the Virgin with the Child. When the Bishop of Manresa tried to move her to the city, the image became inexplicably unmoveable, interpreted as a sign that the Virgin wanted to stay on that mountain.
Moreneta — imagen gótica del siglo XII
The size that is venerated today dates from the 12th century and is only 95 centimeters. He represents the Virgin sitting in a hieratic attitude, with the Child Jesus on the lap. The face and hands - the only visible parts under the embroidered blankets - are dark, hence the affectionate popular appeal: La Moreneta. The darkening is due to centuries of candle smoke and the oxidation of the original varnish.
The right hand of the Virgin holds a golden sphere - a symbol of the universe - and in that of Christ a pineapple also appears. It is one of the most photographed and recognizable images of the entire Spanish Marian iconography. The pilgrims agree to touch the sphere through a glass-protected niche.
The monastery and the Escolania
In 1025, the Abbot Oliba founded the Monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat, which remains today an active Benedictine community. There was born in the 13th century the Montserrat school, one of the oldest children's chorus in Europe, who interprets Gregorian song and sacra polyphony with an uninterrupted tradition of over 700 years. The Virolai - anthem to the Moreneta - is considered a second unofficial anthem of Catalonia.
Ignacio de Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, went up to Montserrat in 1522 after his conversion, watched his weapons a whole night before the Virgin and deposited his soldier sword at the feet of the image: a symbolic gesture of those who renounced the human war to undertake the spiritual.
«Moreneta, escolteu nostra prece,
Oh mare de Déu de Montserrat."
(Brunette, listen to our request,
oh madre de Dios de Montserrat.)