Chiquinquirá

Chiquinquirá, a city of about 60,000 in Colombia's Boyacá Department, is the seat of the shrine of the Virgin of the Rosary of Chiquinquirá. The painting of the Chiquinquirá Virgin, showing her between Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Andrew, has been dated at about 1550. After being neglected for some years, it was restored to its pristine state, according to witnesses, on 26 December 1586. Custody of the miracle-working image was given to the Dominicans, and an increasingly larger shrine was constructed over the centuries by the order. Until recently the Chiquinquirá region specifically and Boyacá in general were the major source of novices for the Dominicans in Colombia. Since 1919, the Virgin of Chiquinquirá has been the patroness of Colombia. She has devotees in Venezuela as well.

See alsoDominicans .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Andrés Mesanza, O.P., Nuestra Señora de Chiquinquirá: y monografía histórica de esta villa (1913).

Pedro De Tobar y Buendía, O.P., Verdadera histórica relación del origen, manifestación y prodigiosa renovación por sí misma y milagros de la imagen de la Sacratíssima Virgen María … de Chiquinquirá, 2d ed. (1986).

Additional Bibliography

Rojas Peña, Víctor Raúl. La coronación de la Virgen de Chiquinquirá: Mentalidad religiosa e imaginario mariano, 1891–1919: (Historia de Boyacá). Tunja: Consejo Editorial de Autores Boyacenses: Instituto de Cultura de Boyacá, 2001.

                                         J. LeÓn Helguera