El Panecillo (from Spanish ''panecillo'' small piece of bread, diminutive of ''pan'' bread) is a 200-metre-high hill of

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates ...

-origin, with loess soil, located between southern and central

Quito Quito (; qu, Kitu), formally San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city, capital and largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its urban area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha Province, Pichincha ...

. Its peak is at an elevation of 3,016 metres (9,895 ft) above sea level. The original name used by the aboriginal inhabitants of Quito was Yavirac. According to

Juan de Velasco Juan de Velasco y Pérez Petroche (1727–1792) was an 18th-century Jesuit priest, historian, and professor of philosophy and theology from the Royal Audience of Quito. He was born in Riobamba to Juan de Velasco y López de Moncayo and to ...

, a Jesuit historian, there was a temple on top of Yavirac where the Indians worshiped the sun until it was destroyed by the Spanish conquistadores. The street that leads up to El Panecillo is named after

Melchor Aymerich Melchior Aymerich (1754 in Ceuta – 1836 in Cuba) was a Spanish general and provincial administrator, serving as the last president of the Royal Audience of Quito from April until May 1822. One of the last Spanish colonial provinces to be ov ...

Statue

In 1975, the Spanish artist Agustín de la Herrán Matorras was commissioned by the religious order of the

Oblate In Christianity (especially in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Methodist traditions), an oblate is a person who is specifically dedicated to God or to God's service. Oblates are individuals, either laypersons or clergy, normally li ...

s to build a 45-meter-tall stone monument of a madonna which was assembled on a high pedestal on the top of Panecillo. Called " Virgin of El Panecillo", it is made of seven thousand pieces of aluminium. The monument was inaugurated on March 28, 1975, by the 11th archbishop of Quito, Pablo Muñoz Vega. The statue was engineered and erected by Anibal Lopez of Quito. The virgin stands on top of a globe and is stepping on a snake, which is a classic madonna

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

. Less traditional are the wings. Locals claim that she is the only one in the world with wings like an angel. The monument was inspired by the famous "Virgen de Quito" (Quito's Madonna) also known as "the dancer" sculpted by Bernardo de Legarda in 1734, which now decorates the main altar at the Church of St. Francis. This madonna represents a turning point of the Quito School of Art (one of the most renowned of the Americas) because it shows a virgin in movement that is practically dancing in contrast with the traditional static Madonnas that were produced during the 18th century. According to a bronze placard affixed to the monument, the woman represented by the statue is the

Woman of the Apocalypse The Woman of the Apocalypse (or the woman clothed with the sun, el, γυνὴ περιβεβλημένη τὸν ἥλιον; Latin: ) is a figure, traditionally believed to be the Virgin Mary, described in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelatio ...

, as described in the ''

Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book o ...

'' (12:1–17).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Panecillo Hills of Ecuador Outdoor sculptures Quito Canton Aluminium sculptures 1976 sculptures Geography of Pichincha Province

Statue

See also

References