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The Sacred Image of the Immaculate Conception arrived on the Island of Cubagua on December 7, 1525 on board the caravel "Santa María de La Anunciada" captained by Master Martín de Antón and was received & enthroned by priest Francisco de Villacorta.
Today only a line of rocks remain from the original building soon to disappear for good unless something is done.
PROJECT # 4
The rescue of the Hermitage of Our lady of Immaculate Conception, Original home of
La Virgen del Valle
Actual condition of the remains of the Hermitage
Hermitage digital reconstruction by our ally Miguel Yabrudes
To be in line with proper heritage rescue procedures we cannot rebuild the Hermit, but with the proper professional help of an archeologist we can rescue the remains with a careful excavation, build a scaled down version of the digital reconstruction of the building to serve as a Museum with very good infographics of its history.
We are convinced once recovered and due to the fact that the “Virgen del Valle” has a tremendous quantity of worshipers we could promote peregrination visits to the Hermit to help sustain the installations and can foresee that this could be a pilot test to continue eventually with the rescue of the fabulous ruins of the city of “Nueva Cádiz de Cubagua”.
Both with an enormous potential religious, cultural and historical tourism that could mean a sustent for Cubaguas impoverished population.
We have done extensive research, actually follow many lines of investigation and payed many visits to the Island of Cubagua where lies the first town founded by the Spanish in continental America, which later officially became “Nueva Cádiz de Cubagua”, the first city in Venezuela whose coat of arms was awarded in 1528.
The city’s grandeur, whose sole economy was based in the Pearl extraction, was evident in the architecture and it reaching a population of 1.500 souls in 1535 plus another estimated 1.500 slaves -extracting the pearls- not considered souls at the time; It is said that Charles I of Spain and V of the Holy Roman Empire, founded its conquest of the rest of America thanks to enormous riches that the pearls of Cubagua gave him.
In this city and in colonial times, the ecclesiastical representation to catechize the natives was very important and Nueva Cádiz came to have three buildings linked to this purpose. One of them, the smallest, was the Hermitage of Our lady of Immaculate Conception where a sacred image of the Virgin Mary was venerated.
City of Nueva Cádiz de Cubagua 1525; Digital reconstruction by our ally Miguel Yabrudes
Remains of City of Nueva Cádiz de Cubagua 2022