Hermitage of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, de la Asunción or de Salvago (Tafira)

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Religious architecture · Year: S. XVI · Authors: García de Alvarado

Set apart from the road that connected westward the city of Las Palmas with the centre of the island, on the lands of Juan de Ariñez, chief clerk of the council, his son Pedro Mendoza together with his wife Francisca Bolaños, ordered the building, in the second third of the 16th century, of a hermitage under the invocation of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles. The aim was to provide spiritual comfort to the inhabitants of a vast estate or agricultural farm.  

The person in charge of building the small hermitage was the stonemason García de Alvarado. The building measured 16 feet square in opening and three and a half walls high. Built in rubble masonry, its exterior featured a semicircular stone portal, a material also used on the corners.

Around 1579, the estate and its hermitage were acquired by the Salvago family of Genoese origin, installing from then on inside the small temple a small wooden carving of the Virgin of the Assumption, so the religious enclosure changed its dedication. 

 The estate and the hermitage were completely destroyed by the troops of the Dutchman Van Der Does during his landing in 1599. Almost a century later, in 1691, permission was obtained to rebuild the hermitage, remaining since then with the appearance it presents today. It was from that moment that the celebration of an annual pilgrimage on 15 August was established at the estate, in honour of the Virgin of the Assumption, also known as Virgin of Salvago.

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