Hermitage of San Cristóbal

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Memory spaces · Year: S. XVI

The San Cristóbal neighbourhood had a hermitage that seems to have already been built by the mid-16th century when Gómez Ruiz de Vergara Salazar de Frías, an oidor (judge) in the Canary Islands of the Royal Audience since 1539,  proposed the construction of a hermitage under the invocation of Saint Christopher on his estate. 

This original hermitage seems to have had a simple doorway facing east, as its access was towards the interior of the estate, according to the expression recorded in the foundation of the mayorazgo by Pedro Ruiz de Vergara " Lands of the Philippines, opposite the hermitage of San Cristóbal ", who may have rebuilt it.

From the old hermitage, the valuable “Triptych of Saint Christopher”, an anonymous oil on panel of the Flemish school, is preserved in the Museo de Arte Sacro de Las Palmas (Museum of Sacred Art of Las Palmas). It depicts in its central panel the episode in which the saint carries Christ on his shoulders, helping him cross the waters. On the sides appear the figures, on the right, of Saint Julian Bishop, and on the left, Saint Lucia. Possibly this valuable artwork arrived thanks to the intense export sugarcane trade to the markets of Flanders.

The hermitage was demolished around the 1950s due to the layout of the Southern motorway.

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