Hermitage of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre (Taganana)

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Religious architecture · Year: 1985 · Authors: Nicanor Negrón

In the hamlet of Azano, which is part of the population centre of Taganana, we find this small religious building dedicated to the patroness of Cuba, Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre.

The hermitage was built with the help of the City Council and at the instigation of the local resident Nicanor Negrón, who had a dream in which the image of a Virgin with a boat at her feet appeared to him. After searching through different Marian iconographies, he recognised the Virgin of El Cobre as the one from his dreams, and commissioned a carving from a sculptor in Seville.

The hermitage, blessed by the bishop of Tenerife and the local parish priest on 22 September 1985, is a modest single-body rectangular building with a double-pitched roof of Arabic tile. Its façade, without ornaments, features a doorway highlighted by a wooden frame that runs around a semicircular arch. On its right flank there is a bell gable with a bell. The interior, small and dark, houses the carving of the Virgin surrounded by various images and numerous ex-votos.

Since 1989, every five years, on 15 September the Virgin is transferred from her hermitage to the parish church of Our Lady of the Snows, Patroness of Taganana.

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