Materiality and the Sacred: Ligna Crucis Relics in Santiago de Chile, 17th and 18th centuries

• Main Author: Josefina Schenke Reyes
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia 2021-01-01
• Series: Fronteras de la Historia
• Subjects: lignum crucis; relics; christianism; santity; santiago de chile; 16th century; 17th century; 18th century
• Online Access: https://revistas.icanh.gov.co/index.php/fh/article/view/1408/1487

This paper sketches an interpretive approach to the scarce presence of relics in Santiago de Chile during the Colonial period. Taking stock of conventual sources and of some testamentary dispositions, the article delineates the discreet life that those sacred remains (and their associated visual objects) led within the religious life of the era. Through the prevailing presence of the ligna crucis and the occasional advent of other pious remains, the text unveils the widespread dissemination that foreign relics enjoyed during the Counterreformation, which allowed them even to reach the southern border of the Hispanic Empire.