The relationship of Navarre with the Segovian sanctuary of the Virgin of Nieva or Soterraña was secular, since Queen Doña Blanca was buried there. However, it will be from the third decade of the XVIII, when the wonders worked by intercession of the Virgin of Soterraña were spread by many territories and, of course, in Navarre through diverse means, being propitiated the arrival of several of its images to implore its special protection against fires, lightnings and flashes, as it was invoked from time before in diverse places.

An image and a historical canvas arrived in Pamplona in 1733.

Apparently, all that renewed fervor had a real milestone, in the capital of Navarre and in a timely manner, in 1732, on the occasion of a fire at the gunpowder mill and the incombustión of a picture of the Virgin of Soterraña. Such a prodigy with the same image was repeated on March 17, 1733, in the same place, in another dreadful fire, which brought along with other miraculous facts that Father Barcáiztegui, prior of the Dominican convent of Pamplona, narrates in 1733, a devotional frenzy towards the Marian invocation in these lands.

One of the first candlestick images arrived in Pamplona on May 31, 1733 and was transferred to the Dominicans on July 14. Its altarpiece was made the following year under the auspices of the mayor of the Court, Don José Ezquerra.

The first canvas with the vignettes of its legendary history arrived in the Navarrese capital at the end of May of the same year of 1733, destined for the parish of San Juan of the cathedral of Pamplona, accompanied by the certification of having touched the original of Nieva, an indispensable condition for the images, engravings and medals to have the powers against lightning and flashes of lightning. The rich framework with its pavilion was made at position by José Pérez de Eulate, commissioned by the parishioners of San Juan. The painting is currently preserved in the Episcopal Palace of Pamplona.

Stamps and medals

In the context of the diffusion of the legend of the image and its appearance, a great number of engravings and medals, pendants and decorative slate plaques were produced, whose invoice would be made in workshops of a certain specialization. To satisfy the devotion of numerous people, engraved prints of greater or lesser size and price and medals were widely accepted. Stamps and medals were to be made and touched with the original in the Dominican sanctuary of Nieva.  

In fact, a large part of the miracles worked through his intercession involve people saved by wearing his medals or holy cards. Among the latter, those that incorporate vignettes of paintings and engravings stand out. We know of a pair of intaglio engravings in Navarre, very popular in Spain in the first half of the 18th century, one made between 1724-1725 and the other between 1715 and 1731. In both cases, one of the vignettes represents, in the same way, a cripple inside a temple and before the altar of the Virgin of Nieva. The explanatory registration reads: "Vuelbe sanº a Navarro neighbor of her that came dragging to visit the Sª Image". This fact, in its day very divulged, would help, undoubtedly, to spread in these lands the devotion to the image, especially for healing cripples and protecting against thunderbolts and lightning.

The engravings of the Virgin of Soterraña were required everywhere, but the stamping of them was something reserved to the Segovian sanctuary. The right was granted by Philip V in 1733, at a time when the popularity of the Soterraña was on the rise. According to its content, the convent of Santa María de Nieva had the exclusive right to print and sell engravings, justifying it in that all those objects should be touched to the right hand of the image of the Virgin "where the power of her precious Son had formed the figure or subject of a lightning bolt, they were safe from any danger". Those stamps that were not touched to the original did not possess that power against lightning and flashes, reason why it was thought that they were an authentic fraud for the devotees. In general, the points of sale of the prints were the Dominican convents, the same ones that complained of illegitimate prints in Segovia and other places of the peninsular geography. It is known the different notifications made to silversmiths and printers so that in no case they reproduced the images of the Soterraña, because they did not enjoy their powers for not having been touched to the right hand of the image. Due to the fraudulent production of many silversmiths and printers, from the convent of Nieva circulars of notice were spread among engravers and goldsmiths, even among peddlers, of Segovia, San Sebastián, Alcalá de Henares, Granada, Córdoba, Ávila and Arévalo, to make known the exclusive character that they had over that production.

In the merindad of Estella

In 1737 the cult to the Virgin of Nieva was introduced in the parish of Santa María de Viana, through her image, passed by the original one of Santa María la Real de Nieva, which was placed in the old chapel of San Agustín. The devotion was a great success, as she was an advocate of the crops in an eminently agricultural town. In a letter from the parish file , published by J. C. Labeaga, the image of the Virgin is described as follows: "It is composed of her head, face, face, neck and hands, the one ready to receive her beloved child Son, and in the other the scepter of empress of heaven and earth, and once, twice and three times she touched the face, hands, body and head of the original of this Princess of the Soterraña, which by this contact has the virtue to defend as it is notorious to all from any storms of lightning and flashes of lightning". A delicate altarpiece designed by the Calaguritan Diego de Camporredondo in 1743 and made by himself for 700 ducats was destined to her image.

In Los Arcos, the arrival of the image similar to the previous one, took place around 1741, moment in which the investment of some rents is documented, concretely of 573 reals in the realization of the crown, diadem or rostrillo and average silver moon, pieces destined to the dressed image. In 1829 her confraternity was constituted, stating that it was "through her powerful intercession, may all the brothers and sisters who, dedicated to her veneration, are her true devotees, be sponsored in life and in death, and also in gratitude to which we are so justly obliged to this divine Lady by all the children and inhabitants of the town for having delivered us many times from the terrible punishment of the Lord's wrath that threatened us by means of evil clouds".

In the parish church of El Busto it seems that the image arrived in 1764 and its altarpiece was made from 1769 by Miguel López de Porras and Antonio Izaguirre. The towns of Bargota, Sesma, Dicastillo, Sansol and Asarta also have images of the Virgin of Nieva, some of them of great cult for venerating her as patron saint.

Puente la Reina and Valdizarbe

In the file of the Comendadoras de Puente la Reina is preserved this small chronicle of the arrival of the image to the town in 1748, which reads as follows: "The priests and beneficiaries agreed that the image of the Virgin would remain the first night..., in the church of the convent of the nuns of Sancti Spiritus, as it was done. At the door of the church she was solemnly received by the four chaplains of the community, who intoned the Ave maris Stella and the image was placed in the choir. The community, with the greatest joy and rejoicing, watched over their Lady and our Mother during the whole night, and the following day, June 30, after celebrating a solemn mass in the church of the convent and singing the Salve as a farewell, the great procession to the church of Santiago was organized. It was attended by the entire chapter, with the brotherhoods carrying the banners and all the neighbors of the town. A great majority carried lighted candles, resulting in a very solemn procession. The Virgin was received under a canopy and was carried to Santiago, where the mass was celebrated and preached by Rev. Father José Sicilia, of the Order of St. Dominic. Since then this Virgin of Nieva was chosen as protector of this town for the tribulations and works that in the past years have been experienced by storms of stone". The monumental collateral altarpiece for the veneration of her image was carried out by Tomás Martínez Puelles in 1759.

His devotion spread throughout Valdizarbe through some candlestick images with their own particular history. Among the documented ones we have those of Uterga Legarda and Muruzábal in 1802. The first one is the work of Mauricio Valdivieso, from Vitoria and was taken together with the other two to the sanctuary of Nieva to touch them to the original one so that it would have the same endowment to protect itself against the clouds. The chronicle says: "I took them both to Nieva and the one from Muruzábal, which had not yet been touched with the original, Bernabé Blanco, resident in Pamplona; he promised to fulfill his task for the fabulous amount of fourteen duros! He took the heads and hands in a drawer, and after having touched them with the true image of the Soterraña, he returned to Navarre making submission of his sacred deposit to Don Fermín Ayerra, of the house of the factor and rexidor corporal of Uterga, together with the certificate signed by the superior of the Monastery of "habersen" carried out all the necessary requirements ".

In Tirapu, according to J. J. Lizarraga, her feast was celebrated on the first Sunday of July with a votive mass for the Virgin and was preceded by a novena for which the town paid two duros. In Enériz it has a rococo altarpiece of the one that is titular, made by the master of Cárcar, Tomás Martínez, in 1769. Its historical antecedents have been studied by Rafael López Velasco.

In Valtierra, Peralta and Falces

The arrival of the image to Valtierra in 1742 was motivated by a lightning strike that killed the brother of the parish priest Don Francisco Camón, leaving the latter lame. A little less than a century ago Félix Zapatero states that his confraternity had more than 600 brothers and collects the following testimony about its worship and devotion in Valtierra, especially in times of heavy clouds: "When a storm threatens over the town, any neighbor penetrates into the church in the moments of fearful anguish and without any ceremonial takes the glorious image to the portico of the church, where, once the storm has passed, it turns to its altar accompanied by the chapter and faithful with the ceremonial of the ritual." Its rococo altarpiece was made by Juan de Angós in 1771 and gilded by Diego Díaz del Valle.

In Peralta, his image is currently venerated in the main altarpiece and its presence is documented since the early eighteenth century. In the parish of Falces it has a beautiful neoclassical altarpiece, designed in 1801 by the Calaguritanian master Joaquín Villanova.

An exquisite painting in the Benedictine monastery of Lumbier (Alzuza)

It is a canvas of the Madrid school and mid-eighteenth century, made with exquisiteness and good technique. The painting is based on some of the numerous engravings that were made of the image, most of which incorporated vignettes with all the legend of his appearance and the main miracles. The image of the Virgin rests on the silver pedestal with the average moon, adopts the well-known frontal disposition with bodice and apron in conical form with the well-known necklace of three strings of pearls. Her head shows a large crown and pearly rostrum. She holds the scepter in her right hand and the Child in her left. The elaborate crown with the two angels is perfectly adapted to the different known printed examples. The canopy with the Dominican cross, a pair of votive lamps and some vases with delicate flowers that are also scattered around the altar, complete the ensemble. The stories of the vignettes of the engravings have been transferred to two beautiful reliquaries with graceful feet and two other cartouches. The first story relates the passage of a knight with the image of the Virgin to point out how the reproductions of the Marian icon protected against lightning at the end of the sanctuary. The second sample tells the story of the hunter who shot down a huge snake that terrorized the people, thanks to the intervention of the Virgin. The third one focuses on the apparition to the shepherd and the fourth one on the moment in which a hiker falls down because he did not want to take shelter in Santa María de Nieva.

The impulse of devotion was, undoubtedly, the main purpose of this subject of paintings that Professor Pérez Sánchez defined as "trompe l'oeil to the divine", since they inspired the people the same respect and piety as the altarpieces, sculptures and paintings of the temples.