August 27th

St. Veremundo in arts and letters

Ricardo Fernández Gracia
Chair of Navarrese Heritage and Art

It was especially from the 16th century onwards when St. Veremundo was vindicated in written texts and images as an excellent ruler, virtuous monk and blessed. His figure merged with the history and legend of the monastery, at the wish of his community and of some abbots, with his images gaining special prominence, as well as some portentous and legendary scenes of his life.

His representations were also very present in the two localities that dispute his birth: Arellano and Villatuerta. A very important fact for his cult and iconography took place in the last third of the 16th century, in a period of cult to the relics of the saints, favored by the church and exemplified by Felipe II in El Escorial. The abbot of Irache, Fray Antonio de Comontes, in 1583, grateful for his recovered health, had a carved and polychrome wooden chest made with scenes from the life of the saint to keep most of his relics.

In 1765 a further step was taken in the extension of their cult. The abbots of Irache and Fitero asked the Cortes of Navarre, meeting in Pamplona, to urge the Sacred Congregation of Rites to obtain the extension of the cult of St. Veremundo and St. Raimundo of Fitero to all of Navarre. The Diputación of the Kingdom gave an account in the following meeting of the Cortes, in 1780, of how the matter had been positively resolved and the Oficios were already printed. By then, the abbot of Irache, Fray Miguel de Soto Sandoval, had already published, in 1764, in the presses of Pamplona, a Life of St. Veremundo accompanied by an engraving of the saint with Benedictine habit, crosier and mitre at his feet, made by the Aragonese José Lamarca.

Edition of the Life of St. Veremundo by Abbot Fray Miguel de Soto Sandoval, Pamplona, 1764.

Local and universal texts

The life and portentous miracles of the saint were spread from the Lectionary of the monastery of 1547, from which the biographies of the seventeenth century - Father Yepes in his Cronica General and the Bolandistas - and of the eighteenth century with the edition of his hagiography, work of the abbot Fray Miguel de Soto Sandoval, published twice in that century, in 1764 and 1788.

Sermons, joys, holy cards with inscriptions and novenaries did the same by spreading from the pulpit or the choir some prodigious facts that fit perfectly with a society thirsty for marvelous facts.

Interior of the disappeared chapel of San Veremundo built between 1654 and 1657 and decorated with plasterwork in 1701. Photo Catalog Monumental of Navarra

The image of the Benedictine abbot and the miracle of the dove

The sculptures of the saint are very simple and present him erect, with the wide Benedictine cowl, sometimes carrying a crozier, pectoral and, sometimes, the mitre at his feet. The image from the main altarpiece of Irache (Juan III Imberto, 1613-1621), another stone image from the façade of the monastery, the baroque one from Arellano (c. 1660), and others in Grocin and Villatuerta have been preserved. The reliquary of the saint in the latter town, made in 1640 by the silversmith Antonio Herrera, is topped with the image of the saint and contains the relics that were introduced in it in 1641 in Irache. Outside Navarre, the most remarkable thing is the board of the high order of the ashlar of San Benito de Valladolid, in the seat corresponding to Irache (Andrés de Nájera, 1525-1529), that in the superior part shows the coat of arms of the monastery. 

The passage of his life with the greatest iconographic fortune was that of the miracle of the dove, represented in places as significant as the Renaissance reliquary chest, a relief of the main altarpiece of Villatuerta (1641, by Pedro Izquierdo and Juan Imberto III) and the historical engraving of 1746. The prodigy is narrated in detail in the main texts on St. Veremundo by Father Yepes, the Bolandistas and Fray Miguel Soto. Apparently, all of them took it from the monastic Lectionary of 1547, whose text translated from Latin is: "It happened in those times that a cruel famine destroyed the whole kingdom of Navarre, for which many, compelled by such a great calamity, came to the holy man to ask him for alms; and as the famine grew more and more severe every hour, one day there came to be issue gathering of three thousand men; But as there was not enough food in the house to feed such a crowd, because the servants who had gone out of the province to look for food by order of the holy abbot had not returned, there arose a great clamor and outcry among those present; for as they were overcome with hunger, they had no effort to go elsewhere...... When the saint saw this miserable spectacle, he went to the altar to say mass with B : a marvelous thing! That having arrived at that place, in which the priest prays to God for the people, as St. Veremundo asked God for help with many tears, a white dove came down from heaven, which fluttered over the heads of each one, almost as if it wanted to touch them, and then went up to heaven in the sight of all: After this, each one of those present felt that he had eaten his fill, and each one was as satisfied as if he had eaten splendid and varied delicacies; for man does not live by bread alone, but by the word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So they all, giving thanks to the Lord together with St. Veremundo, returned to their homes.

Renaissance casket of the relics of St. Veremundo (1584). Front with two scenes of the miracle of the mass and the dove. Photo Main Street

The Renaissance reliquary chest and the sumptuous baroque chapel

This singular B was attributed by Biurrun to the sculptor Pedro de Troas and the fact is repeated over and over again, although those who really made it were a sculptor named Francisco -surely Francisco de Iciz- who worked on it with his servant for fifty-one days, Master Martín de Morgota? who did it for seventeen days, and Pedro de Gabiria for twenty-five days, for which they were paid in December of 1584 and June of the following year. Pedro de Troas made some figures of angels and an Infant Jesus for the lid that have not been preserved, and the polychromy of the whole was the work position the prestigious Juan de Frías Salazar. Of Francisco de Iciz we only know for certain that he attended the auction of the altarpiece of San Juan de Estella in 1563. The reliefs on their faces narrate as many miraculous passages from the life of the saint, of the many that were attributed to him. 

The construction of that space, incomprehensibly demolished in 1982, had a combined floor plan, with a section covered by a half barrel vault with lunettes and another with a dome, all decorated, in 1701, with colorful plasterwork, the work of Vicente López Frías. Its interior had large paintings, with passages from the life of St. Veremundo, the work of the Aragonese painter and member of the clergy established in Soria, Don Juan Zapata Ferrer (1657-1710), specialized in fresco mural painting and author, among others, of the paintings of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love of San Saturio de Soria.

Engraving with scenes from the life of St. Veremundo by the Carmelite friar José de San Juan de la Cruz, 1746. Photo J. L. Larrión

An engraving of 1745 as a wundervita

A very unique engraving, made by the discalced Carmelite friar José de San Juan de la Cruz, is dated 1746, shortly after the cult of Saint Veremundo was extended to the whole bishopric of Pamplona.

Its typology obeys to a "wundervita", or admirable life, because of the representation in the set of diverse prodigies of the protagonist. The events narrated in the vignettes have their literary correspondence with the texts that until then had been written about St. Veremundo, already mentioned. It is an authentic hagiography on paper. Some of those passages were already in the Renaissance chest.

The promoter of the printing press was Father José Balboa (1688-1771), abbot of Irache between 1745 and 1749 and general of the Benedictine order between 1757 and 1761. From this last position, he determined the distribution of teaching positions among the most deserving subjects, the strict observance of the rule, as well as the study and reading in order to raise the cultural level of the monks.