Treasure of San Fermín

The so-called Treasure of San Fermín is a collection of pieces of silverware, jewellery and ornaments belonging to the Saint and kept in his chapel in the church of San Lorenzo in Pamplona. It is a splendid collection of works that chronologically covers pieces from the 16th to the 20th century. However, the most original and sumptuous works all date from the Baroque centuries, when devotion to the saints experienced a boom and any work used both in the liturgy and in the adornment of images and chapels was likely to be made in silver.

The pieces preserved in the chapel of San Fermín can be divided into works of silverware, jewellery and ornaments, and a distinction can be made between those made under sponsorship of Pamplona City Council, patron saint of the chapel, and those donated by different devotees of the Saint. The pieces commissioned by the Pamplona Regiment are easily identifiable thanks to the fact that they are all decorated with the heraldic arms of the City Council, on the one hand the coat of arms with the lion passing through, crowned by a crown and bordered with the chains of Navarre, and on the other the emblem of the five wounds.

Within this collection of silverware we find a great variety of typologies, from pieces commonly used in the liturgy and abundant in the different ecclesiastical trousseaus, such as chalices, ciboria, navetas, censers or cruets, to other more exceptional pieces, both for the rarity of their typologies and for their provenance or size. From Pamplona's workshops, pieces such as the lecterns made in 1725 or the sacras by Pedro Antonio de Sasa in 1764 are worthy of mention, as well as other more exceptional pieces, such as the silver pluvial cloak that covers the bust of San Fermín, carved in 1687, the pectoral reliquary that is inscribed on his chest, the work of the craftsman Hernando de Oñate el Mayor in 1572, or the two pediments carved by Pamplona's masters in 1725 and 1733. The Mexican monstrance, the mitre and the silver filigree crozier from a Cantonese workshop, sent by Don Felipe de Iriarte in 1764 via the Manila Galleon, and the set of trays and jugs given to the Saint in 1730 by Don José de Armendáriz y Perurena, Marquis of Castellfuerte and Viceroy of Peru, are from foreign workshops.

The issue list of jewels in San Fermín's trousseau is smaller, although all of them are of excellent quality, such as a gold chain with a pectoral of emeralds sent by José de Armendáriz together with the silver pieces already mentioned in 1730, a gold chain given in 1757 by Nicolás de Urtasun, or a ring with an emerald, sent from Popayán, now Ecuador, by Juan Antonio de Zelaya in 1775.