Conversion in Cusco: The Virgin of Almudena

A statue of the Virgin Mary housed in Cusco weaves an intriguing web of social narratives. She is a copy of the Virgin of Almudena, a miraculous statue which was recovered during the 1085 conquest of Madrid by King Alfonso VI. Found intact behind a wall with two candles still lit despite being hidden there for centuries, she was undisturbed throughout Islamic rule over Spain. By commissioning a copy of this statue in Cusco and placing a splinter of the original inside, not only was Bishop Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo activating this new statue as a reliquary but was also asserting his status as over his new diocese as an influential and powerful member of the Spanish clergy. This also tethered an older Christian legacy to Andean worship as part of conversion efforts in the Spanish Americas. Executing the commission was indigenous artist Juan Tomás Tuyru Túpac, who completed many religious sculptural commissions in Cusco. This thesis analyzes the Virgins’ narrative web to trace continual developments of the visual language of the divine in colonial Cusco and the unwieldy concept of copies in Spanish America. The Virgin of Almudena is often mentioned in both Spanish and English scholarship but rarely deeply analyzed. Throughout investigating the purpose of reliquaries and their similarity to Andean huacas and the creation of Marian statues by indigenous artists in their regional devotions this statue serves as a valuable case study of the legacy of colonial tactics of conversion in the Andes and how Christian traditions were emulated and transformed by those being converted.