VISUAL THEOLOGY

Monstrance, 1646, Attributed to Diego de Atienzia (Spanish, Guadalajara, active in Lima, mid 17th century), Peruvian Silver gilt, enamel, H. 22 1/2 in. (57.2 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). The inscription indicates that this monstrance was made for Pedro de Urraca, a Spanish-born Mercedarian friar who spent most of his life in Ecuador and Peru, where he was revered for the holiness of his ministry. Urraca probably commissioned the monstrance from Atienzia as a gift to his native parish of Jadraque in Guadalajara, Spain. Such donations are responsible for the presence of much New World silver in Spanish churches. Although the monstrance stem conforms to the "Severe" style of silver in early seventeenth-century Spain, the elaborate composition of the sol anticipates the distinctive development of the form in Peru.