El Disperso Culto Colonial De Un Futuro Emblema De La República: Alcances Y Límites Visuales Y Cultuales De La Virgen Del Carmen (Santiago, Siglos Xvii-Xviii)

A certain nationalistically-inflected discourse imbued in the military appropriation of Carmelite devotions as grounding the Christian faith in Chile has interpreted the allegiance to Our Lady of the Mont Carmel as laying the foundations of a true republican and military cult. Granting that the nineteenth-century Carmelite devotion has no colonial roots, this paper tries to show that the aforementioned advocation played a far more important role in Santiago during the Colonial era than has been acknowledged so far. It is argued that this devotion s continuous (albeit discrete) presence in Santiago de Chile, as well as its inchoate ties with the Frontier s Army , should not be seen as forerunners of the republican Carmelite cult.