The First Saint From The Americas

St Rosa of Lima by Melchiorre Cafa, Santo Domingo, Lima, Peru

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On April 12th 1671, Isabel Flores de Oliva (1586-1617), a lay member of the Dominican Order, was canonised by Pope Clement X (r. 1670-76), becoming the first figure from the Americas to be made a saint.   

In 1665, three years before Rose of Lima* (as she came to be known) was beatified, the Maltese sculptor Melchiorre Gafà (1636-67) immortalised her in marble.

Gafà (also known as Cafà) depicts an angel comforting the dying Rose, who wore a spiked, metal crown and suffered privations in imitation of a fellow Dominican, St Catherine of Siena. A highly emotive work, the sculpture was the first to depict a saint dying. 

The sculpture's public life in Rome was short. It served as the centrepiece of the beatification ceremony at St. Peter’s Basilica (April 12th, 1668) and at the subsequent celebration in the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. It was then transported to Lima, where it remains in the church of Santo Domingo, the saint's burial place. 

*She came to be known as Rose following an incident in childhood when a servant claimed to have seen her face transform into a rose. 

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