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La Librea de Valle Guerra

La Librea de Valle Guerra, in the municipality of San Cristobal de La Laguna, faithfully reflects events of the Battle of Lepanto, which took place on 7th October 1571, when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of European Catholic maritime states arranged by Pope Pius V, decisively defeated the fleet of the Ottoman Empire on the northern edge of the Gulf of Corinth, off western Greece.

The Battle of Lepanto has a presence in the La Librea de Valle Guerra as a tribute to Canarian soldiers, led by Admiral Francisco Díaz Pimienta, who took part in the conflagration. Pimienta was pilot of one of the ships that fought in Lepanto, belonging to the fleet of Felipe II (Philip II of Spain). Born on the island of La Palma, Pimienta, together with a Canarian militia, became some of the most prominent fighters of the archipelago. It was Díaz who brought a fiesta to the Canary Islands to commemorate this heroic battle, namely to Barlovento. La Librea de Valle Guerra evolved from this first memorial feast in honour of the Virgen del Rosario (Our Lady of the Rosary) in the hands of a Tenerife noblewoman, Inés de Castilla, who with her husband, Captain Garcia Fernandez de Valcárcel, inaugurated a chapel in Valle de Guerra, dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus and the Virgin of the Rosary in 1615.

It is held once a year on the Saturday nearest to 7 October. 

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