|
FLMNH Featured Object
Headboard from the coffin of Pedro Menéndez de Aviles (ca. 1574).
This painted wooden board once served as the headboard for the coffin of the Spanish Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Aviles, who founded St. Augustine in 1565. Menéndez was born in Aviles, Spain in 1519, and died in Santander in 1574. His coffin headboard bears the sixteenth century Menéndez de Aviles family coat of arms. In 1924, the remains of Pedro Menéndez were transferred to a new, more elaborate coffin in the principal church of Aviles. It was on that occasion that city officials of Aviles presented the old headboard and the coffin to a delegation from St. Augustine, visiting to attend the reburial ceremony. Once back in Florida, the City of St. Augustine presented the coffin and headboard to the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine, who have displayed it since then at the Catholic Shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Leche (Mission of Nombre de Dios), on the site of what is believed to be part of Menéndez’s original St. Augustine settlement. The headboard is presently curated on behalf of the Diocese of St. Augustine at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, where it can be maintained under controlled environmental conditions. The coffin itself can be seen at the Shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Leche in St. Augustine. Headboard, 41 by 30 by 2-1/4 cm. Paint over wood |
