Las Virtudes

The town's origins trace to a plague epidemic and an act of collective devotion. Tradition holds that in 1474, people from the nearby city of Villena fled to a spring called the Fuente del Chopo to escape the pestilence, and there declared the Virgin of the Virtues their new patron saint. There is no firm historical record for that exact date, but a royal order from Ferdinand and Isabella, dated 30 July 1490, confirms that residents had fled to the same spot during another outbreak. A plague recorded in 1476 may be the event behind the founding legend, and the timing fits a second motive: the old patron, the Virgin of the Snows, was closely associated with the Marquesses of Villena, whom the townspeople resented. Choosing a new patron was also, in part, a political act. The sanctuary certainly existed by the end of the 15th century, and the village grew up around it.

The town's religious identity remained strong. On 25 March 1624, the people of Villena took a formal oath to defend and teach the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception — one of the first communities in Spain to do so, some 230 years before the Church defined it officially. The Virgin was given canonical coronations in both 1923 and 1954.

During the Spanish Republic, the name Las Virtudes was changed to Villa Progreso as part of a broader policy of removing religious and monarchical place names. It reverted to Las Virtudes in April 1939 with the arrival of the Franco regime.

Every year on the last Sunday of August, the image of the Virgin is carried in procession to Villena, drawing up to 25,000 people from across the region. She remains there until 9 September, when Villena's Moors and Christians festival ends, and the hamlet is at its most lively throughout that period.

The Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Virtues is the building around which the whole village formed. It was declared a Historic Site in 1976. Construction happened in phases: fragments of the original chapel survive in a crypt beneath the current camarín, while the complex as it stands is Renaissance in style.

The cloister is plain, with rounded arches resting on brick piers. The church, reached through the cloister, retains a late Gothic feel. The camarín itself — the chamber housing the Virgin's image — is decorated with Baroque stucco and paintings.

Near the sanctuary stands La Rana, a decorative fountain spout dating from 1916–17, shaped as a frog seated on coral formations. It originally stood in Villena's Ruperto Chapí park and was moved here in 1948 to mark the 25th anniversary of the Virgin's coronation.