a pillar, for the first time suggesting the existence of an image known as Our Lady of the Pillar. The feast day of 12 October was officially introduced by the Council of Zaragoza in 1640. According to the account by María de Ágreda (d. 1665) in her Mystical City of God, Mary, mother of Jesus, was transported from Jerusalem to Hispania during the night, on a cloud carried by angels. During the journey, the angels also built a pillar of marble, and a miniature image of Mary with the Child Jesus. Approval The apparition of Our Lady of the Pillar was accepted as canonical by Pope Innocent XIII in 1723. So many contradictions had arisen concerning the miraculous origin of the church that Spain appealed to Innocent XIII to settle the controversy. After careful investigation, the twelve cardinals, in whose hands the affair rested, adopted the following account, which was approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites on 7 August 1723, and later inserted in the lessons of the office of the feast of our Lady of the Pillar, celebrated on 12 October: James returned to Jerusalem with some of his disciples where he became a martyr, beheaded in AD 44 during the reign of Herod Agrippa. His disciples allegedly returned his body to Spain. The year AD 40 is the earliest recognised Marian apparition in the Catholic Church, dating to a time when Mary, the mother of Jesus, was still alive. Pope Clement XII allowed the celebration of the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar all over the Spanish Empire in 1730. Since the feast day (12 October) coincides with the discovery of the Americas (12 October 1492), Mary was later named as Patroness of the Hispanic World under this title. Image Zaragoza A fire in 1434 burned down the church that preceded the present basilica. The construction of the present Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar, Zaragoza was started in 1681 and ended in 1711. The wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary is in the Late Gothic style. It stands tall, on a pillar of jasper with a height of . The statue depicts Mary with the Child Jesus on her left arm, who has a dove sitting on his left palm. Some reports state that an earlier wooden image was destroyed when the church burned down in 1434, consistent with an attribution of the