Monumento a la Virgen de la Paz, Colossal statue in Trujillo, Venezuela

Monumento a la Virgen de la Paz is a 46.72-metre concrete statue of Mary on Peña de la Virgen, 11 km southwest of Trujillo, Venezuela. The figure wears a blue robe with a broad horizontal fold across the chest and long vertical pleats; a square open book with a thin gold edge sits at the waist. A white dove rests against the right sleeve, and one pale hand emerges from the robe on the left side. The hollow sculpture rests on a steel frame and weighs 1,200 tonnes, of which the head alone accounts for 8 tonnes.

The statue was inaugurated on December 21, 1983 by President Luis Herrera Campins after architect Manuel de la Fuente designed the project. The construction followed reports of Mary appearances at this spot in the 16th century, which made the area a religious reference point for Trujillo.

The name comes from the legend of the Virgin appearing on the Peña de la Virgen in the late 1550s, when residents of Carmona followed a young woman who vanished behind a rock that began to spark. Since 1568 Nuestra Señora de la Paz has been Trujillo's spiritual patron, and since 1960 patron of the diocese. The dove held in the statue's right hand symbolizes the Venezuelan presidency's charge to call for peace on earth.

The monument stands at about 1,600 metres above sea level on the Peña de la Virgen, 11 km southwest of Trujillo, and is reached by road. Five viewpoints inside allow views, on a clear day, of almost all of Trujillo State, part of the Sierra Nevada de Mérida and the south coast of Lake Maracaibo.

The head alone weighs 8 tonnes, and the hollow concrete figure rests on a steel skeleton. Construction took 18 months under sculptor Manuel de la Fuente and engineer Rosendo Camargo, at a cost of 9 million bolívares. The project began with First Lady Betty Urdaneta de Herrera Campins, a Trujillo native, and governor Dora Maldonado de Falcón.