The piece, a wooden lectern or reading stand that dates back to the late
15th century, was brought to Cuba at the request of Havana’s Historian
Eusebio Leal Spengler to the director the Vatican Museums who obtained an
exceptional permission from His Most Reverend Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone,
Secretary of State.

According to a report by Granma newspaper, the lectern belonged to Brother
Bartolome de Las Heras who was Christopher Columbus’s Chaplain during his
second trip (1943-1494) and it was used in the island in the process of
converting Caribbean tribes to Christianity.

The piece was carved by Cuban indigenous people in the shape of a shell
and inlaid with fine strips of fishbone and tortoiseshell in the form of a
fan, laid in way to create a chiaroscuro effect.

Archeological findings show that before 1510 Taino groups had run away
from La Española and settled in the easternmost region of Cuba, so that is
likely the place where the oldest piece of indigenous Christian art was
built.

In December 28 of 1935 Father Ernest Baudouy, of the Roma-based
Augustinians of Assumption Order, donated the stand to the Vatican’s
Missionary Ethnological Museum. The priest had obtained the piece from
Jean Baptiste Morel who had donated it for the Pope.

The lectern, which provides evidence of the changing process that began
with the intercultural exchange, will be exhibited for a year at the
Museum of the City, in Havana, starting February 5.