Recuerdos y bellezas de España by Pau Piferer i Francesc Xavier Parcerisa
- Year 1839 (Barcelona) - 1865
It present the romanic catala with a new perspective, it is described with romantic eyes. It helped in re-valuing monuments by claiming them as expression of a remote past that in the case of Cataluña it meant the starting of its private historic process.
Good account of archival notes and its necessary search.
When this series of books as well as other related literature appears is when in Catalunya it is re-instaured the ‘Jocs Florals’ and the catalan is recovered as a literature language (1859). It is also during this time that street names such as ‘Ramon Berenguer el Vel’l or ‘el príncep de Viana’ start to appear.
It is also the time of the civil war, which affected the Spanish cultural heritage in great manner. The law initiated by the liberal minister Mendizábal (1835) meant the disentailment of ecclesiastic properties. Monasteries are abandoned and all the heritage built over the years by these communities are destroyed or plundered with the years. The Government forms the provincial commissions of monuments (1844 in Barcelona) as a means to try to keep the conservation of this heritage. But the enterprise was so big and the resources so little that it lead to failure. But despite it, all the catalan commissions created museums. Lead by amateurs they had their own private collections open to any curious person. The public museum was still not created but this private collections and the guides leading to them were its predecessor.
(image from Wikipedia)
