The mayor of Santiago de Compostela, Xosé Sánchez Bugallo, what counts more or less as: “Who I demanded a I received at Franco to the end of the fifties?” . And since nobody asked for it, now you can not prove that the jewels of the romanesque of the Master Matthew Abraham and Isaac, that are in the hands of the heirs of the dictator, they are the same as the city Council gallego them claim the court. So says a recent ruling of the Audiencia Provincial of Madrid, which has returned to give the reason to the family Frank, after he did the court number 41 in Madrid last February. There is only one possibility for the statues to return to the Consistory: a favorable ruling by the Supreme Court.
anyway, it is not clear that the Supreme court supports the appeal municipal, as they may consider that the decision of the court is well-founded. However, the president of the Xunta of Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijóo (PP), has assured today that the galician Government is “at the disposal” of the City of Santiago (PSOE) faced “possible legal steps”. The Executive Feijóo is convinced that they are the same sculptures that claim the municipality. In fact, your regional Government declared well of cultural interest the past summer. “To see if we can be helpful to the city Council to continue to protect the statues, which, regardless of its owner, continue to have a legal protection,” ditch.
For his part, Sánchez Bugallo ensures that your corporation has a very clear goal of recovering these assets for the public heritage and that legal services are already working on a report that allows you to formalize a decision “next week”. “Our great interest is to defend something that is the heritage of humanity is the heritage of humanity, and not the private wealth of anyone,” he insisted, and then we go on that the pieces will be made available to the Cathedral Museum, or Museo das Peregrinacións in the case of the local government to win in this pulse against the family of the dictator. The sculptures, as revealed in the trial last February, are in reality the property of an estate agency based in the madrid street of the Brothers Bécquer, 8, residence until his death of Carmen Polo, wife of the dictator.
But how did the two sculptures at the hands of Franco? In the trial held in February last, the attorney for the family argued that they are purchased at an antique dealer, whose name is not remembered, and not kept any receipt. The city Council, for its part, showed a deed from the notary confirming that the council acquired it in 1948 to a descendant of the earl of Ximonde. The purchase was made through two payments of 30,000 pesetas. In the event that the works depart from Santiago, said the contract signed by both parties, had to indemnify noble with other 600.000 pesetas. And, thanks to this agreement, remained in city hall until 1954 or 1961, a period after which the disappeared to end up in the hands of Franco. In theory, depending on the version city, the wife of the dictator, Carmen Polo, she has fell in love them when you see them in the town Hall and were led to the pazo de Meirás. 1954 was a holy year, he turned to Frank and his wife, and in 1961 was held the Exhibition of romanesque art, and the statues appear labeled as “‘the property of his excellency the head of State. Pazo de Meirás”.
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photo gallery: Portico of Glory
These two jewels of the sculpture were part of the original Portico of Glory, which was of larger dimensions than the current one and that included an anteroom (peristyle or exonártex) presided over by a large central arch and two side doors decorated by seven or eight sculptures of prophets and kings. In 1521, this superb structure was dismantled and its figures distributed by different places, In the EIGHTEENTH century, two of those masterpieces (Abraham and Isaac) ended up in the hands of the earl of Ximonde, which kept them in a manor of its property. In 1948 they were purchased from his descendants by the city Council, but some years after ended in the summer residence of the dictator, in the pazo de Meirás. The justice says that, at best, are not the same, because “how to see who asked a got to Franco?”.
