Who is Mr. Francisco Cascales? What has he done for the city of Murcia? And, what are the Historical Discourses of the humanist? The Museum of the City of Murcia, in collaboration with the Fundación Centro de Estudios Históricos e Investigaciones Locales, responds to these questions with various activities organized to commemorate the IV centenary of the ‘Historical Speeches’ (1622) by Mr. Cascales. The proposal includes the exhibition ‘Francisco Cascales. Discourse and method for history’, with works by Magius, the cartoonist Diego Corbalán; the series of lectures ‘El Licenciado Cascales and Murcia’s Golden Age’ and the poetry workshop given by Antonio Parra, a professor at the University of Murcia.
Is Cascales an unknown figure for young people? The director of the City Museum, Consuelo Oñate Marín, tells LA VERDAD that this illustrious Murcian is unrecognizable to many, not only to young people. “The function of the Museum of the City is to make the history and characters of the city of Murcia known,” insists Oñate. She considers the graduate a brave man of his time. «Without being a writer, nor a poet, nor a playwright, he lives as the great writers of that time live. He is a great grammarian, a person worth knowing », she recommends.
A documentary gem
The exhibition ‘Francisco Cascales. Discourse and method for history ‘offers a tour of the different facets that Francisco Cascales carried out as a philologist, although he will also be recognized as a poet, grammar tutor, Humanities professor and historian. It is made up of two parts: a very visual one, made up of works by Magius, National Comic Award 2021 for ‘Spring for Madrid’, as well as paintings from the 19th century in which Cascales, Jacinto Polo de Medina and Saavedra Fajardo appear. And a more documentary part, with library files, different editions of the lawyer’s speeches, and a copy of a page from LA VERDAD from 1942, which includes the activities that were organized that year to celebrate the third centenary, among other documents.
The most voluminous document that is available to visitors is the 2021 edition of the ‘Historical Discourses of the Very Noble and Very Loyal City of Murcia’, a reissue of the famous book by Cascales, the content of which few people know. This original was commissioned by the City Council, which today would be the City Hall, to collect the history of Murcia and the important figures of the time.
«Cascales accesses municipal archives and recounts the expulsion of the Moors almost like a journalist. He also talks about the Cross of Caravaca. He collects stories of noble families from Murcia. He describes the landscape and various historical events », details Clara Alarcón Ruiz, a Culture technician at the museum.
wide imagination
The volume also collects many legends, one of the most curious is about a woman who attends, together with 10,000 people, a meeting with San Vicente Ferrer in the Plaza de Santo Domingo. During the sermon, he reveals that among the entire crowd there is a woman who did not take her daughter to the event and at that moment, she was doing things that good women of the time should not do. «Cascales relates that when that woman returns home she finds her daughter with a man. These types of events have clearly been the result of the author’s imagination,” says Alarcón.
To learn more stories about Cascales, the museum –closed Monday– offers guided tours of the exhibition on Sunday, May 21, at 12 noon; on Saturday, May 27, at 12:00 and 18:00; on Sunday, May 28, at 12 noon; on Saturday, June 3, at 12 noon and 6 p.m.; and the last one on Sunday, June 4, at 12 noon.
The cycle of conferences ‘Licenciado Cascales and the Murcia of the Golden Age’ continues on Tuesday, May 23, with ‘The first edition of the Historical Discourses of Cascales: unknowns and certainties’ by Domingo Beltrán Corbalán, professor of Sciences and Historiographic Techniques from the University of Murcia and new official chronicler of Villa de Molina. And it will conclude on Thursday, May 25, with ‘From the city of Murcia to the buildings that made it great and should be immortalized, according to Francisco Cascales’, given by the professor of Art History at the University of Murcia Concepción de la Peña Velasco. Both are at 8:00 p.m. with free admission until full capacity is reached, in the assembly hall of the City Museum. Later they can be seen on his YouTube channel.
As for the poetry workshop given by the professor at the University of Murcia, Antonio Parra, it takes place on Wednesdays, May 24 and 31, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., places are already covered, but availability can be checked by phone. In addition, it will be broadcast live through Instagram, and later the video will be posted on the YouTube channel, where it will be until June 15.
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