Restitutions of cultural property in Europe have been a constant trickle since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when France was forced to return what was usurped by Napoleonic troops, including the Prado art gallery in Madrid. Since then, the bustle of works of art, taken from one place to another by wars or other conflicts, is not new, nor is recovering what has disappeared. In the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum in Madrid hangs a pissarro claimed by a Jewish family, persecuted by the Nazis. The most popular request is that of the marbles from the Parthenon in Athens exhibited in the British Museum in London or the bust of Queen Nefertiti exhibited in Berlin, demanded by Egypt.
Along with the cases that generate a stir, others pass without pain or glory, with discretion and good will. The grandchildren of Pedro Rico, Republican mayor of Madrid, have recovered five paintings seized during the Civil War from a museum in Gran Canaria. In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the return of looted works to colonized countries thus opening a can of thunder that still hums between Europe and Africa.
In Spain, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun Domènech, talks about decolonizing the Museum of America and the Museum of Anthropology. Even the Vatican is handling the restitution of cultural property since the white smoke announced that Francis was pope. In 2023, The Holy See returned three sculptures to Greece; Before, he returned three Inca mummies to Peru and, before that, several archaeological pieces to Ecuador. Catholic missionaries had transferred them from their places of origin to Rome. The Pope announced the restitutions, with good judgment and harmony, saying that they must be analyzed case by case, without generalizing. He described the return of the Greek sculptures as a “symbol of friendship, to continue the ecumenical path with the Greek Orthodox Church.” In April 2023, the Holy Father, traveling to Hungary, told the Associated Press: “This is reminiscent of the Seventh Commandment; if you steal something, you must return it.”
For a few months now The Vatican is agreeing with Canada on restitutions to that country. But Rome’s policy on transfers of cultural heritage does not reach the bishopric of Calahorra La Calzada-Logroño. There they draw a thick veil when asked about Public for war booty (ten pieces of gold and silver jewelry) given by Baldomero Espartero to the church of San Martín de Cenicero (La Rioja) in 1840 for having defeated the Carlists in the war of 1833.
The loot of Espartero, married to a landowner from Logroño, came from the parishes of Morella (part of the province of Castelló and the Catalan diocese of Tortosa), where the general ended the war and was crowned Isabel’s great sword. II. The “jewels”, as described in historical documentation, They were received with joy and music in Ceniceroaccording to the press of the time.
The Rioja bishopric today ignores the problem, referring to an official inventory of the province of Logroño from the 1970s that records three of the ten jewels seized. The most notable, a large monstrance made of gold and silver, is not mentioned in the inventory. Three chalices, a tray, a censer, a small ship, a paten with a spoon, a ciborium and a carved box make up the rest of the loot transferred from Morella to Cenicero at the end of the war.
The parishes of Morella – currently unified into one -, as owner of the loot, are in the process of deciding the claim under the protection of informing the bishopric of Tortosa, while the mayor of the city, the independent Bernabé Sangüesa, claims that ” The City Council is in favor of restitution, and waiting for them to make a decision to see what the options to follow are”. Unlike the case of Sijena (Huesca), which generated a judicial dispute between Aragon and Catalonia over works purchased by the Generalitat from the nuns of the monastery. Morella and Cenicero’s match does not involve the exchange of money. The Supreme Court annulled the sale and the works went from a museum in Lleida to an anonymous room in Aragon.
Public access to universal cultural heritage was one of the reasons given by the United Kingdom to Greece until Athens inaugurated the Acropolis museum. Since then, they have been looking for term transfer formulas, sharing ownership or other options that, for the moment, keep the dispute open. Morella has an ecclesiastical museum whose second floor is dedicated to goldsmithing with display cases to fill. In Ashtray, The artistic assets are in a locked closet in the sacristy. From parish to parish or from bishopric to bishopric, the Spanish Catholic Church, in matters of restitution, does not seem to follow the example of Pope Francis.
The Prado Museum, plundered by the French (1808-1814), organizes a series of conferences, from November 7 to 28, on “The recovery of looted heritage.” They are taught by Professor Bénédicte Savoy, who has told The Country: “I perceive that in Spain there is perhaps a greater reluctance than in other places to address colonial issues, perhaps because the chronology and perimeter of its colonial project are different.” From the colonization of America to the looting of churches by Erik the Belgian, a police collaborator to restore decades of thefts, The returns process in Spain will be longsince, as the Pope says, it must be done case by case, without generalizing.
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