VALLADOLID, Nov. 14 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Poor Clares of Santa Isabel commemorate the 550th anniversary of the foundation of the Valladolid monastery with a program that begins this Monday, at 8:15 p.m., with a presentation by the priest, researcher of Art History and coordinator of the event, Guillermo Camino.
In addition to Guillermo, Sister Isabel Ferreras, as a representative of the community, and Miguel Royón, representing the Brotherhood of the Franciscan Third Order of Valladolid, are part of the organizing committee.
The exhibition hall of the museum premises of the Monastery will host the exhibition ‘Sorelle Tutte’, which will be inaugurated this Thursday at the end of the Eucharistic celebration presided over by the Archbishop of Valladolid, Don Luis Argüello (7:30 p.m.), coinciding with the celebration of Santa Isabel.
The exhibition is articulated in three areas that will include the founding context of the monastery, the Franciscan iconography, a sign of the spirituality of the order, emphasizing the images of Saint Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, owner of the Monastery, and a third area dedicated to the domestic life of the forms of life that have succeeded each other in the monastery, first as a beguinage, then as the Third Order Regular and, in the last century, as the Order of Santa Clara.
The exhibition has historical collections and pieces from the Monastery’s own heritage, as well as loans received from other Franciscan and parish institutions. It will remain exposed, at least, until June of next year 2023.
The opening hours are designed to welcome groups; Tuesday and Thursday from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., upon request, and from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., on Saturdays
The exhibition is a reality thanks to the loans, but also thanks to the historical investigation of the context in which the foundation was carried out, documenting this process by comparing the information kept in the National Historical Archive, the documentation of the Monastery Archive itself, and the critical study of the historiography published up to the present.
Another result of this work will be the presentation given this afternoon by Guillermo Camino in the monastery church, with which he will update the historical contributions.
The presentation will focus on one of the most unknown stages. The period in which, starting in 1455, a group of lay women bought the so-called ‘Casa de los Alcántara’, a place where they would live a path of Christian commitment for around twenty years (when the commitment of the laity was not yet too normal).
“These women insisted on living a style of secular commitment to care for the poor in their various needs (that geographical area was then the outskirts of Valladolid), until they managed to get Pope Julius II to allow them the status of consecrated life. They passed to have a habit and to assume a rule, that of the Franciscan Tertiaries”, explains Guillermo Camino.
A program of conferences on the artistic heritage of the Monastery has also been designed, in collaboration with the Department of Art History of the University of Valladolid.
A first presentation will refer to the presence of the works of Juan de Juni and the second will focus on the study and context of creation of the main altarpiece of the Church by Juan Imberto and the subsequent intervention of Gregorio Fernández.
Likewise, and taking into account the possibilities of the monastery’s cloister, collaboration will be sought with other cultural institutions in the city to offer a concert in the evening.