BRINGING HERITAGE CLOSER. OLITE, ROYAL SEAT

From 27 to 30 August 2007
Olite

OPENING OF THE COURSE

The course, organised by the Chair de Patrimonio y Arte Navarro and the Olite Town Council, and directed by Professor Asunción Domeño Martínez de Morentin, served to bring the Heritage of the city of Olite closer through different conferences as well as guided tours of the urban area and outstanding monuments.

The official opening of the academic year was attended by Ms. Mª Carmen Ochoa, Mayoress of Olite Town Council, Ms. Mª Victoria Abaurrea, Councillor for Culture, Ms. Concepción García Gaínza, Director of the Chair de Patrimonio y Arte Navarro, Ms. Asunción Domeño, professor at the Chair and director of the course, and Mr. Javier Corcín, professor at the high school Príncipe de Viana de Olite.

The aim of the course was to bring the heritage of the city of Olite closer to the local residents and to all those interested in it, precisely in the year in which the sixth centenary of the creation of the merindad of the same name is being commemorated. Olite, as a strategic enclave, as the seat of the court of the Old Kingdom, as the head of a merindad management assistant, gradually took shape as one of the most important medieval urban and monumental complexes in Navarre, which still conserves a large part of its identity and its report. The different conferences reviewed the evolution of its urban layout and dealt with the different monumental ensembles that were erected in the splendour of the Middle Ages: the religious and civil architectural factories, their sculptural decorations, the series of mural paintings... This perspective of heritage was completed with a study of the works carried out during the Ancien Régime and ended with a look at the image of Olite in the 19th and 20th centuries. At final, the aim was to provide a greater knowledge of the cultural history of the city of Olite and its heritage, in order to raise public awareness of its value and, consequently, its conservation.