June 2, 2009

Conference

375TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE AUGUSTINIAN RECOLLECT NUNS OF PAMPLONA

Art and devotion in hidden Pamplona: Behind the latticework of the Augustinian Recollect Nuns

D. Ricardo Fernández Gracia.
Chair of Navarrese Heritage and Art

As is well known, the monastery of the Immaculate Conception of the Augustinian Recollect Nuns of Pamplona was the first of its Order in Navarra (1634). From the Madrid monastery of the Incarnation, Mother Mariana de San José, great promoter of the Recollects, arranged its foundation, beginning in 1631, with Don Juan de Ciriza, Marquis of Montejaso and secretary of the monarchs Philip III and Philip IV.

The splendid endowment of the convent is explained by the contributions of the marquises and the natural son of the marquis, archdeacon of the cathedral of Pamplona, the contribution of the supernumerary nuns and the donations of relatives of some nuns, among which those of Don José Azpíroz, brother of the prioress and relative of Cardinal Don Pascual de Aragón, stand out. Within the cloister and in spite of the historical vicissitudes, they have been conserved by the special care of the nuns and by the sensibility that in all times they showed towards what today we call cultural goods.

After historically situating the monastery and its founders, lecture was divided into four parts dedicated to the conventual spaces, devotions, the magnificence of divine worship and the nuns and the arts. The first part analyzed the plan of the convent complex and its uses in the light of the constitutions of the order. In the second, dedicated to devotions and the arts, a review was made of different paintings and sculptures that captured the ideals of devotion in the house, from the particular Marian invocations of the convent or of the order, to other Spanish-American ones represented in the cloister by outstanding pieces. Painters such as Francisco Camilo, Pedro Villafranca, Palma el Joven, Vicente Carducho, Horacio Borghiani, Juan Correa and sculptors such as Pedro de Mena or Manuel Pereira, as well as excellent Neapolitan carvings are represented in outstanding works, most of which are kept in the chapter house conference room , which has become a veritable chamber of wonders.

The third part was dedicated to glossing those pieces that were placed in the church for the great feasts of the Immaculate Conception or Corpus Christi, and therefore were in public view. The Recollects celebrated the feasts and solemnities of the liturgical year in all their splendor and beauty in the beautiful framework of their conventual church. They were provided with sacred ornaments and precious liturgical objects and a good issue of chaplains -up to ten in the XVIII century-. Alonso Villerino, the chronicler of the Order, wrote at the end of the 17th century about the role of the Recollects in the baroque customs of Pamplona during the Baroque period, at purpose of the adornment of the altars. With this significant paragraph he leaves evidence of it: "to their example all the convents of Pamplona increased it, as I have heard it myself from many people of the time of the Recollection entrance in that city, who assured that before the Recollection entered, the altars were made with very temperate adornment and that later they are made with majestic apparatus in all the Communities, that it came to seem excessive to the prudent and worthy of reforma".

The last part focused on some outstanding nuns in textile work, as well as all the intangible heritage that constitute certain customs of the house or the same cooking recipes, very pondered by Philip IV himself.

The lecture took place in the church of the Augustinian Recollect Nuns of Pamplona.

Portrait of Don Juan de Ciriza, Marquis of Montejaso and founder of the convent, by Antonio Rizi, 1617.

conference room of the Recoletas Convent of Pamplona, Spain

"Dolorosa", by Pedro de Mena, c. 1670-1680.

"Canvas of St. Thomas of Villanova distributing alms", by Francisco Camilo, 1650.