Illustrious students: Antonio Méndez-Casal

He was born around 1884 in Monforte de Lemos. He was a student at the PP school. Escolapios de Monforte de Lemos. During his youth he also cultivated the drawing.
He graduated in Law from the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1897, and was part of the Military Legal Corps, with fates in Mahón, Palma de Mallorca and Seville (1913). In this Andalusian city he attended the workshop of the painter Manuel Alarcón, where he learned painting and restoration, which led him to authenticate works of art, and to make the catalog of some collections of individuals, both Spanish and foreign. He was a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid, being proposed in 1934 to fill the vacancy produced in the Painting Section by the death of José Ramón Mélida Alinari, as an art critic. He entered on September 21, 1939.
He was a contributor to periodicals such as ABC and Blanco y Negro. Méndez Casal, who was an academic at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, 2 died in Madrid on January 14, 1940.1 He has a dedicated street in his hometown.

Concert by Amancio Prada in the Church of the Piarists

Amancio Prada with Fr. Javier Agudo, Manager of the Foundation

On the occasion of the celebration of the 20 years of the “Association Camiños a Santiago pola Ribeira Sacra” and organized by this association took place on Saturday April 27 a magnificent concert by singer-songwriter Amancio Prada. The interesting repertoire included ancient themes and some more current, full of feeling, depth and strength.
Amancio Prada was born in Dehesa del Bierzo, León. It has endowed the song of author in Spain of a great elegance. His music, largely popular roots, is composed of his own compositions and songs based on texts by the most diverse ancient and modern poets, such as Rosalía de Castro, Federico García Lorca, Agustín García Calvo and Chicho Sánchez Ferlosio.

He debuted in Paris in 1973 and a year later he published his first album “Vida e morte”, composed of six songs in Spanish and another in Galician. His artistic presentation in Spain took place in 1975, in the Little Theater of Madrid. From then on, his performances took place on stages in Spain and abroad

In the photo Amancio Prada with Fr. Javier Agudo, Manager of the Foundation Nª Sª de la Antigua School, before beginning the magnificent concert he offered us.

Awards
Gold Medal of the Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid (2001)
Medal of Castilla y León Award for the Arts (2005)
Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts (2010)

Outstanding works
• Life and death
• Lelia Doura
• Spiritual canticle
• Dark love sonnets
• Roses to Rosalia
• From sea to terra
• Songs of the soul
• Until another day, Chicho
• Artist’s life Songs of Léo Ferré
• Living love concert

Carlos Salgado alumnus of the School of the Piarists

Carlos Salgado

Carlos Salgado, a physicist from the University of Santiago de Compostela and former student of our College of Nª Sª de la Antigua Piarist Fathers , was born in Monforte de Lemos in 1971. He left school in 1985. He is director of the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics. He is a professor of Theoretical Physics. He is currently investigating about states of matter immediate to the Big Bang. He has just received a grant called “Advanced Grant” for his research of 2.5 million euros.

The objective objective of the project led by the director of the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics, is supported by the funding of the “European Research Council (ERC)” that has just granted “Advanced Grant” aid, for a period of five years. The project is entitled “Yoctosecond imaging of QCD collectivity using observable jet” (YoctoLHC).

The “Advanced Grant” grants are designed to support scientists “exceptional leaders in terms of originality and meaning of their research lines”. OR ERC provides financing for the development of frontier science with excellence as the main selection requirement.

Illustrious students of the College of the Piarists: PEDRO BOO PITA.

He was born in 1862 and died in Monforte de Lemos on August 19, 1955. He studied at the College of the Piarists or the Cardinal. He was the municipal prosecutor of Monforte (1908), president of the Monforte Agrarian Catholic Federation (1921-1922). During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, he was appointed mayor of Monforte de Lemos on January 13, 1924. He replaces Manuel Dapena Rodríguez. He was Mayor until March 13 of that same year, 1924 when he left the mayor’s office.
He was a provincial deputy. Member of the Seminary of Galician Studies. He was Professor of Law at the University of Valladolid. He collaborated in Archives of the Seminary of Galician Studies (1927) and in the Wool Bulletin Provincial Commission of Historical and Artistic Monuments of Lugo.

Procession of Virgin Dolorosa.

This afternoon, after the celebration of the Passion and Death of the Lord that will begin at 7:00 p.m., in our church of the College of the Cardinal, will take place if the time allows it, as it is programmed, the procession of the Dolorosa Virgin , that will cross the streets of Monforte.

A magnificent element … half-hidden.

Miguel Angel Feal, scholar of the original traces of our building, dealing with the dome, affirms: “Like El Escorial and many other Spanish churches of its time, they are already of Latin cross, rectangular, or long basilical nave covered with a dome in its transept or corresponding part, the church of the Monforte Company, does not offer to those who approach its facade a complete view of this important element of its architecture. Its consequence is inherent to the depth of its single ship. The origin of the monfortino type is the Italian of the Counter-Reformation that tried to reconcile the church of a deep and living hall with the dome used in the manner of a dome in the medieval Spanish and Languedocian churches. The splendid Monforte dome is characteristic of these models.

Inside the temple fulfills its function perfectly.

In its exterior it can not be contemplated in all its splendor, unless it is from very far away, a point from which it receives its complete proportions “.


Close up the dome is always hidden by the building itself

From a distance you can see the dome in all its splendor
Vista aérea de la cúpula

Illustrious student: Juan de Ferreras

From Jewish origins, he therefore had to study in many universities and live in different cities and was never able to qualify for the positions that corresponded to his capacity, for which he demanded a statute of cleanliness of blood. He studied at La Bañeza and at the Colegio de Jesús de Monforte de Lemos; studied philosophy with the Dominican friars of the monastery of Trianos de Villamol and theology in Valladolid and Salamanca. In 1676 he was parish priest of Talavera de la Reina, in 1681 of Albares and in 1685 of Camarma de Esteruelas; destined to the capital, in 1697 it took charge of the church of San Pedro and in 1701 of the one of San Andres. He was confessor of Cardinal Portocarrero, synodal examiner of the archbishopric of Madrid and qualifier of the council of the Inquisition; Bishop Elect of Monopoli and Zamora, he resigned from both dioceses, probably because of his Jewish roots.

In 1713 he was one of the founders of the Royal Spanish Academy and in 1715 he was appointed senior librarian of the newly opened Royal Library, replacing the late Gabriel Álvarez de Toledo, a job he held until his death; He assembled to form the fund of what would be the future National Library, a great number of incunabula, rare and forbidden, many of them obtained abroad by mocking the census hand of the Inquisition, of which he himself was a part.

He left written a work in 16 volumes, Synopsis historical chronologica of Spain (1700-1727), in which he tells the history of Spain until the end of the sixteenth century; was translated into full French enriched with historical and critical notes under the title of Histoire Générale d’Espagne …
Blas Nasarre published an historical Elogio de Don Juan de Ferreras (Madrid: Printing of the Royal Spanish Academy, 1735).

San Francisco de Borja in your place

Today, after its recent restoration, the painting of San Francisco de Borja has been installed in its place, in the reredos of the Magi, at the top. As we will remember, this painting is dated 1666 and is by anonymous author. Its state of deterioration was very great as can be seen in our entry on March 27, where we published a comparison of the before and after the restoration. The restoration has been carried out by Fr. Javier Agudo, Piarist and currently manager of the CNSdlA Foundation.

That we can enjoy this work, which refers us precisely to the beginnings of the Foundation of the College of the Cardinal and to the third General of the Francisco de Borja Company family through the mother of Cardinal Rodrigo de Castro.

Illustrious students: Vicente Vázquez Queipo de Llano.

He was born in the town of Samos on February 17, 1804, in the pazo de Lusío, in the bosom of a wealthy family. He began his studies in his own house and continued them in the Jesuits of Monforte de Lemos. In 1820 he entered the University of Valladolid, studying Law and at the same time, Mathematics and Experimental Sciences. He obtained the bachelor’s degree in Law and Philosophy and later the bachelor’s degree and the doctorate in Law.


He obtained by opposition a chair of Experimental Physics and Chemistry in 1826. Subsequently traveled to complete his mathematical and physical training in Paris (1829), entering the Central School of Arts and Manufactures in Paris where he was appointed Assistant Professor of Physics. He returned in the summer of 1832 and settled in Madrid, where he had a family (José María Queipo de Llano and Ruiz de Saravia, VII count of Toreno, was his uncle). In 1833 he was assigned to Cuba as Fiscal of the Treasury, where he remained until 1846, the year he returned to Madrid.

Deputy in Cortes, is dedicated to politics for the next twenty years, in the loyalist monarchist camp, occupying positions such as the General Directorate of the Ministry of Overseas, 3 or Assistant Secretary of the Interior. Abandoned the political life when Isabel II left Spain, overthrown in 1868, then dedicated exclusively to work and intellectual production publishing various works that had begun in his previous stage.

He was a member of the Royal Academy of History, Correspondent of the Institute of France, President of the Geological Map Commission of Spain, Royal Commissioner of the Astronomical Observatory of Madrid4 and member of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences. He died in Madrid, March 11, 1893.

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