FUNDACIÓN COLEGIO Nª Sª DE LA ANTIGUA.

In the center of the façade and on the door of the church is the dedication that tries to explain the existence and destiny of the Colegio de Nª Sª de la Antigua. The inscription reads like this:

RODER, CARD´DECASTRO AR
CHEP HSP_S TEMPLUM VIRGI
NI MAR COLEG SOCIET.JES. IN M
USZUM IVVET. UT DOTAVIT.

Father Esteban in his magnificent book on the school of Nº Sª de la Antigua makes the following translation:

Cardinal D. Rodrigo de Castro; Archbishop of Seville, donates to the Society of Jesus for the use of the youth temple and school consecrated to the Virgin Mary.

This translation is something free and omits some element and adds others that do not appear in the dedication. Thus, the treatment of “Don” to the Cardinal does not seem to be justified from the inscription itself, as well as the “consecration” of the temple and school to the Virgin Mary.

The abbreviation “M” at the end of the third line is not clarified either. It is also understood that due to the reduced space and the visibility that the text must have from the height of the street, some particles are omitted and words are abbreviated, which in the end ends up causing difficulty in interpreting the text.

On the “Don” it is undoubtedly an addition of Fr. Esteban since it does not appear in the inscription nor is it usual to place it before the name of the cardinals. Similarly, the idea of ​​the “consecration” of the temple does not seem to be justified in the text.

On the “M” at the end of the third line, we see that it is preceded by the particle IN, which translated by “EN” opens up two explanations:

1. You can refer to a place. If this is so, the “M” would represent a place and there is no other explanation in this case than to refer to “Monforte”.
2. Another explanation with more possibilities would explain the intention of the dedication and we would have to see after the “M” the Latin word Memoriam. IN MEMORIAM, this would be telling us that the inscription is an invitation to remember the Cardinal for what he did.

Therefore, I dare to suggest a new translation of the said dedication, which, without varying much in essence from what Father Esteban indicated, I think is more in line with the literalness of this beautiful stone inscription. It would be like this:

In latin:

R0DERICUS CARDINAL DE CASTRO, ARCHIEPISCOPUS HISPALENSIS, TEMPLUM VIRGINI MARIAE COLEGIUM SOCIETATIS JESUS ​​IN MEMORIAM USUM IUVENTUTEM UT DOTAVIT

The first option and in the most understandable Spanish

In memory of Rodrigo, Cardinal de Castro, Archbishop of Seville, who donated the Temple of the Virgin Mary and the College to the Society of Jesus for the use of the youth.

The second option would be

Rodrigo, Cardinal de Castro, Archbishop of Seville, who donated to the Society of Jesus in Monforte the Temple of the Virgin Mary and the College for the use of the youth.

HOLY THURSDAY

· 7:00 p.m. Celebration of the Lord’s Supper
· 8:00 p.m. Holy Hour

HOLY FRIDAY

· 19:00 h Holy Offices
· 20:00 h Stations of the Cross

HOLY SATURDAY

The celebration of the Easter Vigil will be in Santa María de la Regoa. In the Church of the College of the Piarists there will be no Easter Vigil.

EASTER SUNDAY

· 11:00 h Celebration of the Easter Holy Mass .
· 12:00 h Celebration of the Holy Easter Mass

In the College of Frs. Piarists, we can see several shields of Cardinal Rodrigo de Castro. Some of them are different, due to the number of tassels in the final line of the net that appear in it.

This is due to two reasons

1st When they carve a shield the cardinal was not yet one and then three or four tassels may appear.

2º That the stonemason has not found enough space to carve the five tassels in the stone and carves so that one or two are hidden behind the shield, as is the case with the shields that are seen in our building

The number of tassels identifies the ecclesiastical dignity of the shield in question, giving us notice whether it is a priest, a bishop or a cardinal…. Check the following link and you will have enough information to understand the shields of our school.

During Easter 2021 and while the restrictions established by COVID-19 last, visits will be in small groups, maintaining visiting hours from Saturday, March 27 to April to April 5 with the following schedule.

• Mornings two sessions……….: 11:00 and 12:45

• Afternoons two sessions ……: 17:15 and 18:30.

Please ensure and arrange your visit through the Monforte de Lemos Tourist Office: Tel: +34 982404715

We direct you through the TVG link to a video from 1991 that Galicia no Tempo produced by Televisión de Galicia on the occasion of the exhibition Galicia no Tempo. We hope you like it

Francisco de Moure | Series e programas da TVG | CRTVG

intervention of the Patrimony of the Xunta in the vault of the presbytery of our Church of Nª Sª de la Antigua, today we have been visited by the Councilor for Culture D. Román Rodríguez González, accompanied by other authorities of the Xunta and the City Council of Monforte de Lemos as well as Father Javier Agudo, Manager of the Foundation, and Mr. Pablo Blanco and Mr. Jorge Valcárcel, Director and Manager of the School, respectively.

Don Manuel Freire, architect in charge of the restoration project, explained in detail the points of intervention and the precautions that must be taken for the successful completion of the work that I will begin shortly.

Today March 12, 2021, the decree that formalizes the declaration as an asset of cultural interest of the Colegio de la Compañía de Monforte de Lemos appears published in the DOGA, completing a process that began in the 2016. That year, the Colegio Nuestra Señora de la Antigua foundation presented a request to the Galician Government to initiate a file to declare the historic building as BIC.

The Consello da Xunta will approve today February 25 the decree that confers the BIC category to the building. Indeed, the Xunta will today approve the decree that will formalize the declaration as an asset of cultural interest (BIC) of the “Colegio de la Compañía” of Monforte de Lemos, a category that was requested by the Fundación Colegio Nª Sª de la Antigua in 2016.

After the request, the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage began the preparation of a specific report and consulted on the matter, the opinion of its advisory and consultative bodies.

Already in 2019, the file requested by the FCNSdlA was initiated and the procedures began while the protection measures established for monuments with BIC category were provisionally expanded.

The file was endorsed by a report from the Royal Galician Academy of Fine Arts and another from the Consello da Cultura Gallega that proposed a series of improvements to be taken into consideration to give greater solidity to the declaration that is materialized today.

History gives us simple gifts, and one of them has been that we can count on a saint among the teachers of this College. He is Fr. Faustino Míguez, today Saint Faustino, who governed the destinies of this center from 1875 to 1878. Indeed, when the Piarists were called to Monforte de Lemos in 1873, among the religious who came was Fr. Faustino Míguez,

It was also Saint Faustino who made the Calasancian nuns come to Monforte to attend to the education of girls, since in those days boys and girls were educated separately. Father Esteban speaks of Father Faustino in his book on the history of the College of the Piarists, who says of him: “… Father Faustino Míguez is worthy of mention, a man of extraordinary virtue and great scientific solvency.”

Taking into account the will of D. Francisco de Moure, delivered on a date that is unknown but it is known that prior to June 12, 1636, some eleven years after starting with the construction of the altarpiece of Nª Sª de la Antigua, and in a new document that seems to include a new will, previously granted orally, D. Francisco de Moure donated, to the Colegio de la Compañía, the image of Nª Sª de la Antigua, which at that time was already finished and probably installed in its place . Practically this donation implied the resignation to collect the work carried out in the same and in the face of his heirs his will that it not be included in the valuation of goods and work that remained to be collected.

We include here a fragment of the grant signed on the already indicated date of 1636:

«… now to avoid differences that may arise between your heirs, even if you leave your probate in charge of not giving rise to such differences, in the best way and in the right way, donate again ratifying the verbal donation to that refers, the happiness and image in front of my scrivano and witnesses, so that, as said, the difference that may be had between the said his heirs close of said ymagen, or the price of him if he has to enter or not in the fifth of his assets, which he has provided in said testament; … »