GUIDED TOUR OF THE CEMENTERY
INTRODUCCION OF THE GRAVEYEARD
The gtraveyard is an outdoor However, in the XVIII century, museum, we can see sculptures, appareade some rules of the king architectures and urbanism Charles the third that said that for because a graveyard is like a city hygiene reasons the graveyard of the dead. It is a city, it has a had to be out of the city because streets, it has an avenues, it has of the corpse stink at could be a a rich and poor neighborhoods focus of epidemics. And four that because the graveyard is a reflex reasons the graveyard was of our society. We're going to do moved outside the city and in a tour only for the oldest side 1812 was built in San Vicent because in the new we can't street which is now in Primary appreciate any important change. school. That graveyard turns out This graveyard was builkt in to be too small because our city 1885. Befor this graveyar, we had is industrialitzing and the two more. The first graveyard graveyard was closed because that we had was situated next to an epidemic of cholera. the Santa Maria´s church, because the was a tradition, Finally the graveyeard is put until begin buried next to the church. here now. When the church is moved, yhe second graveyard is built in the Fosar´s square.
The oldest tomb of the cementery. This monument, would be the oldest mausoleum in the cementery. This mausoleum was moved from an older cementery that Alcoy had. The monument is one of the oldest ones in the Valencian Community dated from 1838 and the first one to be built in that cementery.
It is a different kind of tomb because people were buried under it. It has an academicist structure which means it is very clasical, with an obelisk whose origins are in the ancient Egypt.
More over , it has a torch on the top that still preservers the red colour that symbolise the dead's memories on earth. Besides, there is a fence surronding it with five poles used as spots for placing candles on All Saint's Day. There are also two tombstones with the sape of shields brought from the old cementery.
GALERIES The underground passages are the place people find most shocking, especially people who aren't from Alcoy, because they're one of a kind, there isn't a similar typology anywhere in Spain.
The cementery project was done by an engineer from Alcoy whose name is Enrique Vilaplana. He designed the underground passages, on the one hand to make te most of the space, because he knew we had space problems in Alcoy and he thought that if he started building passage in the underground, he could take advantage of more and space and do something above them. But on the other hand it also has a purpose: the cementery is on a gradient, on the Cantagallet's hill; it has an important gradient and the series of arches which are over the passages work as a containment for all the land that is uphill. But if you look above the underground passages, you can see that they're illuminated and ventilated in a natural way. You have to think that when the cementery was built there wasn't electric light yen in Alcoy.
Thanks to the skylights that are over the underground passages, the light and the air pass, because they worried about the hygienic measures If the passages were made underground and they have no
ventilation, there can be hygienic problems. It's necessary to make on air exit for the corrupt air. In the underground passages it is fresh because of the air current coming from the stairs and the exit.
Enrique's idea is that the wealthiest families had to buy a vertical flight of alcoves and that all the members of that families ended up there. Building a new cementery nowadays would be really expensive. So the council thought that the money won from the sale of that flights of alcoves would serve to continue the construction of the cementery, but that families didn't like to stay here, because if someone bragged about his money and had a terrific house in a main street of the town like san Nicolas street, he doesn't want to be unnoticed when he's dead, and that's why voults started to be made.
Then, these alcoves started to be sold individually, in fact, nowadays they are still being used, recent tomstones can be seen, because they have been resold. There are families that have alcoves here, but most families, at a certain momentpreferred to have voult. Another fact that shows that
there wasn't light is that some alcoves have a little lamp. At that time it would be of gas and then the electic light was installed individually until the local council installed the light in the ceiling of the underground passages. Having light in a voult proved that that was a wealthy person because most people didn't have money or a house in that age. If the passages were made underground and they have no ventilation, there can be hygienic problems. It's necessary to make on air exit for the corrupt air. In the underground passages it is fresh because of the air current coming from the stairs and the exit. Enrique's idea is that the wealthiest families had to buy a vertical flight of alcoves and that all the members of that families ended up there. Building a new cementery nowadays would be really expensive. So the council thought that the money won from the sale of that flights of alcoves would serve to continue the construction of the cementery, but that families didn't like to stay here, because if someone bragged about his money and had a terrific house in a main street of the town like san Nicolas street, he doesn't want to be unnoticed when he's dead, and that's why voults started to be made.
THREE THEOLOGAL VIRTUES BY RIDAURA Introduccion
These families wanted to be seen, so they gave the opportunity to anyone who wanted to show off, the deceased are down in the galleries and they could have a monument like a pantheon over here but as you can see there aren’t many of these because is nothing here. It is the work of Llorens Ridaura who is a sculptor and this is his first mayor work, he made this when he was 27 that is, he already has a very important domain of art. It is still very classic sculpture. It has a triangular shape. He uses white marble as used by the ancient, even the subject is a classic one, here we are the three theological virtues of faith, hopeand charity.They are fame allegories and always have some attributes to know what they represent.
FAITH Faith is blindfolded because faith is blind because you believe or do not believe, there is no reason. She has the palm of martyrdom, the chalice that everything is related to faith and has the cross behind. THE HOPE She has an anchor for hope is the last think that is because the people have to hold on to something.
CHARITY Who is exceptional because Charity is usually represented by a woman breastfeeding a baby but we are in a cementery, then Ridaura thought it was not appropriate to represent the charity that way and what he did is representing with a baby sleeping and the woman has her blouse slightly opened implying she just fed the baby. She has big breasts because she is nursing a baby. She also has heart that is related to Christ The symbol means here is very curious: tempus fugit(time escaping) is an hourglass with wings that means tohave to use the time because we will die, we are aware that everything ends.
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CENTRAL CROSS In the original plan in this place Enrique vilaplana thought about building up a small church but Alcoy,s councill didn't have enough money to build it. After the civil war this cross was built in the honor of the fallen but nowadays this cross doesn't have any political meaning. Hence backwards the area was destined to simple graves in the ground consisting in a burying ground in the ground and a simple cross bacause the majority social class was working class. If you built a cementery with a lot of mausoleums then you aren't realist. But this society was more complex there weren´t only rich people or poor people, ther were pepople of middle-class and this people want a more decent burial than a pit ground, and because that fact distinghished social clases, you can see in that picture distinghished area “ZANJA DESTIGIDA”, that these tombs would be in the middle, those tombs have a structure more familiar, those are a small mausoleum, those are more decent tombs. The sarcophagus and the sculptures aren't commissioned but you can request them from a catalog, you needn't a architect or an sculptor to do it, simply you go to marble seller and you say him what do you want and that is all
PIRAMIDE This structure here is relatevely recent.It was done in the year 19891990. It was done to create a cementary for important people from Alcoy,all Alcoyanos that meant something important to Alcoy, their ashes would be drown here.(senyalar)
At the tombstone we see the names of the deceased, but as we see it was not very successful here. There are only two Ovidi Monllor and Eduardo Latorre. It is a very central location. This structure is made with inferior and cheap materials
and it leaks. It was fixed a few months ago and it is already shabby.
Below this , there is a huge (jiuch) deposit that we call “General ossuary cementary�. In all the graveyards there is a place where the bodies ,that lay unclaimed for a long time, are left.
In the civil war all families with their relatives in the old cementary placed them here in this place because they were going to demolish the cementary.
CROSS:NOUNS Here , in the ground you can see this tomb , it consist in a hole and a cross . It's cheaper . And we have the merit os preserving it , because in many cementeries niches have been made and they have destroyed the old cheap graves . Many people want to preserving it because it's historical . What kind of people is buried here in the ground ? The proletariat poor people.
Even if it is rare, some people still use then . In these graves the predominant styles , in the 19 century we can say that this is gothic , but , it is actually ecleptic. The problem here with it is that when you bury someome you have to wait 5 years to bury somebody else. So it hasn't got much succes.
Nuns The kids were being baptised acording with the old legend the kid doesn't go to heaven but he doesn't go to hell neither When the cementery was created , there was a high infant mortality because they weren't good condition. To solve this problem of the deathof the kids without baptism midwives were empowered to baptize children although they weren't priest. Nowdays all the nuns from the different asociation of Alcoy like San Vicente or Carmelitas are bury here
Minigolf In this area of the cementery the mortal rest are bury directly in the ground but for aesthetic reasons tne city hall decided to change the ground by artifical turf but it hasn't been finished due to the crisis . We can compare this type of burial with the old type pf burial About the hipogeos they were designed by Timoteo Briet who copied from Barcelona.
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MILITAR CEMENTERY When the enlargement of the graveyard was taking place a letter from Valencia arrived. There it was said that all cities where there were infantry barracks had to have a plot for the military. During the “Oil Revollution” the major nicknamed “Pelletes” was murdered and the bourgeoisie asked for a permanent regimen. So they did, and the military were ready to suffocate any possible strike of the working class. The military headquarters remained there for a century up to 1980, they were where the present shopping Centre is. In this plot they buried soldiers from the regiment in Alcoy, or soldiers from Alcoy that died elsewhere. The sepulchral vault in the Centre is outstanding because in 1922 there was a huge train accident. The train was coming from Valencia and it was overloaded, so the engine couldn’t climb the hill, that’s why they unhitched one wagon, unfortunately they didn’t secure it well, the ground was steep and the wagon out of control went down the mountain increasing its speed for several kilometres. The wagon finally crashed in Ontinyent rail station, killing over 20 people and over 100 people were injured. Another curious thing is that we can also find here the soldiers that opposed Franco at the beginning of the civil war.