PONTEVEDRA IN 50 DRAWINGS BY CONDE CORBAL

Prologue: Xosé Fernando Filgueira Valverde

PONTEVEDRA, which gives its name to the province, es primarily a “spiritual city”, comfortable mansión for resting that sharpens its sense of art in choral singing and reading, tasting news, aftertasting memories and fostering initiatives. Its name, its emblem, in the sanctuary of Virgen Peregrina, Patron Saint of the Jubilee of Compostela, the headings of Santo Domingo, all here speaks of the old, pass through city, junction of roads on land and sea. In the distance it is rised, like a banner of the Renaissance, the facade of Santa María, the fruit of his marriage with the Atlantic. Walking through the nine squares and streets with arcade of its historic area, you will find in the Museum, which has the imposing presence of a pazo [Galician manor house] and the privacy of one’s home, which gathers what is typical of itself together and brings what is strange and remote closer, which shows a desire for spiritual cultivation.

In order to praise Pontevedra, it is not necessary to appeal to mythology and lists of famous children. Its story was told by those emissaries who, in 1386, parley with Messire Thomas Moreaux, as a hanseatic city, as a republic of the sea. They were ragged, barefoot…”mais bien savoient parler” said Froisssart. In order to be guided by the happy trails of Galicia, from this home of travellers called Pontevedra, I would choose the great erudite, intuitive Benedictine who was Fray Martín Sarmiento, who loved it like no other.

Sarmiento and Feijó studied Arts at Monasterio de Lérez [Monastery of Lérez], where they now celebrate San Benitiño in the month of July, our patron saint and Europe’s, recalling and premiering “cantigas” [ballads]. He could gloss each of these paper sheets than the swift pencil of Conde Corbal has managed to surprise in many motifs of our artistic heritage and our traditional life. What a great friend to teach us to love what is ours and to make ours those who arrive by offering what might attract them, in order to make them remember this land, where you can easily take root, and these open-minded people towards the ones who arrive. “You better stay in Pontevedra, my friends.”

XOSÉ FERNANDO FILGUEIRA VALVERDE