Ten years ago I lived on Reina Elisenda de Montcada street, in the upper part of Barcelona. I was seduced by its serenity and freshness on summer nights, far from the frenzy of the Rambla and the humid heat that is felt as the Via Augusta advances towards the lower part of the city. The Pedralbes monastery was my favorite setting to clear my mind. In absolute silence, he carefully observed the ribs of the vault of his church; He noticed the shields of the apse and the interior of the chapels, which reaffirmed, with their repetition, the power of this lineage of nobles who built the foundations of the modern history of Catalonia, since the 12th century.
A few months ago I began research to curate an exhibition in Mexico City, about the counts of San Mateo Valparaíso, a prominent family of the New Spain nobility and owner of a fortune unparalleled on the American continent in the 18th century. As soon as I opened the first book I consulted, the same coat of arms of the house of Montcada that adorns the apse of the chapel of the Pedralbes church appeared, in full color.
Pedro de Moncada y Branciforte was born in 1739 in Palermo [To date, there are only two serious studies about this character; one made by María Eugenia Ponce Alcocer, from the Universidad Iberoamericana and, recently, that of Mariana López Hernández, from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.] Her lineage comes directly from Jaime II of Aragón and Queen Elisenda, as well as from the Sicilian branch that expanded its territories and added titles to its already award-winning house. The Montcadas earned a place in history for having been, for centuries, the seneschals of Catalonia, knights who accompanied the king in his campaigns and represented him in his absence. Both Charles I and Philip II endorsed and granted perpetuity to that honorable title, so Pedro should have held it until his death.
Little is known about his first years of life, but what is interesting begins the day he landed in New Spain, in November 1764. Upon his arrival, he was immediately observed by the Inquisition, without a minute’s respite, because after the routine scrutiny , a few banned books were found in his luggage, which would be a source of dispute in the years to come. Some authors were Newton, Voltaire and the much hated by the Catholic Church, French physician and philosopher, Julien Offray de la Mettrie. However, his military investiture exempted him from suffering the harsh arm of the Holy Office.
Pedro de Moncada was a member of the prestigious Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, as revealed by the Maltese Cross he wears in the only mysterious known portrait of him. He was also a cavalry captain in the royal army and, on his own initiative, requested his transfer to American lands, where he was entrusted with the creation of the Dragoon Regiment, an elite corps that gave vigor to the arrogance of he. With the confidence conferred on him by his former nobility, his rising military career and his eight baronies, among which were Tortosa, Tarragona and Llobregat and Reixac in Barcelona, ??he took the first step to court none other than Mariana de Berrio. and de la Campa y Cos, the heiress of the wealthy counts of Valparaíso and marquises of Jaral de Berrio.
Pedro was, to say the least, an unattractive man to look at, while Mariana, if her only portrait does not lie, possessed the beauty and freshness of youth. The Marquis of Moncada knew of the immense fortune of the counts of Valparaíso, so he did not hesitate to ask Mariana’s hand in marriage to her father, Don Miguel de Berrio, who accepted him as his son-in-law, to our surprise, but not to his. public at that time. Pedro was a guy with fine manners, elegant, sure of himself and his investiture, adorned with his exquisite education: he spoke several languages, could maintain a lively conversation about politics, was fond of fine arts and had the taste of the old aristocracy for erudition in subjects as diverse as exact sciences and moral philosophy.
Don Miguel de Berrio shared several hobbies with Colonel Moncada, including music and fine arts. The Count of Berrio was one of the most important collectors of musical instruments of his time, possibly in the entire world. His collection of scores, among which were authors such as Bach, Albinoni, Corelli, Haydn, Pla, Pallavicini and Ignatius of Jerusalem, was unparalleled. He was also a patron of the musicians who came from Italy directly to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico as ex-professed teachers, but he signed them – and convinced them, with a competitive salary – to play at the private parties he held in his palace in center of the Mexican capital.
The fortune of the Moncadas had diminished considerably over time, coupled with the vices of some of their descendants, as was the case of Pedro. But Don Miguel de Berrio, who had recently been granted the title of marquis, did not mind adding to his house the surname of an ancient lineage of Catalan and Sicilian nobles, so, with the immense fortune that was given as a dowry to Moncada, the marriage between the colonel, 29, and Mariana, 15 years old, was celebrated on January 6, 1786.
To seal this union, the wedding gift from Don Miguel and his wife, Ana María de la Campa, was a splendid palace, a couple of streets from theirs, which was later known as the Moncada Palace. The ornamentation of its façade has stone details, chosen by the marquis himself, that represent scenes from Greek mythology, a subject that he mastered. However, the couple enjoyed their luxurious home for very little time, because after her husband’s long absences – between Palermo and Havana -, Mariana decided to go live with her parents in the also majestic palace of the counts of Valparaíso, where she grew up. to his children, Juan Nepomuceno and María Guadalupe.
Nineteen years and three children later, she requested a divorce from the church authorities. After embarrassing public quarrels and mutual accusations of adultery and even murder, the marriage was annulled, to the surprise of eighteenth-century society. Moncada raised his voice as he pitifully described “the cruel injustices that I have suffered since I got married, from a son that this woman has killed [Adeodato Moncada died at the age of nine], from repeated poisons with which she has tried to take my life [… ]”. That divorce was a milestone and a scandal at the same time.
The long and exhausting divorce process, which lasted a quarter of a century, took its toll on the colonel, who asked for leave to go to Spain, citing health problems, but not before warning that he would take his children, before which the grandparents Miguel and Ana María made use of their privileges to intervene before the viceroy himself. The divorce ruled in Mariana’s favor and the children stayed in New Spain, where they also made history, in her own way.
Juan Nepomuceno Moncada followed in his father’s footsteps in arms and participated in the independence of Mexico, although he had an ambiguous and questionable position between insurgents and royalists. He ended up lending his palace to the first emperor, Agustín de Iturbide, erasing his surname from the city’s urban history, as the Moncada Palace became the Iturbide Palace.
That of María Guadalupe Moncada is a much luckier case in every sense. From a young age, she was taught in the art of drawing and painting and she became honorary director of that field at the Royal Academy of San Carlos. She is the author of the first painting signed by herself, with her maiden name, reiterating her authorship, including the word fecit, which had only been reserved for the painters’ guild.
Pedro de Moncada was the father of the first woman painter who was assumed as such in the most important viceroyalty, in a world of exclusively male authors. Although the father and daughter relationship was not exactly good, Pedro’s influence on the education of his children is undoubted.
On May 4, 1773, the same day that the colonel embarked on the frigate La Perla heading to Europe, the Inquisition had decided to prosecute him, but he escaped again, like the day he arrived in the lands that marked his turbulent life. After being exiled from Spain and Sicily for expressing his liberal ideas, he chose a villa between Padua and Venice as his final destination.
In the luggage that was searched before leaving, he carried four texts written by himself: a translation of Newton, two essays dedicated to his son, Juan Nepomuceno, and a treatise on how to tame the passions of the soul, the only one whose whereabouts are unknown. . As a prologue, the essays he wrote for his son have a meaningful message that goes like this: “I do not write to please the public, they are to be useful for your instruction […] my wishes, despite the cruel situation in which I find them the most alive, as are my efforts to provide you with the best possible education.”
In one of the essays, his Treatise on Philosphia Moral reviews ancient civilizations, drawing a line between their moral precepts to demonstrate their similarity; In the second essay, he introduces the Greek and Roman philosophers who have dealt with the topic of morality and reflects on the relevance of their precepts. In both texts, Moncada highlights his erudition and a sophisticated use of critical thinking, very modern for the time, as the education he intended for his children.
María Guadalupe continued her artistic career and made a trip through Europe for several months, during which she almost certainly visited her father and spent a long time at the Prado Museum, possibly as a copyist, a common activity among artists during the entire 19th century. There are at least three paintings by her that are known; one of them is in the collection of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia; a Virgin of Guadalupe – the work that she signed with her name –; and a self-portrait, previously attributed to Francisco de Goya due to the similarity of her brushstrokes and recently acquired at auction by the National Bank of Mexico, the latter two from her collection. That self-portrait was the reason for the exhibition I, María Guadalupe, painter, I return home, which took place in the palace that was the family home of the counts – today a museum and cultural center Foro Valparaíso – in the heart of the Mexican capital.
The inquisitorial search of the contents of Pedro de Moncada’s luggage was the last news we had of him for many years, until, fortuitously, he appeared mentioned in the correspondence between Lord Byron and his editor, John Murray. In a letter dated November 15, 1817, Byron writes:
“Do you remember my mention, a few months ago, of the Marquis of Moncada – a distinguished octogenarian Spaniard, my neighbor in La Mira? Well, about six weeks ago, he fell in love with a Venetian girl from a family, and without fortune or character; He took her to her mansion, fought with those who were her friends for giving her advice (except with me, because I didn’t give her any) and installed the current concubine and future wife and lover of her, him and his her furniture. At the end of a month, during which he deteriorated his health as much as he could, he discovered, through letters, that she was having a relationship with a former guard and, after nearly strangling her, he kicked her out of the house. , before the great scandal of the city and with such prodigious style that it has occupied all the canals and cafes in Venice. He said she wanted to poison him; and she says – only God knows what; But between the two of them they have made a big scandal.”
At 78 years old, with hundreds of anecdotes to tell, but an intolerance that earned him the animosity of his friends, Pedro had settled in that Venetian area due to its proximity to the family farm that they still had in Livorno. The curious thing is that he ended up being a neighbor of the English writer; It seems that the Marquis did not go unnoticed, since Byron immortalized him, two years after the letter he wrote to Murray, in canto XXIV of his Don Juan.
It is exciting to imagine the evenings that both characters spent talking in a scene that could well be part of a novel or a movie, in which their lives meet by chance, despite how different their paths were. Moncada caught the attention of Lord Byron because he was a man who fascinated because of his complexity. There is no doubt that he was a guy troubled by his own passions, as sophisticated as they were earthly: culture, knowledge, critical thinking, weapons; the Caribbean and women. The mystery behind his personality and the traces he left in so many cities, on both sides of the Atlantic, are also seductive, as if they were pieces of a puzzle that must be put together to understand the importance of his legacy, which, although never knew, has transcended centuries and continents.
In Mexico City, the Moncada Palace, currently the Citibanamex Cultural Palace, not only bears his name but also his signature, as it was built entirely to his liking. And, recently, the acquisition of the self-portrait of his daughter, María Guadalupe Moncada y Berrio, also reaffirms his presence in these lands. In Barcelona, ??two living buildings remember the legacy of this family: the Pedralbes Monastery, with its coat of arms of the house of Moncada, and the old Casa Gralla, on Portaferrissa street – today, a vintage clothing store – which was headquarters of the archive of the Moncada Aytona families.
I never thought I would meet again, face to face, with a member of the family who gave name to the street I walked every day, so many years ago, but history reminds us that we live in a vortex of events that return again and again. . It’s a matter of paying attention to the details.