Medellín: Is there the baptismal font of Hernán Cortés?

For: Ricardo Coarasa (text and photos)
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The sixty-year-old adventurer tries to explain to the waiter what he wants, hacking his way through the complicated Castilian grammar. He has just had dinner with his friend at one of the tables in the bar, orphan of tourists, and seems driven by a longing for something that he is unable to convey in intelligible diction. Desperate, he returns to his table for the tablet, type a few words on the screen and, finally, smiles. "I want two shots!», he babbles proudly in Spanish to the waiter before bursting into a laugh of relief. To your right, next to the bar, hang a portrait of Hernán Cortés, the most illustrious son of this small municipality of Badajoz. We are Medellín, in Extremadura's Medellin, land of conquerors who took the name of their homeland to the New World (In colombia, Argentina, Mexico and the Philippines those other Medellín can attest to this).

Its street map attests to that glorious past linked to the discovery of the New World, full as it is of streets that evoke the protagonists of the conquest of Mexico and spread through the municipality the noise of decisive battles: Gonzalo Sandoval (also son of this town and right hand of the conqueror), Garcia Holguin (the captain who imprisoned Cuauhtemoc in the taking of Tenochtitlan), Pedro de Alvarado (Cortes' lieutenant), Moctezuma, Tlaxcala, Otumba…

The street map of Medellín testifies to that glorious past linked to the discovery of the New World

The entrance to the town along the road that leads to Don Benito could not be more spectacular.. The Guadiana is saved by a bridge of twenty eyes and almost 400 meters long, Built in 1630 under the rule of Felipe IV in the same place where the old Roman bridge was built, destroyed by a flood before 1525 and rebuilt half a century later. It is probable that during the childhood of Cortés, before with 14 years he went to study law in Salamanca, the bridge was still standing, perhaps unusable due to the effects of a recurring flood. But surely his first adventures took place here, fed by the silhouette of the castle of Medellin, that from the top of a hill dominates the entire upper valley of the Guadiana.

Medellín can boast of preserving the baptismal font in which Hernán Cortés was baptized, probably in 1485. Is, probably, the biggest claim for all those who travel here subjugated by the figure of the conqueror of Mexico. The church of san martin, built in the 13th century although profoundly remodeled four centuries later, overlooks the banks of the Guadiana with the castle behind it in a strategic location. incomprehensibly, it is closed to the public. It ceased to be a place of worship more than a century ago and that liturgical abandonment took its toll on the temple.

The municipality can boast of preserving the baptismal font in which Hernán Cortés was baptized, but you can not visit

Anyway, the truth is that the font where Cortés received the waters of baptism cannot be seen. Professional deformation leads me to ask two women who empty the litter bins on the path that leads to the castle. «It closed years ago because the roof threatened to collapse, although the village priest sometimes teaches it to visitors», tell one of them. «In the town we have been saying for a long time that it be fixed. With the beautiful paintings you have…», his companion laments.

At the tourist office, the young woman in charge explains to me that it was Patrimony who made the decision to close the church until the works were carried out (the bell tower, apparently, it expired), "which have been approved six or seven months ago although they have not started yet". So far, explains, Many Mexicans arrive attracted by the dimension of Cortés. "Most in favour", points out. Later, by contrast, other woman (It was not a morning for men in Medellin) He tells me, however, that the works in the church of San Martín have already finished. She does set a date while it has been closed: about seven years, calculate, then "in 2007 I baptized my son there and it was still open».

The birthplace of the conqueror was demolished to build the square that bears his name. bitter paradox

The battery, at least, there (the eso seems). Worse luck befell the house of the Cortés. late 19th century, the demolitions that were carried out to gain ground to the current Hernan Cortes square, they also finished with the house in which the conqueror was born, bitter paradox. Only a few foundations remain, covered by a glass window next to a stone tombstone that reads: “Here was the room where Hernán Cortés was born in 1485”.

A step, the statue of the conqueror of the aztec empire, work of Eduardo Barron, erected in 1890 perhaps in reparation for having condemned the pickaxe to the family home. on the pedestal, in addition to the Cortés coat of arms, four names that are living history of that epic: Tabasco, Tlaxcala, Otumba and Mexico. And one, who has seen with sadness the niche in which the remains of the conqueror rest in the Mexican capital, he is proud that at least his hometown has not forgotten him and honors his memory, with its flaws and its undoubted achievements, five centuries later.

The court museum of the castle is a small room from which coats of arms hang, replica weapons and withered portraits of conquerors

A visit to Medellin is not complete without getting on the castle, since the 14th century the symbol of the municipality. The entrance costs two euros and only the views from the homage tower and the north tower already reward the effort of climbing on foot to the top of the hill.. In the second a courtesian museum is announced, pompous name for a small room whose walls hang coats of arms, replica weapons of the time (some idiot had the idea of ​​stealing a dagger) and withered portraits of conquerors. Hernán Cortés deserves a much more worthy museum in his hometown.

The countess of Medellin ordered her son to be locked up in her dungeons, Beatrice Pacheco, firm defender of Juana "La Beltraneja" against Isabel la Católica. Juan Portocarrero was imprisoned for five years between these walls for disputing his mother for the title after his father's death., Rodrigo de Portocarrero. the nobles, in those times, they didn't hang out with little girls. They say that in this captivity he was inspired Calderon de la Barca to give life to Segismundo in "Life is a dream".

Beatriz de Pacheco ordered her son to be imprisoned for five years in her dungeons for disputing the marquisate of Medellin.

back to town, you stumble upon the remains of the ancient roman theater Metellino, a fairly recent excavation that has only been open to the public for a few years and that allows one to get an idea of ​​the importance of this enclave in Roman times, in the middle of the route of the roads that linked Mérida with Zaragoza and Córdoba.

Also Roman was the bridge that crossed the Guadiana, but the current, as noted, it is baroque (This is attested to by a commemorative temple with the Habsburg coat of arms in the middle of its route.). The neighbors look for their shadows under the openings on hot afternoons and there they improvise by having a snack in the coolness of the stone. In front of it opens what is known as "Medellín beach", a large recreational space on the banks of the Guadiana river that in summer is a meeting point for swimmers and where couples often go to photograph themselves on its banks with the bridge and the imposing silhouette of the castle behind them.

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