The birthday of a looting - Betanzos, A Coruña,, Galicia, España
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Ariberna
N 43° 16.916 W 008° 12.667
29T E 564005 N 4792425
The theft of the Santa María carvings shocked Betanzos in October 1981. Thirty years later, there are still three figures to be recovered.
Waymark Code: WM14H09
Location: Galicia, Spain
Date Posted: 07/07/2021
Views: 1
There are anniversaries that sting. Days that are recorded in the biography of a city. Events that shrink the hearts of all its inhabitants. Betanzos this month remembers the 30th anniversary of one of those black episodes, the disappearance of the 15th century Gothic-Flemish sculptural groups from the Santa María del Azogue altarpiece. That mobilized all civil and political society, placed Betanzos on the international map for his condition as a victim of looting and united the population with the same objective: the recovery of the valuable carvings.
Despite the nebula generated by the passage of three decades, most witnesses do not forget the meteorological circumstances of that Thursday. "It was a doggy day, rainy, cold and windy," they agree. José Fernández was then the head of the Municipal Police. He remembers that a neighbor warned him when he saw the side door of the church "badly peeled." "When the temple was still working, it was unha mañá de feira," Fernández points out; It is the same as the notice to or cure ». And also the mayor, Vicente de la Fuente, who set up a crisis cabinet. "We immediately got to work," says the first Brigantine councilor of Democracy. Only one month after the theft, De la Fuente allocated 125,000 pesetas from the municipal coffers to defray the expenses of the commission created for the recovery of the carvings. Among the measures taken, the commission made a Christmas postcard with images of the altarpiece and a legend to help: «All these carvings were stolen [...]. Information on his whereabouts is appreciated. ' Far away, Erik the Belgian was going through the stolen material. In those years, the plunder of him in the national patrimony led the security forces to tighten the siege on him. He was captured in 1982. He did not take long to collaborate to recover everything stolen, and little by little almost all the carvings returned to the church of Santa María del Azogue.
Ringing of bells
In February of that year, the first pieces were recovered, a delivery that was staged among the highest levels, with the presence of the Minister of the Interior, Juan José Rosón, and the Archbishop of Santiago, Ángel Suquía. As the months passed, the recovery was almost complete and on Christmas Eve 1985 all the bells of Betanzos rang to celebrate the arrival and restoration of the last carvings. However, the Annunciation group, in addition to the Visitation half, has yet to appear.
The Interior Minister attended the delivery of the first recovered pieces.
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