STATUE
the statue in the Town Hall Square was unveiled in 1993. He is depicted in 14th century dress, standing with a book in his hand.
"Vinatea is today a symbolic figure for Valencians. The Cortes de Valencia have some awards named after him, the Alta Distinción Parlamentaria, the RACV offers others also named after Vinatea, and there is a statue of him in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento in the city, placed to replace the equestrian statue of Franco that existed in the same place."
PERSON
"Francesc de Vinatea, erroneously known as Guillem de Vinatea -Francisco de Vinatea or Guillermo de Vinatea in Castilian- (Morella, 1273 - Valencia, 1333) was a knight of the Kingdom of Valencia who held the position of jurat en cap (first juror) of the capital city of the kingdom. He opposed the feudalizing policy of Alfonso IV of Aragon, who intended to strongly endow the infant Ferdinand of Aragon, son of his second wife (Leonor, sister of Alfonso XI of Castile) to the detriment of the heir (the future Pedro the ceremonious). Faced with the alterations that arose, the king renounced his project.
He is also famous for a phrase that he would have addressed (according to some sources to Pedro, but possibly to King Alfonso himself), and which is considered an accurate formulation of the constitutional pactism of the Crown of Aragon in terms of its limitation of the power of the kings, which made the formation of an authoritarian monarchy impossible:
each one of us is as much as you, but all together much more than you.
Son of a military man under the orders of James I, Francisco de Vinatea studied law in Valencia.
He marched to Valencia from Morella to surrender himself to justice. He was judged and acquitted by Jaime II. Shortly thereafter he returned to Morella and transferred the lordship of Todolella to his daughter Francesqueta.
Vinatea returned to Valencia where he remarried, this time to Jaumeta Castella.
In May 1333 he was elected juror, a position he soon had to exercise in the circumstances that would make him famous.
Defense of the Fueros of Valencia
According to the Chronicle of Pedro el Ceremonioso, King Alfonso had decided to divide the kingdom, something that was forbidden by the Fueros of the Kingdom of Valencia. The various towns affected asked for help from the juries of Cap i Casal (the capital), who elected Vinatea as their representative to undo the counter-fuero.
According to the chronicle, Vinatea stated:
“I will venture to raise the issue before the King and I will not beg for my life and if the King kills me, I will die for loyalty, so if I venture, you, the other jurors, may well accompany me”.
And, already before the King, he pronounced the following speech:
'I marvel at the Lord King and all his Council, at the donations he has consented to, when he could not separate the said villas from the Kingdom of Valencia, if he did so Valencia would be nothing; but they would not consent to the said donations, they would contradict them and that he marveled at him and his Council and called them traitors.
...
We will not change our minds, even if he separates my head from my neck, or kills us all, and I promise you sir that if I die none of these who are here will escape, they will all die by the sword and you sir and the queen and the Infante Don Fernando.
After this, the king rebuked the queen: “Do you want to hear these words?”; and she replied: “Sir, this would not be allowed by King Alfonso of Castile, our brother, because he would slit their throats”; sentencing Alfonso:
queen, queen, our people are free, and are not subjugated like the people of Castile, because they have me as Lord and we have them as good vassals and companions.
The king revoked the partition, although recent studies indicate that Vinatea died -coincidentally?- a few months after this historical episode.
Vindication of the figure of Vinatea
Already in the 19th century, the figure of Vinatea was vindicated in a play by Joan Llonín Los jurados de Valencia, or the heroic Vinatea, premiered in Barcelona in 1821, and in a history painting by Emilio Sala, which won the first medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1878. In 1958 Ramón Stolz incorporated a similar scene in the murals of the Sala de los Fueros of the Valencia City Hall. In 1974, an opera on the same subject by Matilde Salvador, with libretto by Xavier Casp, was premiered."
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