Portal de Cartagena
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This Thursday was a day dedicated to the zoologist, explorer and scientist Marcos Jimenez de la Espada (1831-1898), an event organized on the occasion of the discovery and subsequent placement in the city of his bust by the area of ​​Culture and Heritage, which directed by Ricardo Segado.
'The adventure of rediscovering Jiménez de la Espada' was developed in the institute that bears his name, IES Jiménez de la Espada, in front of which the bust has been located.
The activity, which had a large capacity, was attended by the councilmen of the Government José López and the holder of the area, Ricardo Segado.
The career of the scientist from Cartagena was highlighted by the lectures of the scientific researcher and member of the Center for Human and Social Sciences of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) Leoncio López-Ocón, the historian and discoverer of the bust of Jiménez de la Espada, Diego Ortiz, as well as the historian, documentalist and official chronicler of Cartagena Luis Miguel Perez Adán.
The mayor of Archaeological Heritage showed his satisfaction for "carrying out a series of conferences on the life, work and work of this illustrious personage from the XIX century" and defined the conferences as "interesting to continue paying homage and learning" of the "ancestors" and the "most illustrious Carthaginians".
Diego Ortiz pointed out that his objective was to "make known" during his speech "to all Cartagena the reasons why a bust of Jiménez de la Espada was made in the day" and explain the process by which " to recover for the city of Cartagena a sculpture that is very important from the point of view of the person represented, as Marcos Jiménez de la Espada, as from the point of view of the author who made it, Lorenzo Coullaut Valera, who is one of the great Spanish sculptors of the early 19th century. "
"It is an opportunity for the Cartagena people to face Jiménez de la Espada, who can admire a work of art that comes to enrich the sculptural heritage of the city," added Ortiz.
Leoncio López-Ocón focused his presentation on the four stages in the process of knowledge Jiménez de la Espada, whom he described as an "illustrious Cartagena, who is a prominent naturalist and a very good Americanist historian."
In his lecture he spoke about his experiences in the Scientific Commission of the Pacific;
his stage as a student of the zoological collections he brought from South America and Central America and his concern for the scientific past of Spaniards who were interested in the American world;
his specialization as an American historian;
and the stage in which his work was recognized, which was mainly in two great moments of S. XX in which part of his work was recovered, in the 1920s and the Second Republic.
Luis Miguel Pérez Adán, for his part, glossed the youthful stage of the scientist, his beginnings in the city of Cartagena and the events that were organized in 1925 to pay homage.
"This afternoon what we do is pay a historical debt with an illustrious son of the city of Cartagena," he said.
NEW PUBLIC SPACE WITH THE BUST OF JIMÉNEZ DE LA ESPADA
It is worth remembering that the bust of Marcos Jiménez de la Espada is located on the islet that connects the Paseo Alfonso XIII with the Plaza de España, next to the institute of the same name, since last July 20;
an operation that was supervised by the councilman, Ricardo Segado, and the general coordinator of the area of ​​Sustainable Development, Jesus Giménez.
Thanks to this action, promoted by the areas of Sustainable Development and Culture and Heritage, citizens have a new public space where they can see the bust, installed on a pedestal, of the illustrious scientist from Cartagena.
In addition, the island has been expanded and banks have been set up for the rest and use of the neighbors.
With this initiative we continue to bet on the collective knowledge of the history of Cartagena, as well as its most illustrious children.
JIMENEZ OF THE SWORD
Marcos Jiménez de la Espada (Cartagena, 1831 - Madrid, 1898) was a Spanish scientist, zoologist, explorer and writer.
He is known for participating in the so-called Scientific Commission of the Pacific, the largest carried out by Spain in America after losing most of its colonies in this continent, traversed by Jiménez de la Espada and his companions between 1862 and 1865. The objective was to collect materials of zoological, botanical, geological and anthropological interest, destined to the Museum of Natural Sciences and the Botanical Garden of Madrid.
Returning to Spain in December 1865, Jiménez de la Espada rejoined his posts in the Museum of Natural Sciences and the University of Madrid.
For more than six years his work consisted of ordering and studying the zoological material collected in America and preparing the corresponding publications.
The effigy was sculpted in 1928 by Lorenzo Coullaut Valera, an Andalusian artist, and moved to Cartagena in 1936, after being exhibited at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid and the Botanical Garden, also in the capital.
With the beginning of the Civil War, the bust was left in the municipal facilities, losing its memory until today.
The image presented flaws, so it was restored by Pilar Vallalta.
It is noteworthy that it was already intended to place a bust in a public park in Cartagena in honor of the emblematic Cartagena Jiménez Marcos de la Espada circa 1925. Instead, this sculpture arrived in Cartagena, was forgotten and even lost the memory of the person represented.
Source: Ayuntamiento de Cartagena
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