1636 - Fernando Pérez Pericón - Bella y Milagrosa Imagen
Fernando Pérez Pericón was both a poet and a publisher and is best known as the author of the poem - Descripción de Gibraltar, y de su Monte Llamado Calpe, celebrado en Divinas, y Humanas letras.
It was published in 1636 with licences, approvals and forwards by an endless list of people -Juan Espejo, Clerk to the Supreme Council of Castile, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, , a well know Spanish Dramatist and poet, Gaspar Davila, a Murcian dramatist and poet, Don Luis Pacheco de Narvaez, an authority on fencing, Juan Andrete, Governor to the count of Chinchon who was the Viceroy of Peru at the time and Juan Perez Pericon, the author's brother.
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Don Luis Pacheco de Narvaez
The following are excerpts taken from the poem. I have used modern spelling here and there to avoid needless explanations. Keeping to the spirit of the title of the poem the selection focuses on those parts which mention historically identifiable places on the Rock.
Descripción de la Muy Noble . . . Gibraltar
Pides Fénix que describa
De Gibraltar, y del Calpe
En verso su descripción,
Y a mi pluma no es fácil. . . .
Es capaz de mil vecinos
La población y las calles
Claras, anchas y espaciosas,
Niveladas con el arte. . .
Los soberbios edificios
Que a pesar del tiempo inestable,
Hoy vive, suben al Cielo,
Sirviéndole de pilares. . .
Hay Monasterio de Monjas
Y dos Conventos de Frailes,
Mercenarios, y Franciscanos,
Espejos de Santidades.
. . . y dos Conventos de Frailes - one of which , the first was the Franciscan Convent which became the official residence of the Governor of Gibraltar in 1728 and has remained so ever since. Above is an early 20th century photograph
The second Monastery is that of Nuestra Señora de la Merced which gave its name to La Calle de la Merced now Irish Town. Originally a hospital erected by Fray Juan Bernal - the personal confessor of Phillip II - it later became the White Friars Monastery and was home to the Mercenarios of the poem. These monks specialised in ransoming Christians who had been taken as slaves by Moorish pirates. After 1704 it became the residence of the Admiral of the Mediterranean fleet and was later converted into a series of apartments and storehouses for the Royal Navy. It was destroyed during the Great Siege but several walls and columns are still extant.
Mercenarios, or White friars, paying a ransom to release Christians captured by Barbary pirates ( Unknown )
De tres que hay Parroquiales,
Cuyos Templos son servidos
De virtuosos Capellanes. . .
Una Iglesia es la mayor - The Cathedral of Saint Mary the Crowned - as it probably was in the early 17th century.
De horrible obscuridades,
y de San Miquel hay una
Donde Euclides copio el arte . . .
Y de San Miquel hay una donde Euclides copio el arte.' Saint Michael's Cave ( 1830 - Arnout )
En la cima esta una torre,
Con un argos vigilante,
Tan previsto, y atento
Que no hay lince que lo iguale
Y si ya de Tetuán
Salen Moros, o de Anger,
De sus acciones es dueño
Sino de sus voluntades.
Con un ingenio de bolas,
Caracteres militares,
Señala hasta veinte leguas
Cuantas velas al mar salen.
Si son de Turcos o Moros,
De Flamencos, o Alemanes,
De Ingleses, o de Franceses,
O de los demás linajes.
Que toneladas el vaso,
Pocas mas, o menos hace,
Que artillería, y soldados,
Y a que rumbos se reparten . . .
El Marqués de Santa Cruz
Es de esta fuerza el Alcaide . . .
Con un ingenio de bolas - Signal Station, also known as el Hacho. Two hundred years later the British were still using the same early warning system (1860 A. Guesdon )
Aquí hace fin la Sierra:
Y luego son arenales,
Y a dos leguas crespos montes
De robles y alcornocales.
.jpg)
Aquí hace fin la Sierra, y luego son arenales - 'Sands' or the Neutral Ground to the north of the Rock ( 1740 - Williams from Skinner )
Tiene tres puertas muy grande,
Una sale al Medio día,
Si bien del Monte no sale.
Una sale al Medio día - South Port Gate, perhaps not all that different to what it might have been in the 11630s ( 1769 - William Test after Skinner )
La de la mar, a Occidente,
Y la de tierra, al Levante
Formando una, I, Pitágoras
Como esta, Y las dos calles.
Formando una, I, Pitágoras, Como esta, Y las dos calles. This very early 18th century map shows the Land Gate or Landport Gate as T and Water Gate or Waterport Gate as V. The streets leading into town from both seem to join and form a Y as referred to in the poem ( 1704 - Colonel D'Harcourt ) ( see LINK )
Transándolas va una cerca
De murallas y baluartes,
Casamatas, plataformas,
Trabetes, y contraescarpas.
Casamatas, plataformas, Trabetes, y contraescarpas. This old sketch predates the poem and shows the northern defences of the Rock. The walls and gates are still fundamentally Moorish. The gates, from left to right are the Puerta de Granada, no longer extant, the Puerta de España or Puerta de Tierra - Landport Gate - and on the far right the Water Gate leading to the Atarazana or Casemates Square.
De más y menos quintales,
Como conviene que sean,
A la defensa importantes.
Y ondeando a la Ciudad
Por la marina hacia el Tarfe,
Llega a la torre del Tuerto
Por la taza memorable.
De cinco esquinas la hechura,
Capaz para cien Infantes,
Y al pie della, un muelle nuevo,
Que entra cien bracas fondales. . .
Por la marina hacia el Tarfe - The word Tarfe comes from a similar Arab word for point, promontory or cape - Trafalgar comes from Tarfe-al gar - the point of the cave. There may have been two Tarfes Don Enrique de Guzman mentions the Tarfes de arriba, whereas Pedro Barrantes Maldonado places the Corral de Fez in the Tarfes Baixos 0r Bajos. Whether this distinguished between the heights of Windmill Hill and the flats of Europa Point itself is hard to tell. ( 1608 - Cristobal Rojas - Detail )
. . la torre del Tuerto . . De cinco esquinas la hechura. In this representation of the Battle of Gibraltar of 1607 the fort does seem to have at least five sides - but only on the top section. The tower was destroyed by an explosion during the takeover of the Rock in 1704. ( 1607 - Adam Willaers )
Y de San Juan una Ermita,
Y corto trecho delante
Otra que es de los Remedios,
Y misericordias Madre.
Y de San Juan una Ermita, y corto trecho delante, otra que es de los Remedios - Note also la Torre del Tuerto shown not as five sided but made up of two sections as in the previous picture ( 1608 - Cristobal Rojas ) ( see LINK )
Luego está el Templo de Europa
Bella y Milagrosa Imagen,
De la Ciudad Protectora,
Fanal de los naufragantes . .
Bella y Milagrosa Imagen - Nuestra Señora de Europa
La Cueva de las Palomas,
La Gruta de los Abades,
El Coral de Fez Frondoso,
Los Baños de los Agares. . . .
El Coral de Fez Frondoso - Ruins of an old Moorish Wall (1727 - Nicholls )
Contemporary writers such as Pedro Barrantes Maldonado and Alonso Hernandez del Portillo suggest that the Coral del Fez was an ancient Moorish town somewhere opposite what is today little Bay. Modern research suggests that the Coral is one and the same as the settlement of Mersa Ashajarah - Harbour of the Tree, which the 11th century Ceuta geographer Mohamed-eI-Isidri tells us was built in a bay below St. Michael's cave and by a landing place close to where the Spanish Torre del Tuerto would one day be built. If so the walls and gates of the Coral de Fez predate Medinat-al-fath or what is now known as the town of Gibraltar.
Haciendo en bruto esta suma.
Siendo así, que pide el Calpe,
Que su misterio Assumpto
El que le formó, lo cante.
FIN