‘Bib Rambla Square, where they burned books … and men’

In the Plaza de Bib Rambla there is no memorial that remembers the burning of books, or pay tribute to the victims of the Inquisition. Two terrible events that are silenced by the municipal government. Only a poster remembers that Bib Rambla was a mandatory step in the processions of Corpus Christi and where bulls and reed games were held, but visitors leave the city without knowing two shocking episodes, which occurred in this emblematic square.

For this reason, Granada Open organizes every year the poetic-musical recital burns the memory, which we celebrate today in Bib-Rambla at 18.30, within the Book Fair of Granada. We try to repair this institutional forgetfulness and ask ourselves: what happened in this square, that the City Council intends to silence?

526 years ago, cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros reduced ashes in Bib-Rambla Square more than 5,000 books in the Madraza Library, by order of the Catholic Monarchs

The Bib-Rambla Square was the scene in 1499 of one of the most infamous attacks against culture. 526 years ago, Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros reduced ashes in Bib-Rambla Square more than 5,000 books in the Madraza Library, by order of the Catholic Monarchs. The sky of Granada was covered with smoke and oblivion. With this attack against culture, Cisneros began a campaign of repression against Granada Muslims and, from then on, the Moorish community had to choose between a forced and humiliating conversion or the tragedy of exile. Juan de Vallejo, who was an intimate friend of Cisneros and direct witness of the burning, made the first chronicle of that serious event: “To complete Honor took the Library of Alcalá de Henares. ” Although it is the chronicle of Alfaquí Barhum the one that best describes the despair of the Moors: “The situation became unsustainable when Cisneros, by mandate of the Queen, forced them to renegate their culture and faith. An edict ordered the delivery to the authority of all the Arabic books, threatening severe punishment to those who did not do it … thousands of books of the Koran A public square in Granada, in view of the whole world. “

A fraudulent decade

New research denies that Cisneros will act on their own and confirm the responsibility of the Catholic Monarchs in the burning of books

New research denies that Cisneros will act on their own and confirm the responsibility of the Catholic Monarchs in the burning of books. Juan Antonio Vilar, author of a fraudulent decade, tells us: “Granada remained in the hands of cisneros with real consent … Cisneros was willing to assume the damage that in their image produced the pressure on the Mudejares, while the kings, more maquiavelicos, preferred to stay away from the problem so that they did not splate. The mudéjares were abandoned to their fate by the kings. The definitive blow to the annoying capitulation of 1491 “. And Rodrigo de Zayas affirms in his book Los Moriscos and the racism of the State that Isabel and Fernando knew the Cisneros Plan to end the coexistence agreed with the Muslims: “The libraries and archives of the Nasrid kingdom were burned. Once their written memory was destroyed, they only had the oral transmission to preserve their historical identity …”. Later, they also forbade speaking in Arabic.

A specialist in the Spanish Inquisition, Joseph Martín Walker, says that the cardinal had the approval of Isabel and Fernando to carry out his perverse plan, destined to provoke the rebellion of the Moorish and justify the expulsion: “Cisneros-Walker’s affirms-requested permission from the monarchs to launch a policy of maximum hardness, making it burned in the square How many copies of the Qur’an fell into their hands. Unfortunately, Cisneros’s integrism was imposed on the tolerant Hernando of Talavera, the first archbishop of Granada, a supporter of convincing and not imposing, which came to translate an Arab Bible to facilitate conversion with the Moors.

Faith cars, terrible in its scarm hundred

The German poet Heinrich Heine was right, when he said: “Wherever burn books, they end up burning men.” This is confirmed by the historian of the UGR, Juan Manuel Barrios Rozúa, when he writes on the cars of faith that there was the Plaza de Bib-Rambla, in the 1593, 1595, 1653 and 1672: “In all of them there is news that they lifted bleachers and pulpites, placed awnings and a high cadalse was erected to which a cross was brought in procession; it constituted a very expensive celebration; He explains that only in cars with many defendants will opt for the Plaza Mayor to be able to host the crowd of curious and the large groups of representatives of all local institutions.

Professor Barrios Rozúa’s research is very precise and documented. For that reason, it is shocking

Professor Barrios Rozúa’s research is very precise and documented. For this reason, it is shuddering: “The car of faith held on May 30, 1672 was very spectacular in its scenography and terrible in its nausers. To immortalize its memory a description of the verse of the lawyer Juan de Puerta Castellanos was published. The process, one of the most numerous ever held in Granada, was directed against ninety people of Portuguese origin accused of Judaizers. From the Inquisition, he passed through the convent of Santo Domingo and concluded in the adorned Plaza de Bibarrambla, the car was celebrated, during which a 19 -year -old boy was burned alive for not repenting, five people who did retract were grabbing and other people who had died in jail or were escaped were burned in effigy. ”

For all these reasons, Granada open asks the City Council, to put at least one plaque to pay tribute to the burned books and the victims of the Inquisition. Citizens must become aware of those terrible events, marked by intolerance, so that they never repeat again.

Paco ViguerasCoordinator of Granada open.