Laura Ramirez |
Huelva (Spain) (EFE).- Santa Teresa de Calcutta, King Felipe VI, Richard Nixon or Antonio Machín have a connection unknown to many in the Museo del Rosario de Aroche (Huelva), to which, at some point, they donated a exemplary to collaborate with a unique space in the world, which is also a meeting point for religions.
Its promoter, back in the 1960s, was Paulino Díaz Alcaide, a resident of this municipality of around 3,000 inhabitants nestled in the heart of the Sierra de Aracena y Picos de Aroche Natural Park, in southern Spain.
Díaz Alcaide, who was an organist in the Parish Church for 61 years and a devotee of the daily prayer of the rosary, decided to collect these cords and wrote more than 5,000 letters asking for donations to people and institutions of the time, both national and international.
The museum was launched with some 1,200 rosaries
What was conceived as a private collection increased thanks to the responses to these letters, which is why in 1967 he decided to start the museum with some 1,200 rosaries, explains Luisi Maestre, guide of this space, to EFE.
Over the years, the death of its founder and the donation of the museum by his heirs to the Aroche City Council, made the space change that initial vocation and open up to other religions that also have rosaries as a prayer cord, such as the Buddhist, the Hindu, the Islamic and the Orthodox.
The current collection is around 3,000 rosaries
The abundance of donors, known and anonymous, and the expansion of religions allowed the collection to be around 3,000 rosaries today, with the addition of some 700 in the last year, with donations from all over the world, says Maestre. .
It contributes to this that the museum was included in the Guinness Book of Records in 1967, which boosted its worldwide promotion.
All of them can be seen in the Convento de la Cilla. There, in different showcases, the donations of these illustrious personalities are exhibited, accompanied by their photos and the letters they sent along with their rosaries.
Donations from illustrious people: from Nixon to Teresa of Calcutta
The list is extensive: Richard Nixon, the Princes of Monaco, Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain, Queen Fabiola of Belgium, Antonio Machín, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, the emeritus kings of Spain, Juan Carlos and Sofía, the current monarch, Felipe VI (when he was still Prince of Asturias), or Pope Francis and his three predecessors, among many others.
Those sent by Pope Francis and his predecessor, Benedict, are two of the most recent additions.
There is also space for those who did not manage to send rosaries, as is the case of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, founder of Opus Dei, exhibiting the response letter to the donation request in which he never included the cord.
The very uniqueness and relevance that these characters give to the museum and the presence of multiple religions increases if the materials of the exposed rosaries are observed, almost from “anyone you can imagine”, the guide specifies, such as wood, thread, seeds, fish bones , chicken or swordfish bones, resins or ceramics.
An extensive list that allows these laces to be shaped from the greatest simplicity to the most absolute complexity, with very careful details that elevate them to the category of authentic works of art.
