BESAMANOS a Fenando el Católico por los vizcaínos en 1476

BESAMANOS a Fenando el Católico por los vizcaínos en 1476

EN_Datos de la obra

Location of work Gernika Assembly Hall

Year:

1609

Material:

Óleo sobre lienzo

Measures:

1.58 X 300

This painting shows the location where the Council meetings were originally held. It is also valuable ethnographic evidence of what the people of Biscay wore at the time.

The swearing of allegiance to the Charters, Dispensations (Franquezas) and Freedoms (Libertades) granted to the people of Biscay by King Fernando V, the Catholic, took place on 30 July 1476 in the church of Santa María La Antigua in Guernica. The king then left the church and sat under the Tree on a stone seat covered by a brocade for the ceremony of royal audience in which all the representatives of the nobility paid him homage and fealty, followed by the mayors of the towns and of the parish churches of Biscay. In the allegorical interpretation of Francisco de Mendieta (reliable in many aspects) the elected officials of the municipalities of Biscay who attended the ceremony appear replaced by women who represent each of the towns by their distinctive headdresses. This is the first time in the history of European art that women are visible, even if only symbolically, in the representation of a political event.