Ribadavia

From the medieval García Boente square access can be gained to the rear of the Museum of Ethnology from where you can behold the beautiful landscape of Avia and its riverside walk along with the Burgo Bridge from the 12th -19th century Convent of San Francisco from 1610 and the Ponte de Ferro (Iron Bridge) from the 19th century.

Backing onto Magdalena square, Buxán square forms a spacious vantage point based on the same wall. As you look towards the river on the left you can see the False Gate or Wicket Gate, one of the three which are conserved of the five which existed at the medieval fortification and connecting the site inside the walls with the river Avia and the old mill; the other two are Nova gate, which appears further on in the route, and the Cerca (fence) gate opposite the avenue in the vicinity of the castle.

Without a shadow of a doubt the Castle of the Counts of Ribadavia played a decisive role in the history of Galicia as it was one of its largest medieval fortresses. Despite the passage of centuries, the castle still gracefully portrays a vital part of the town´s history. Erected on the previous church and tower of San Xés – as we are reminded by the necropolis included and dated between the 9th and 12th centuries – the castle was built in the 15th century as a symbol of the power of the Sarmiento, the Lords of Ribadavia.

From the vantage point of the chimney, to the south you can see the mouth of the River Avia in the Miño and to the west, in the upper part, the magnificent set of monuments of St. Dominic´s from the 13th-15th-19th centuries. To the North there is a panoramic view of the town with the spacious valley of Avia.

Thanks to the last restoration undertaken, the castle has now opened up new spaces which reveal the internal organisation, the different construction levels for defence and leisure which the fortress possessed, highlighting the remains of the former Tower of San Xés, the water tank, the wineries and the remains of the vegetable garden and flower garden.

The coat-of-arms with thirteen roundels, spread throughout the settlement, is the best testimony to the age-old link between the Lords of Ribadavia and the town whose greatest symbol ceased to be the castle a from the 17th century when the house is moved to the Plaza Mayor palace.

The church of San Xoan from the 12th century, erected by the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in Romanesque style, boasts, amongst its abundant decoration, a symbolic star of Solomon as a homage by the New Testament to its very origins in the elements of the Old Testament.

The Knights of the Order set up a hospital to look after the numerous pilgrims who, at that time, following the «way» from Braga (Portugal), went to visit the tomb of the Apostle St. James. Part of the building of the former hospital worked until the 16th century. The rectory, annexed to the church at the back, is endowed with an entry arch in which the 8-pointed cross can be seen (a symbol of the order).

On Santiago street, as well as the confectioner of As Nisas, specialised in macaroons, iced buns and Jewish sweets, thee lies the Church of St. James, a fine example of Galician romanesque from the 12th century in its transition to the Gothic, with a Baroque tower, which was the oldest parish church in Ribadavia. The whole building stands out for its decorative and artistic richness as well as the arches and the façade of noble proportions with a beautiful rose window with 24 holes.

Inside, there are numerous Baroque images to behold of great artistic value and worthy of special mention is a stone 14th century Seated St. James from the Master Mateo school.

The existence of the aljamasynagogue is documented at Xudería street which some authors, such as María Gloria de Antonio Rubio in her book Judíos y Inquisición en Ribadavia (Jews and the Inquisition in Ribadavia) identify at the corner of the current streets of Merelles caula and San Martiño, though others like José Ramón Estévez place it further on at Magdalena square.

In the specific case of Ribadavia the synagogue was called Torah. The replacement of the term synagogue with Torah can probably be put down to the fact that the latter was the name of the text read during the religious ceremonies held there. To specify its exact location within the Jewish district we must look at documentation about the sale of a house which had previously been two houses in Cruz street or Xudería street and which forms a corner on the left, coming down from this street to San Martin street.

In this purchase and sale document, when talking about the boundaries of the property, a house is mentioned which formed a corner between San Martín street and Juderia street and another which was joined to the former top part. The latter is said to be the Torah of the Jews at the time when they lived in said town. According to this historic evidence, the synagogue of Ribadavia was situated in the house nearest the Main square of the two which formed the corner between San Martín street and Juderia street, going down to the Magdalena church on the left-hand side of the street.

At Herminia´s Bakery, Herminia bakes typical Jewish pastas according to traditional recipes: Bocadiños de améndoas (made from almond and cinnamon), kamisch-broit (made from walnuts or almonds), mamul (with dried fruits, poppy petals and orange blossom water), ma'amul (dates cream and rose water), ghorayebah (whole hazelnut flour), mostachudos (walnuts and clove), bocadiños de dates (dates and nuts), kupferlin (almond wholemeal flour), kijelej de mon (poppy seeds), masiñas de poppies (poppy sedes and vanilla flavouring) and cardamom (almonds and cardamom) are her main specialities, along with tasty doughnuts in the form of the Star of David and other details.

Some of the ingredients are imported directly from Israel. Herminia explains that visitors to her bakery from all over Europe recognise that today it is the only establishment where they have been able to find certain biscuit specialities made according to the typical Jewish recipe.

Herminia started making them a few years ago on the occasion of the Festa da Historia and the locals and visitors liked them so much that she decided to keep making them until today.

At the corner of Jerusalén street with San Martiño street there lies the house of the Inquisition, a fortified, 16th century palace with a beautiful Renaissance courtyard inside which, on its façade, over the door, boasts the coats-of-arms of the families of the Holy Office who settled here such as the Puga, the García Gamba, the Baamonde and the Mosquera-Sandoval, as well as the actual coat-of-arms of the Inquisition with its cross converted into a sword.

The case of the Crypto-Jews of Ribadavia serves as one of the best illustrations of the resistance of many Spanish Jews to the expulsion of 1492, giving rise to the phenomenon of the converts which shook Spanish society in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The main square is the site of the palace of the Counts of Ribadavia, a beautiful 17th century building today housing the Tourist Office where information is provided about the town and its borough, the Jewish Information Centre of Galicia and the Court. The palace – whose gateway boasts the great family coat-of-arms of the Sarmiento – is organised around two courtyards and during its rehabilitation it has incorporated into its rich architectonic heritage new elements related with its purpose as an interpretation centre about the Jewish world, including a fountain which drains off rainwater and evokes its used for the ritual bath of the Jews or Mikveh .

The Jewish Information Centre of Galicia is located on the upper floor of the Tourist Office and it has some interesting pieces on show such as the Jewish wedding suit used at the History Festival, the menorah engraved in a stone of the Tui cathedral, the reproduction of the sanbenitos with the St. Andrew´s cross which were hung on the walls of the churches or the tomb headstone from the 10th-11th centuries X-XI from La Coruña which accompany a series of panels illustrating the history and the main idiosyncrasies of the Galician Jewish communities.

In one of its rooms the Jewish Information Centre of Galicia has set up a digital system for consulting, page by page, the famous Kennicoty Bible, the most important Religious Jewish manuscript throughout the Middle Ages in Galicia and whose original is kept in Oxford.

Dated in La Coruña in 1476, it comprises 922 pages written in the beautiful Hebrew of Moses ibn Zabarah, 238 of them exquisitely illustrated by Josef ibn Hayyim and in 1771 it was acquired in England by Benjamin Kennicott, who lent it his name.

Xudería street widens to give way to the colonnades of Magdalena square, a crossroads also incorporating the confluence of the streets of Porta Nova de Arriba, San Martiño and Santiago, as well as the neighbouring Buxán square. The Magdalena church from the 18th century lends it name to this square situated right in the heart of the Jewish district, occupying the place where the church of San Xés stood previously in the 12th century after abandoning the environment of Ribadavia castle. Currently desacralized, it is a beautiful space for staging events and cultural acts.

This is the only State-run museum on this theme and managed by the Regional Government of Galicia. It is located in the former palace of the Marquesses of Baamonde and combines the remodelling of the spaces and collections with the setting up of displays and exhibitions to which end it has the collaboration of the Association of Friends of the Museum of Ethnology and the Historical Site of Ribadavia. It has an important collection of documents, ethnographic collections form the province of Ourense; includes the theme of wine production and a relevant library specialized in the ethno historical anthropological field.

The Baroque palace of the counts of Ribadavia belonged to the Sarmiento family which settled in this town when it as granted the Manor House of Ribadavia and the title of Military Governors of the Kingdom of Galicia in 1375 by King Enrique II. The Samiento were given the title of Counts of Ribadavia by the Catholic Monarchs in 1476, a title which was lost in 1934 when the 18th Count Don Ignacio Fenández de Henestrosa e Gayosos dos Covos passed away.

The palace is a beautiful Baroque piece with two courtyards, one of which has distribution to different outbuildings, and the other porticoed. It also has an artistic balcony and a vantage point over the River Miño. It has other balconies of great beauty and numerous coats-of-arms of the Sarmiento. Also worthy of note in its interior is the small, vaulted building of the former archive of the counts of Ribadavia.

It currently houses the tourism office as well as the Jewish Interpretation Centre of Galicia with a permanent exhibition where the visitor can understand the history of the Galician Jews since their expulsion.

At the end of Porta Nova de Abaixo street lies the Nova gate arch which conserves part of its crenelated profile and allows access from the town to the river Miño via Camiño Baixada a Barca. This is where the southern limit of the Jewish district is located.

According to some authors, the wall was already protecting the town in the 12th century, expanding between the 14th and 15th centuries. Its demolition commenced in 1832 and owing to economic difficulties it was never totally finished.

Porta Nova de Abaixo street, which runs parallel to the wall, marking its wall-walks, is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful in the Jewish quarter. In the rhythmic, harmonic set of houses going to make up the street are also small tiles like that of the house at number 10 which ratifies the Sephardi connection of Ribadavia or the Star of David which at number 27 in a popular pretty house which reveals the original street level and boasts a wooden balcony.

From the Nova gate arch, Porta Nova de Arriba street goes back into the Jewish quarter, without losing any of the enclosed, medieval atmosphere of the whole. Where the street crosses with the Travesía de Porta Nova there is the A Tafona da Herminia (Herminia´s Baker), an oven specialising in Sephardi sweets where there is no lack of traditional objects, bobbin lacework nor the chat of Herminia, the owner, one of the keenest defenders of the Jewish tradition in the town.

In times gone by also called Plaza Vieja (Old square) street or Cruz (Cross) street as a sign of the imposition of the Christian faith after the Jews had left, the current Xudería street starts at the main square and forms the central thoroughfare of the old Jewish district.

The flagstone on the street and the prevalence of the stones on the houses help to lend the route a strongly medieval tone, also aided by the craft shops whose displays highlight different Jewish ornamental elements.

Although the first documentary evidence about the existence of Jews in Ribadavia does not appear until 1386, tradition relates the capital of the kingdom de Galicia in the 11th century with the first arrival of Jews in the town. The Jewish quarter must have been formed in around the 12th century, perhaps after the granting by Fernando II of the Royal Charter to the settlement in 1164. The works of Froissard, compiled by Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, include a chronicle of the taking of Ribadavia by the English led by the Duke of Lancaster in 1386, stating that the sackers took a great booty of gold and silver particularly in the houses of the Jews and assuring that the town had over fifteen hundred Jews (in other words, 1,500 Jews). This figure is undoubtedly an exaggeration as in Ribadavia there were never more than fifty Jewish families, equivalent to around two hundred people. What does not seem to be in doubt is that the Jews and Christians fought together against the English invader.

The Jewish district of Ribadavia still retains the medieval layout of its long, narrow roads, corners of streets and squares, porticoed by cantilevers and courtyards surrounded by façades where time seems to have stood still.

When King García I chose Ribadavia as the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia (1063-1065), the first Jews must have arrived in Ribadavia though we can say that the Jewish quarter formed around the 12th and 13th centuries, encouraged to do so both by the settlement of Jews since the 10th century in the neighbouring area of Celanova as by the presence of a powerful group of merchants in Ribadavia since the granting of the Royal Charter by Fernando II in 1164. Many Jews took charge of the management of the financial matters of the Manor and subsequently of the Count of Ribadavia, specializing in the administration of properties and rents and in various craft trades. They were also prominent as wine merchants.

The Jewish quarter extended between the main square and the medieval wall. Its centre was situated around Xudería (Jewish quarter) street which joins the main square to Madalena square. An ever present element in this Jewish quarter, continuing through the streets and the colonnades, is stone. The Jewish markets were located on the ground floors of the houses, thereby avoiding the sun from shining in for the convenience of customers and to preserve the foods. The balconies jut out prominently into the street to protect the ground floors from the rain; furthermore, flagstones were placed in front of their own doors to serve as platforms, raised a few centimetres above the street level so the ground humidity does not penetrate their premises.

Opposite the Counts´ palace there lies the Town hall, built between 1545-1555 as a corn exchange and place for Town council meetings. The tower ousts a beautiful wrought iron belltower, in addition to its sun dial from the 18th century, its wind-up clock from the 19th century and the representation of the old coat-of-arms of the town which recalls that the fame of Ribadavia preceded it all around the world thanks to the commercialisation of its wines throughout Europe and the new world between the 10th and 18th centuries.

In the 19th century the façade was renovated and the colonnades were covered, conserving today, of the old building, the tower formed by 3 overlaid bodies endowed with the old coats-of-arms of the town and the wind-up clock from 1902. Also worthy of note is the artistic, wrought iron belltower.

It was at the town hall that the wine-producing ordinances of Ribadavia were drawn up in the 16th century, the precursor in Spain to the current wine-growing designation of origin and recognized by the WIPO as the oldest wine-producing Designation of origin in Spain.