Iberian Adventures by Ian Gibson

The book Iberian Adventures was published in English in May 2017.
If you love Spain and want to know more about this fascinating country I can recommend you to read this book, written by an Irishman who fell in love with Spain in the 50ties and has lived in Spain since 1978.

I specially enjoyed the chapters dedicated to the first english hispanists of Spain like Henry Swinburne, Richard Ford and Gerald Brenan and of course the American, Washington Irving.
And the ones which tell us more about the first inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula.
The book with this beautiful cover

Book Iberian Adventures by Ian Gibson

is full of anecdotes about the discoveries Gibson made in the museum of Archeology in Madrid and his visits to historic places all over the pensinsula.

Gibson likes etymology  of words and affirms that the word Hispania, the roman name for Spain, means Land of Rabbits, the name being given to Iberia by the people from Carthago (important city on the tunesian coast in times of the romans).

Also he is interested in the special devotion in the spanish culture of the Virgen Mary. He affirms that he thinks the reason of the importance of the Virgin is that religions before christianity had their own goddess of fertility being very important in iberian culture. Small sculptures of the Godess Astarté from fenician origin are to be seen as the ancestors of the virgen Mary.

Astarté, godess of fertility, accompanied by a goose and a duck

These and innumerable other details, also about the origins of El Quijote the world famous book of Cervantes can make you feel dazzled by the knowledge of Gibson.

Gibson also writes about Federico García Lorca,  Machado and about the lack of contact between Portugal and Spain. He dreams about a future of Spain and Portugal becoming a part of a Federal Iberian Republic.

About Catalunya he remarks the lack of willingness of Rajoy to discuss and listen to the Catalans and he writes about his own relation with the editorial Planeta.

In the last chapter called 'Love Spain, sad Spain' Gibson writes about the virtues and non virtues of Spain and the Spanish.
About the sun, many times implacable, the sociability of the people and the noise they produce, the look of the Spanish straightforward in the eyes ......

The book ends with reflections about the Law of Historic Memory which was approved during the government of President Zapatero and the way the judge Garzón was removed from his position and the fact that still many of the rests of the victims on republican side have not had a dignified burial.

Gibson also talks about the lack of sensitivity towards culture shown by the government, comparing how the 400 years of Shakespeare and Cervantes were celebrated in 2016. Gibson insists that schools should teach more arabic, latin and greek so that future generations are also able to understand their rich inheritance.  

Ian Gibson is also the author of: Winds of the south (Viento del Sur) and other books about Federico Garcia Lorca, Antonio Machado, Ruben Darío and Luis Buñuel.

Photo of the roman mosaic of Hyppolitus' house in Alcalá de Henares

Newly opened: Museum of Malaga in the ancient Customs Palace

Yesterday, 12 december 2016 was the long expected opening of the Museum of Malaga in the ancient Palace of Customs.
After nearly 20 years waiting finally the exquisite collection of fine arts and archeology of Malaga is on exhibition again for the public.

The palace contains over 17.000 pieces of which about 2.700 will be on exhibition. It comprises archeologal objects  from prehistory until the late eighties of the XXth century.

History
The superb neoclassical building of the Customs, with its palm trees poetically inclined towards the sun, forms a scenic triangle that crosses the most recognizable landmarks of the city, with the Alcazaba and the Cathedral as vertices. Perhaps for this reason it has been defended by the Malagueños, who not only perceive the imposing architecture, but also identify it as one of the few immutable corners of the capital.

Also, its old function, the one of building of customs, retrotrae to the neighbors to century XIX. It was then that the province reverberated throughout Europe as a thriving industrial center, when the alleys were changed by avenues and the more media fortunes of Malaga history - the Loring, the Larios, the Heredia - were amassed. This was the reason that it was necessary to build a palace on the seashore to administer prosperous commerce with the Americas.

Artists
Precisely at that time flourished in the city the plastic arts thanks to authors like Jose Gartner, Emilio Ocón, Bernardo Ferrándiz, Jose Denis Belgrano, Fernando Labrada, Antonio Muñoz Degrain, Jose Moreno Carbonero, Jose Nogales or Enrique Simonet.. These artist now have a privileged space in the new gallery. In this way, the collection of the Museum of Malaga links almost symbiotically with the building that contains it, with that time in which the waves caressed the stairs of the Customs.

Opening times:
The Museum of Malaga will be open from Tuesday till  Saturday, every day from 9:00 till 20:00, and on Sunday from 9:00 till 15:30.
The entrance fee is free for European citizens.
And the patio on the main floor will be open for everybody.
For visitors from outside the EU the entrance fee is 1,50€.