SIMON BOLIBAR MUSEUM

Simon Bolibar Museum is placed in the former Errementarikua farmhouse, a traditional place linked to the forefathers of the Liberator, and being more precise to Simón Bolivar "the Old", who left for America, to Santo Domingo, around the middle of the 16^th centurty searching for fortune. Next generation finds itself in Caracas, Venezuela, where was born the man, who planned the liberation of the wished Gran Colombia (nowadays: Panama, Bolivia, Ecuador, Perú, Venezuela and Colombia itself).

The inheritance of the Liberator comes to his ancestral home thanks to the collaboration of the Venezuelan Government, that subsidized in the 50s. the building of the school in Bolibar, the fronton and the bust, placed at the entrance of the Museum.

Once the buiding was restored, the Museum was opened to the public on 24.7.1983, on the day that the 200 hundred-year birthday of Simon Bolivar was celebrated. It contains mainly collections about Bolibar history and Etnography. This latter has recently been extended, adding more interesting aspects to the Museum. The neighbouring area of Cenarruza is part of the elements around this place with religious meaning.

The documents about Simon Bolibar gather information about Puebla de Bolibar, sites linked to the forefathers of Simon Bolibar as well as biographical data, genealogy and family coats of arms. We can also have information about the colonial Caracas and the house where the Liberator was born; the landscape of the Independence; and about Manuela Sanz; up to the death of Simon Bolibar.

Translated by Amy

BOLIBAR AND CENARRUZA

Puebla de Bolibar and the neighbouring religious area of Cenarruza belong to Markina, on the East side of Oiz mountain.

Cenarruza is one of the oldest rural-religious sites in the Province; and Bolibar, a small village and family background of the historical leader of the American Independence.

Tradition says that this church was founded in the 10^th century. A leyend asures that on the Ascension day in 968, people were gathered in the church of Saint Lucia of Garai, in Gerrikaitz, attending to mass, when an eagle took a skull from a body buried in that church, and carried it in his talons to the place of Cenarruza. This leyend remains engraved both in the coat of arms and in the oficial stamp of Cenarruza.

From its foundation on, in order to access to this place, one had to walk up along a steep way, starting in Puebla de Bolibar, ending on the eastern side of the religious building. At the beginning of the century, after building the present road, that Way got hidden among the grass and left apart. But in 1982, it was rediscovered and restaured.

The Bishop of Calahorra, D. Gonzalo de Mena, rebuilt and enlarged the church of Cenarruza He also wrote in 1380, the constitutions for Cenarruza.

Up to 1994 Cenarruza was named: Collegiate Church. ( A Collegiate Church is a church, that is not a see of a bishop and is ruled by an abbot that could be a layman and a school of lay canons. The liturgical services are celebrated in similar way as in the Cathedrals).

From 1994 on, Cenarruza becomes a Monastery. This new name is due to the coming of Cistercian monks from the La Oliva, Navarra and the new interventions carried out around the site.

At the present, Cenarruza is declared Basque National Monument.

The church is a building on masonry and rough stone that consists on a single nave with a polygonal apse with five sides. The cross ribs on the ceiling have ogival stile (gothic).

The entrance gate to the temple can be dated around 1500. Nevertheless, the iconography on the tympanum: the Savior sat between two angels musicians is quite ancient. It is probably the oldest element in the building.

The main altarpiece is from the 16^th century, in plateresque style. Next to the altarpiece, the visitor may see a small door that leads to the chapterhouse. It is attached t the central wall of the apse. It has a rectangular plan with ribbed vault. Two baroque altarpieces are placed on both sides of the main altar.

The portico was built by Pedro de Orma in 1561. The floor was covered by flagstones and tombstones, some of them with inscriptions.

The cloister is renacentist, with square plan, divided into four streches by plain columns with atica base. In the first section we find four round arches and another lowered ones in the second. Fleur-de-lis crosses and pilgrim shells are engraved on the joining sides.

Text: Ana Arriaga
Copyright: Simon Bolibar Museum
Photographs: J.M.
Translated by Amy

SIMON BOLIVAR. BIOGRAPHY