antonio cánovas del castillo - commemorative plaque
The Malaga City Council approved the motion to erect a plaque in honour of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo on 10th August 1897. Now, more than a century later, it was finally put in place
26.02.09 - 20:03 -
ANTONIO CÁNOVAS DEL CASTILLO. He was one of the most influential figures in Spanish politics in the second half of the 19th century.
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, having had so much success in politics in his day, must have been a patient man. But his patience would surely have been stretched to breaking point if he had been required to wait for his commemorative plaque to be erected on the wall of the Sessions Room in the Malaga City Hall. He would have been no stranger to the ‘mañana’ syndrome, but waiting for 111 years and six months after the motion to erect the plaque was approved might have been too much for Antonio. Would somebody please call the Guinness Book of Records.
Cánovas del Castillo had the bad grace to be assassinated on 8th August 1897 by an Italian anarchist in Mondragón, in the Basque Country, and two days later, the Malaga city fathers decided to honour the great Malaga-born poet, writer and statesman by erecting a plaque in his honour in the City Hall’s most distinguished room, the Sessions Room. That particular group of city fathers never got around to actually doing it.
Nor did the next group, or the next, and a total of 37 mayors came and went before the plaque was finally erected. In the end it was Francisco de la Torre who brought up the matter of the plaque once more. It was commissioned and the workmen moved in, and now it is in place on the wall to the left of the president’s chair. It was unveiled last week in the presence of the city council members and the descendents of the illustrious politician.
The assassination of the Prime Minister shocked the nation back in 1897, and the Malaga City Council decided to do three things in his honour. The first was to bury him in the Cathedral, the second was to erect a statue of him in the park, built on land he was responsible for having been reclaimed from the sea, and the third was to erect the plaque in the Town Hall.
Of the three decisions approved by the City Hall, the first was not done because his mortal remains found more illustrious ground in which to rest in Madrid. The second took until 1975 to be done, and the third and final decision took another 44 years to carry out. Antonio can now rest in peace.
