Documenting Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires since 2007
Author: Robert
Here’s a preview of things to come:
I know I’ve been promising this forever, but my life from February until now was spinning out of control. Only now do I have the time & energy to finish this project… hopefully making it part of something even larger. Stay tuned for that. Once a few design issues are resolved & the text revised, the only PDF guide to Recoleta Cemetery should be ready by mid-December consisting of approximately 20 to 25 pages.
Naturally it will have sections about history, symbolism, a walking route with descriptions of 70 tombs, the complete story of how Eva Perón finally came to rest there & a few urban myths… basically an abbreviated version of this blog to carry with you while inside:
Thanks for your patience!
Read the complete story in the following posts titled “map development”: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 & Part 6. Good news! The PDF guidebook is now available.
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Born in Buenos Aires in 1822, not only did Luis Saénz Peña have to choose sides during the difficult period of national organization under Rosas, but he also had to choose a career. His parents wanted a doctor in the family while he had a preference for law. Saénz Peña did both. Some of his illustrious classmates in med school were Guillermo Rawson & José María Bosch while he was accompanied in law school by Bernardo de Irigoyen & Rufino de Elizalde.
Only after the expulsion of Rosas did Saénz Peña come into the public eye. In 1860 he formed part of the Convención de Buenos Aires, responsible for a new draft of the constitution & firmly believed that BA should form part of the Argentine Confederation.
Twenty years later, Saénz Peña held a variety of provincial & national posts —too many to mention here— with the most important being a representative/diputado in the National Congress, then head of the Supreme Court. After the 1890 Revolution, he sided with Roca & Pellegrini… & as a result later became involved in a family scandal.
During 1892 presidential elections, the liberal UCR party thought Bartolomé Mitre would be a sure win while conservatives under Roca’s influence thought it best to continue to support Pellegrini. Some conservatives broke away from Roca & presented Roque Saénz Peña—the son of Luis—as their candidate. Intimidated by the change Roque would bring, Mitre, Pellegrini & Roca formed an alliance to present Luis Saénz Peña as their alliance candidate. Tricky, tricky.
Of course Roque would not run against his own father, so Luis became President. His term is known for modernizing the nation, but eventually Saénz Peña lost Roca’s support, faced a series of uprisings & eventually resigned to let his Vice-President José Evaristo Uriburu take over in 1895.
Leaving public life for good, Luis Saénz Peña quietly passed away in 1907… three years before his son became President. The tomb has been neglected for a long time but remains interesting for its history & a Biblical quote in Latin above the door from Job 19:25:
Leave a CommentScio enim quod redemptor meus vivit et in novissimo die de terra surrecturus sum.
I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
I’m not sure how many regular readers I have, but at least the people I write about don’t move very often!
I only spent a little over one month in Buenos Aires before leaving again for work; in fact, I’m posting this from the Basque Country. And since my mother passed away recently, there have been many things more pressing than maintaining this blog. Unfortunately she did not want a spot in Recoleta Cemetery… there goes my chance for a family plot 🙂
I’ll be back home in November, eagerly posting again. The frequency of posts may change, & the ultimate fate of this blog will be determined by the end of this year. Too much personal detail to discuss here, but I will likely be living in Lisbon (or maybe Madrid) by February 2010. Although I maintained this blog while living in Australia in 2008, it required a huge effort prior to the big move. I don’t see myself having time to do the same for Portugal. If work & personal matters allow for it, I’ll probably be away from Argentina for most of 2010.
Subscribe to the RSS feed to find out the latest. I enjoy writing this blog, researching details & documenting the cemetery’s continuing evolution. A lot remains to be done. But if life takes me elsewhere, it has to be for a reason…
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The tomb of Rufina Cambacérès underwent restoration in July 2008. She looks even more attractive than before now that the scaffolding has been removed.
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