Documenting Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires since 2007
Month: January 2009
Unique among the thousands of plaques in Recoleta Cemetery, Angélica Blanco Granada wrote a poem about her own death. Only 19 years old when she passed away, there must have been ample warning of her demise since she wrote this 5 years earlier (translation follows):
¿No es la muerte, Señor, la libertad?
¿No es el umbral de tu divina gloria?
¿No es el paso, Señor, a mejor vida?
Pues entonces ¡Oh Dios! Por qué le temo
Y me asusta la idea de que venga?¿Es que acaso, Señor, no tengo fe?
¿Es que acaso me falta la certeza
De saber que es la gloria de tu presencia
Y temo y me tortura y no descansa
Este pavor intenso de morir?¡Es que soy muy cobarde, Señor mío!
La sola idea de sufrir me aterra
Y el pensamiento del dolor me espanta!Dadme fuerzas, Señor, dadme coraje
Para no tener miedo de la muerte
Y en el último instante de mi vida
Deciros ¡Oh Señor! entre sonrisas
Ya traspongo el umbral, ya estoy contigo.
Leave a CommentIs death not, Lord, liberty?
Is it not the threshold of Your divine glory?
Is it not the way, Lord, to better life?
Then, oh God, why do I fear it
And the idea of what will come scares me?Is it that, Lord, I have no faith?
Is it that I lack the fortitude
to know the glory of your presence
And I fear, it tortures me, & does not end
this intense terror of dying?I am such a coward, My Lord!
Just the idea of suffering terrifies me
And the thought of pain frightens me!Give me strength, Lord, give me courage
Not to be afraid of death
And in the last instant of my life
Proclaim, Oh Lord!, between smiles
I have passed the threshold, now I am with You.
Although described individually in this blog, symbols are most often found clustered together for maximum impact. The decorative urn above ornately combines three different symbols: an eternal flame, a winged hourglass & the Greek letters chi & rho.
Leave a CommentNeglected by ADACRE & in the process of moving temporarily to Australia, I removed my map for sale from the internet. If they didn’t need the assistance, so be it. Their less than lukewarm response did little to encourage further correspondence. But I still wanted to get the word out about the highlights of Recoleta Cemetery. So in the midst of packing, I began making a master map which I could use for any future project that came to mind.
It involved returning to the cemetery… a lot. During the first half of 2008 I went through 10,000+ photos, matched corresponding tombs to their locations & documented everything possible. I also wanted to maintain this blog while in Australia & had to plan for that. My apartment looked like a map explosion for several weeks:
Most visits involved correcting info & fine-tuning the previous map. Counting pavement tiles, confirming angles & filming videos to mark exact locations may not be fun, but the end result was worth it:
Stay tuned for the next release: a 20-page PDF handbook with information about the cemetery’s history, the most interesting family vaults (approximately 70 in an easy-to-follow route), symbolism, & the complete story of Eva Perón’s post-mortem travels.
With an expected release of March 2009, the handbook will be the most complete guide to Recoleta Cemetery available to date. I can’t wait to put the finishing touches on it. Purchasing the PDF will be like taking this blog along with you or having a guided visit with zero time constraints. Not focusing as much on Argentine history, but the best experience short of hiring me personally 🙂
Read the complete story in the following posts titled “map development”: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 & Part 7. Good news! The PDF guidebook is now available.
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