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Month: July 2019

547. historic photo 12

Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Mejoras en la Capital de la República Argentina 1880-85, Foto-Lito, E. Halitzki

In this case: historic photos, plural. When this blog began in 2007, very little historical information about Recoleta Cemetery could be found online. Facebook was a new thing, bloggers dominated the internet & archives still had to be visited in person. But times change & thankfully so. Chatting with this blog’s co-author, Marcelo told me he’d seen a photo of Recoleta Cemetery on Facebook that was completely unknown to him. My response: Really??? No way! We’ve been though so many sources over the past 12 years that it seemed impossible, but our conversation sparked an entire afternoon of investigation. Here’s what we uncovered…

Mauricio V. Genta works for the Bibliotecas de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires scanning books & photo albums in the city’s collection. All scans are uploaded to Wikimedia Commons since the books are now in public domain. Marcelo talked with Mauricio & directed me to a Wikimedia photo album (Mejoras en la Capital de la República Argentina 1880-85) with three “new” photos of the cemetery! All were taken in 1885 by E. Halitzki for a studio named Foto-Lito at Tacuari 82 in Buenos Aires. Smaller versions below are linked to the original in Wikimedia Commons if you’d like a closer look.


Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Mejoras en la Capital de la República Argentina 1880-85, Foto-Lito, E. Halitzki

#1 · What I love about this image is the amazing detail of the symbols above the entrance gate. Such beautiful background decoration for the scissors & knife & the Greek letters X & P! (see below) The entrance gate dates from 1881, so this may be the earliest photo of it in existence!

Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Mejoras en la Capital de la República Argentina 1880-85, Foto-Lito, E. Halitzki

Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Mejoras en la Capital de la República Argentina 1880-85, Foto-Lito, E. Halitzki

#2 · This was the image that started our conversation due to some confusion about what appeared in the background. At low resolution, there seems to be another gate at the far end of the central walkway. That would be odd since neither Marcelo nor I had heard about that. Some people on Facebook even doubted that this was Recoleta Cemetery, but the tomb of Quiroga on the left is unmistakable.

Again, with higher resolution, the answer is clear. A mausoleum surrounded by a wrought-iron gate sits in the spot occupied now by Carlos Pellegrini & Pedro Aramburu. Who did they replace? We’ll have to look in the records to find out since the name is unreadable. I love that it’s the first time we’ve seen this mausoleum though!

Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Mejoras en la Capital de la República Argentina 1880-85, Foto-Lito, E. Halitzki

Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Mejoras en la Capital de la República Argentina 1880-85, Foto-Lito, E. Halitzki

#3 · This section of niches exists today, but in a highly modified form. A dual gallery once sat alongside the Basilica del Pilar, as seen in the photos I obtained from the Archivo General de la Nación in 2008 (below). Unfortunately no date was available for the following photo, but the niches survived for some time:

Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Archivo General de la Nación
Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Archivo General de la Nación

Today only a single wall exists; most of this elevated space has since been repurposed for mausoleums. But back to the original photo… we never knew these niches once had their own gate! Its decoration uses the same molds as the entrance gate, so this was likely designed by architect Juan Buschiazzo as well. Only a theory for now but exciting to think about!

Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Mejoras en la Capital de la República Argentina 1880-85, Foto-Lito, E. Halitzki

Thanks to Mauricio for his dedication & allowing us to see Recoleta Cemetery as it was 140 years ago!

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546. rodolfo moreno

Buenos Aires, Recoleta Cemetery, Rodolfo Moreno

Born in 1879 in Buenos Aires to dual immigrant parents —his father from Chile, his mother from Brazil— Rodolfo Moreno received a doctorate in law at the age of 21. Afterwards he taught civil & criminal law classes at universities in both La Plata & Buenos Aires… at the same time. A gift for writing allowed him opportunities direct a local newspaper as well as publish a 7-volume work about criminal law, his specialty.

Buenos Aires, Recoleta Cemetery, Rodolfo Moreno

Law in Argentina has often been a stepping stone into the political arena, & Moreno soon moved away from university teaching. In 1914, he became a minister in the provincial Buenos Aires government. For most of the 1920s, Moreno served as a representative (diputado) in Congress for the same province. And in the 1930s, he jumped around from position to position, but one of Moreno’s most interesting assignments was ambassador to Japan… in 1939 & 1940 just as World War II erupted. After the war, Moreno would publish a book about his experience there.

Buenos Aires, Recoleta Cemetery, Rodolfo Moreno

In the midst of electoral fraude scandals in the 1940s, Moreno became governor of Buenos Aires province for a little over a year. He even assigned Roberto Noble (of later Clarín fame) as one of his ministers. Moreno sought to take on Ramón Castillo for his conservative party’s nomination for President of Argentina but never got far. The volatile political climate of the 1940s forced Moreno to resign as governor in 1943, he left in exile to Uruguay the following year, then he returned to Argentina during the Perón era. But Moreno never served in political office again & passed away in Buenos Aires in 1953.

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