Art, Travel and Culture: Serón de Nágima, blue sky and red earth

'The peculiar charm of this old palace of fantasy lies in the ability to awaken vague dreams ...'
[Washington Irving (1)]

It affirmed Paul Elouard, French philosopher, that there are other worlds, but they are in this one. A phrase that, as one might say vulgarly, comes to mind when visiting a place like the picturesque Soria population of Serón de Nágima, approximately eleven kilometers from Fuentelmonje and six kilometers from Morón de Almazán.

On the other hand, and unavoidable for a traveler, it must be the question of trying to describe, at least in part and in a notoriously romantic way - Irving's insights, may be an excellent review to begin to do - the genuine feeling that is experienced to haunt the doors of another world, as you get closer to a place where it predominates, with a chromaticism of course special, the bloody color of the earth; a similar color, comparatively speaking, to the vital liquid that springs from the open wound in the thigh of that enigmatic saintly pilgrim who has for Patron: San Roque.

There was a time when the name of the town, Seron to dry-according to some, would have a possible Latin origin, deriving from the words serione or serone-was added to Nágima, then, circumstances, I suppose, of the irrepressible human nomadism, used to confused with those other serons that, apparently, also exist in the sunny provinces of Seville and Almeria.

And in addition, once arrived at this point, it might not be unreasonable to mention the extraordinary phonetic similarity that exists between Nágima and the proper name of the emblematic Sierra Jaen, famous, among other things, for the excellent quality of its oil and also for constituting the home, according to the legends, of the fantastic and at the same time dangerous juancaballo: the Sierra de Mágina.

As in the case of the nearby town of Morón de Almazán, the historical ups and downs are wide and varied, making Serón de Nágima also have some relevance throughout different periods.

The best example of this, they constitute, I do not doubt, the few canvases of stone and sandstone that make up the remains of their peculiar castle. A castle, which illustrates one of the few examples - its vision would have been impressive, if it had not been dynamited by the French in the War of Independence - that currently exists of military architecture of Mudejar-Berber origin, and that it remembers, as soon as they visualize from the highway or ascending the naked hill on which they settle, those typical constructions of the north of Africa whose vision, worth the redundancy, seems the prolongation of that desert zone where they are located.

Observing them, I can not help but remember that other phrase from Washington Irving, who, referring to the inhabitants of the Alhambra, wrote: I have often observed that the more opulent the inhabitants of a mansion have been in the days of their prosperity, more humble they are in those of their decadence, and that often the palace of a king ends up being asylum of a beggar (2).

In this imaginary asylum of beggars, and from this position eternally beaten by the wind, one can see an impressive panoramic view of the town as a whole. A group that clusters jealously around the respectable framework of its Gothic church constituted under the protection or invocation of Nª Sª del Mercado, like the collegiate church of Berlanga de Duero.

As I could not enter inside, I do not know, in fact, if there is still some trace of the old Arab mosque, on which its foundations are based, after the conquest of the square by the troops of the Aragonese King Alfonso the Battler, happened between 1120 and 1125.

And yet, in the adjacent streets, you still feel part of that multicultural spirit, which for a time coexisted, in a relative peace, Christians, Arabs and Jews.

Notes and Bibliography:

(1) Washington Irving: Tales of the Alhambra: 'The Patio of the Lions', Miguel Sánchez Editor, Granada, 1991, page 116.
(2) Op. Cited: 'The inhabitants of the Alhambra', page 78.

NOTICE: originally posted on my blog SORIA WAY WALK WALKING. Both the text and the photographs are my exclusive intellectual property. The original entry, where you can check the authorship of juancar347, can be found at the following address: https://juancar347.blogspot.com/2011/02/seron-de-nagima.html

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