Barcelona: the mysterious skull of Bisbe Street

Barcelona and its Gothic Quarter, a mediatic combination of art, beauty, history and, above all, mystery. Among its innumerable mysteries, one especially stands out, which alone would delight the infallible and calculating private investigator created by the coolly rationalist mind of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and world-famous as Sherlock Holmes. And this mystery, this secret so visible and yet so hermetic, to the point that nothing is known except for a cluster of speculations to which I come to join, is none other than the mysterious skull, crossed vertically by an old dagger that can contemplate, with morbid fascination and evil curiosity, everyone who passes under the bridge of Bisbe Street or Obispo Street, located some tens of meters beyond the magnificent cathedral of Barcelona.

The bridge, on the other hand, is not such, but rather a Gothic balcony, adorned with a profusion of details of symbolic or argótica nature, as it liked to affirm to that mysterious personage of supposed French origin, that responded to the pseudonym of Fulcanelli - to which we owe two literary little jewels of great merit: the mystery of the cathedrals and the philosophical dwellings that unites the Casa dels Canonges or Casa de los Canónigos with the Generalitat. Difficult it would be, in addition, that such an eye-catching element had no added romantic tradition, whose origin, equally, is lost in those fascinating meanders that, comparatively speaking, conform the worlds of popular superstition and in the same way that lovers deposit locks on the bridges of the Seine - which in its time, spread to many cities - here is accustomed to spend cuddling under the bridge, with hope - or 'magical' thought, which in the end is all desire- that friendship or love - as the Sorians say, referring to the couples who join in the festivities of San Juan, with the summer solstice - will last a lifetime.

Who did this spooky dispossession belong to and why it is there, so inhumanly and indecorously exposed, is ignored. But perhaps, the great German poet Johann W. Goethe, gives us a good clue about it, when in that fascinating biography that is his impressive work Poesia y Verdad (1), he tells us a similar figure, another skull that was exposed in his hometown, Frankfort, and that served, along with many other details, to cultivate his childhood imagination, rich, on the other hand, in anecdotes and details:
"Of all the ancient remains, I had already been struck a lot since childhood by the skull of a political criminal who had been nailed to the bridge tower, the only one of a group of three or four - judging from the remaining iron points. stripped-that had been preserved there since 1616 despite the inclemency of weather and climate. "

Notes:

(1) Johann W. Goethe: 'Poetry and Truth', Alba Editorial, S.L.U., 1st edition, Barcelona, May 2017.

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NOTICE: the original post was published on my blog MEMORIES OF A PILGRIM. Both the text (corrected and amentado in the present entry) and the photos, like the video (except music, reproduced under license of YouTube) are my exclusive intellectual property. The original entry can be found at the following address: https://jc347.blogspot.com.es/2014/12/el-misterio-de-la-calavera-del-puente.html