Huesca

Huesca, town (1990 pop. 42,805), capital of Huesca prov., NE Spain, in Aragón, at the foot of the Pyrenees. It is a farm center. In this ancient town Sertorius founded a school in 77 B.C. After Peter I of Aragón liberated it (1096) from the Moors, Huesca was the residence of the kings of Aragón until 1118. A university, later discontinued, was founded there in 1354. The 13th-century Gothic cathedral, the early Romanesque Church of San Pedro, and the royal palace of the Aragonese monarchs are notable landmarks.

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Huesca

Huesca (Uesca; Latin: Osca; Greek: Ὄσκα, Ptol. ii. 6. § 68) is a city in Aragon, Spain. Huesca is the capital of the Spanish province of the same name. In 2006 it had a population of 49,312.

History

Its pre-Roman Iberian name was Bolskan, the capital of the Ilergetes, in the north of Hispania Tarraconensis, on the road from Tarraco (modern Tarragona) and Ilerda (modern Lleida) to Caesaraugusta (modern Zaragoza) (Itin. Ant. pp. 391, 451), and under the jurisdiction of the last-named city. Pliny alone (iii. 3. s. 4) places the Oscenses in Vescitania, a district mentioned nowhere else . The city's name was rendered as Osca, and was a Roman colony, Urbs Victrix Osca, during the Roman Empire. Under the impetus of Quintus Sertorius, the renegade Roman and Iberian hero who made Osca his base, the city minted its own coinage and was the site of a prestigious school founded by Sertorius to educate young Iberians in Latin and Romanitas in general. We learn from Plutarch (Sert. c. 14) that it was a large town, and the place where Sertorius died. It is probably the town called Ileoscan (Ἰλεόσκαν) by Strabo, in an apparently corrupt passage (iii. p. 161; v. Ukert, vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 451.) It seems to have possessed silver mines (Livy xxxiv. 10, 46, xl. 43), unless the argentum Oscense here mentioned merely refers to the minted silver of the town. Florez, however (Med. ii. 520), has pointed out the impossibility of one place supplying such vast quantities of minted silver as we find recorded in ancient writers under the terms argentum Oscense, signatum Oscense; and is of the opinion that "Oscense" in these phrases means "Spanish", being a corruption of "Eus-cara". (Cf. Caes. B.C. i. 60; Vell. Pat. ii. 30; "Euskara", Basque for the Basque language.)

The fully Romanised city, with its forum in the Cathedral square, was made a municipium by decree of Augustus in 30 BCE. It was renamed Wasqah during the period of Arab domination, when the fortified city was a stronghold defending the frontier against the Christian counts and local kings of the Pyrenees. In 1094 Sancho Ramirez built the nearby Montearagon castle with the intention of laying siege to Wasqah; here he met his death by a stray arrow as he was reconnoitring the city's walls. It was conquered in 1096 by Peter I of Aragon.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) the "Huesca Front" was the scene of some of the worst fighting between the Republicans and Franco's army. The city was besieged by the Republicans, George Orwell among them (see below) but never fell.

Modern Huesca

Huesca celebrates its most important annual festival in August: the festival (or fiesta) of San Lorenzo (Lawrence), a native of Huesca martyred in 268 AD. The anniversary of his martyrdom falls on August 10. The fiesta starts on the 9th and finishes on the 15th. Many of the inhabitants dress in green and white for the duration of the fiesta.

San Lorenzo, born in Huesca, was bishop of Rome and martyred by the Romans, burned on a grille (at least according to legend). Hence the grille is the symbol of San Lorenzo. It can be seen in a number of decorative works in the city.

Huesca is also the birthplace of film director Carlos Saura and his brother Antonio Saura, contemporary artist. There is an international film festival held annually.

The writer Oscar Sipan, winner of several literary prizes, was born in Huesca in 1974. The celebrated illustrator Isidro Ferrer, though born in Madrid, lives in the city.

Churches of Huesca

Huesca possesses many churches.

Huesca Cathedral (Catedral de la Transfiguración del Señor) in Gothic style begun by king Jaime I of Aragon around 1273 on the ruined foundations of the mosque. Work continued until the fifteenth century, creating one of the architectural landmarks of northern Spain. The doorway of 1300-1313 has carvings depicting the Apostles. The interior contains a triple nave and lateral chapels. It includes a magnificent high altar of alabaster carved to represent the Passion, made in 1520-1533 by Damián Forment. The cloister and the bell-tower are from the fifteenth century.
Church of St. Peter (Iglesia de San Pedro el Viejo), erected between 1100 and 1241, is one of the oldest Romanesque structures in the Peninsula. It was rebuilt in the seventeenth century, but retains its cloister of 1140.
Church of St. Lawrence (Iglesia de San Lorenzo), seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Iglesia de Santo Domingo, in Baroque style.
Iglesia de la Compañía San Vicente, seventeenth century.
Ermita de Ntr. Sra. de Salas-M.H.A.-, Romanesque and Baroque
Ermita de Loreto -M.H.A.-, San Lorenzo's cradle according to tradition.
Ermita de San Jorge -s. XVI-, in memory of the Battle of Alcoraz
Ermita de las Mártires
Ermita de Santa Lucía
Ermita de Jara, in ruins
San Miguel, Romanesque tower
Santa María de Foris, románico de transición
Santa Cruz, Seminary, on Romanesque foundations.
There are several old monasteries in the immediate neighbourhood. The one in Montearagón contains in its crypt the tomb of king Alfonso I.

A double line of ancient walls can still be seen in present-day Huesca.
The institute for secondary education occupies the building formerly belonging to the old university. In one of its vaults is the famous "Bell of Huesca", said to have been constructed from the heads of insurgent nobles who were executed by King Ramiro II of Aragon.

Coffee in Huesca

Huesca is notable for the saying "Tomorrow we'll have coffee in Huesca", a running joke among militiamen of the Spanish Civil War. In February 1937, George Orwell was stationed near the falangist-held Huesca as a member of the POUM militia. In Homage to Catalonia, Orwell writes about this running joke, originally a naïvely optimistic comment made by one of the Spanish Republican generals:

Months earlier, when Siétamo was taken, the general commanding the Government troops had said gaily: 'Tomorrow we'll have coffee in Huesca.' It turned out that he was mistaken. There had been bloody attacks, but the town did not fall, and [the phrase] had become a standing joke throughout the army. If I ever go back to Spain I shall make a point of having a cup of coffee in Huesca.

Orwell never did: but the Indian writer Shashi Tharoor fulfilled his wish, on his behalf, in 1980, and has written about the experience ().

Huesca is also famous for the legend of the Bell of Huesca.

External links

References

Bibliography

Michael H. Crawford, 1985. Coinage and Money Under the Roman Republic in series Library of Numismatics (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd.), pages 84 - 102.