Burglary in the Cámara Santa

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Presentation of the church treasure in the Cámara Santa behind a lattice
Cross of Angels, obverse
Cross of Victory, obverse
Agate box from Oviedo

The burglary of the Cámara Santa in 1977 was the act of a young thief who damaged and destroyed a large amount of cultural property .

background

1977 was a year of political transition in Spain : the first free elections had just taken place, the future status of the autonomy of Asturias still unclear.

The damaged items, particularly the Cross of the Angels and the Cross of victory , are art-historically highly significant unique pre-Romanesque of wood, with gold leaf covered with hundreds of semi-precious stones occupied. The crosses in particular have a high symbolic value for Asturias and all of Spain: It is reproduced on both the Asturian flag and its coat of arms .

Course of events

The then 19-year-old perpetrator had already had a career in petty crime - he had been on file with the police since he was seven - when he hid and locked himself up in Oviedo Cathedral on the evening of August 9, 1977 at around 7 p.m. let. Originally he was only interested in the money in the offering stacks, but he was unable to break it open. On the other hand, he found tools in the church because the roof was being repaired at that time. In the early morning hours he climbed the stairs in the Romanesque tower to the vestibule of the Cámara Santa , the door of which he broke open with the tools he had found. The purely mechanical securing of the church treasure was extremely simple. The perpetrator simply bent the bars of the lattice behind which the church treasure was located. There was no alarm system. The perpetrator used a screwdriver to break the semi-precious stones from the cross of angels , the cross of victory and the agate box from Oviedo and tore off the gold sheet. He also lit a small fire because he thought it would help to break the stones out of their sockets. The perpetrator was completely ignorant of the art historical and symbolic meaning of the objects he destroyed. Finally he hid again. When the cathedral was unlocked the next morning, he left a short time later. He drove to Gijón where he hid the loot. It remained completely unclear - even after the trial - whether there were backers.

The theft was discovered by the cleaning lady. The police were able to identify the perpetrator based on fingerprints . However, his arrest on August 19, 1977 failed: The perpetrator was able to flee to Portugal with a bag that contained some of the stones from the theft. When crossing the border, he was almost arrested, was able to escape, but had to leave the bag behind. It contained 1.5 kilos of gold and 251 precious stones. It was not until September 13, 1977 that he was arrested by the Portuguese police in Porto . He had a gun with him and was planning to steal a church treasure in Portugal. On September 15, 1977, a further part of the booty was secured in a garbage dump in Gijón. Almost all parts were found again, some not until 1989, but there were also pieces that were missing. The perpetrator was extradited to Spain on October 26, 1977.

consequences

Legal aftermath

The criminal trial against him took place in Oviedo in May and June 1978 and resulted in a sentence of 18 years in prison. After an appeal hearing , the sentence was reduced to 10 years, almost all of which he served. Just 23 days after his release, he killed two Portuguese tourists in a robbery and was convicted and given a life sentence, which he served in a number of detention centers. He broke out of the prison in Pereiro de Aguiar in the province of Ourense on August 16, 2006.

The damaged items

The three stolen and damaged items had already been damaged during the Asturian miners' strike in 1934 when a bomb was detonated by the revolutionaries under the Cámara Santa. These objects also suffered severe damage. They were restored until 1942 . However, no precautions were taken to later enable the original substance to be distinguished from the added parts. This accusation should now be avoided in the event of a renewed recovery

The Institute for Conservation and Restoration, however, stated in a report after the damage in the course of the theft that it was impossible to restore the crosses and recommended that the relics be preserved and replicas made instead. However, because of the high emotional importance of the objects for the Asturian national consciousness, this was not acceptable to the public.

It was a commission chaired by the Provost made to commission the restoration and monitoring. The restoration was carried out by about a dozen people from early 1978 to 1986. It was very complex, the stones were partly broken. The goal was to restore everything to the way it was, with no additional additions. Most of the parts that were not recovered were not replaced.

After the work was completed, the objects were returned to the Cámara Santa on September 14, 1985.

literature

  • Dietrich Höllhuber and Werner Schäfke: The Spanish Way of St. James. History and art on the way to Santiago de Compostela . DuMont, [Cologne] 1999. ISBN 3-7701-4862-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fernández: El robo .
  2. ↑ Höllhuber: The Spanish Way of St. James , p. 248.
  3. ↑ Fernández: Domínguez Saavedra .
  4. ↑ NN: El 'robo del siglo' .
  5. ↑ Fernández: El robo .
  6. ↑ NN: El 'robo del siglo' .
  7. ↑ Lumbreras: Cuarenta años .
  8. ↑ NN: El 'robo del siglo' .
  9. ↑ Fernández: El robo .
  10. ↑ Fernández: El robo .
  11. ↑ NN: El 'robo del siglo' .
  12. ↑ Fernández: Domínguez Saavedra .
  13. ↑ Fernández: El robo .
  14. ↑ Lumbreras: Cuarenta años .
  15. ↑ Fernández: Domínguez Saavedra .
  16. ↑ Editor: Quince años del múltiple crimen en Vilaboa . In: Faro de Vigo of February 5, 2012; accessed on June 24, 2019
  17. ↑ Höllhuber: The Spanish Way of St. James , p. 248.
  18. ↑ Fernando Rayón Valpuesta and José Luis Sampedro: Las joyas de las reinas de España: la desconocida historia de las alhajas reales . Editorial Planeta SA, 2nd edition 2004. ISBN 84-08-05119-9 .
  19. ↑ Lumbreras: Cuarenta años .
  20. ↑ Lumbreras: Cuarenta años .
  21. ↑ Höllhuber: The Spanish Way of St. James , p. 248.