“The Archive of the Alhambra is its living memory”

    The Alhambra celebrated International Archives Day with guided tours to enable the public to find out more about its document stock and collections and so “discover a little piece of the living memory of this ancient fortress”, said the Director of the Council of the Alhambra and Generalife, Reynaldo Fernández Manzano, who was taking part in this festive event alongside almost 100 people who were enjoying the tour.
     During the course of the tour they were shown drawings, engravings, posters, screen-prints, daguerreotypes, original maps and plans and albumen photographs by the traveller Charles Clifford (1820-1863), in addition to other historic documents stored in the 500 metres of shelves that make up the Archive of the Alhambra. The Archive houses an immense stock of documents covering five centuries of history from the Captaincy General of the Kingdom of Granada right up to the current collection of the Council of the Alhambra and Generalife.
The “gems” on display this morning included a valuation and payment order brought at the request of the painter Julio de Aquiles to Count Tendilla the Captain General of the Kingdom of Granada, so that he might be paid for the work he had done in the Stove Tower in the Royal Houses of the Alhambra. “An exhaustive valuation of the work by the grand master of the Royal building works at the Alhambra, Pedro Machuca”, explained the Archive’s manager Bárbara Jimenez.
 Visitors also had the chance to see the book containing the authorization allowing the Valencian artist, Joaquín Sorolla, to paint at the Alhambra between 1909 and 1917.
Specialist staff from the Archive accompanied those taking part in the tour, which set off from the ticket office at the Generalife Entrance Pavilion.