He Publications Department The University of La Laguna has recently published the number 208 From the Revista de Historia Canaria, one of the institution's longest-running periodicals, published under that name since 1957 and heir to the Revista de Historia founded in 1924. It is currently coordinated by the Department of Geography and History and the Department of Art History and Philosophy, and its most recent issue, fully accessible online, includes nine varied articles on diverse topics.
The volume opens with a work by Virginia Benítez Martín entitled “Classical architectural elements as a guiding thread of the cultured architecture of La Laguna. 16th to 19th centuries”, a work that pays special attention to certain architectural elements related to the classical ideal that can be found in some facades of the city such as the Casa del Corregidor, the Casa Salazar, the Palacio de Nava and the Cathedral of La Laguna itself, among others.
Pablo Jerez Sabater, from the Manolo Blahnik School of Art in La Palma, details in “An Island Rarely Visited: La Gomera as Explored by Olivia Stone” the presence of this island in the British author's work “Tenerife and Its Six Satellites” (1887), one of the most comprehensive accounts of the archipelago in the 19th century. The journey through San Sebastián, Hermigua, Agulo, Vallehermoso, and the heights of Chipude allows for the reconstruction of a rich image of the island that blends everyday life, hydraulic engineering, and vernacular architecture.
In “The Universal Engineer Agustín de Betancourt through the Memoirs of his Secretary Filipp Vigel between 1816-1818”, the researcher from the University of Deusto, María Jesús Pozas, vindicates, from a historical critical perspective, the figure of Agustín de Betancourt and that of his family against the biting and caustic opinion of Filipp Vigel, which borders on disqualifications and gossip; in addition to showing documentary evidence of the lies of the architect Auguste de Montferrand, who attributed to himself the authorship of works by the Canary Islands engineer.
Alberto Quartapelle presents “Environment, society and power in the Pre-Hispanic Canary Islands: three models of cultural adaptation to island ecology”, an article in which he explains, through a comparison between El Hierro, Gran Canaria and Tenerife, how variations in resources, demography and territorial morphology generated divergent social models: the egalitarian cooperation of El Hierro, the redistributive and protostatal hierarchy of Gran Canaria and the competitive genealogical segmentation of Tenerife.
Next, Andrea Rivero Pérez and María de los Reyes Hernández Socorro, from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, present “Still Lifes in Canarian Painting during the 20th Century: Notes for a State of the Art,” the central theme of their doctoral thesis. It proposes a comparative overview of artists such as Tomás Gómez Bosch, Eva Fernández, Lola Massieu, Carlos Chevilly, César Manrique, and Pepa Izquierdo.
The following article is “The Evolution of Local Government in Gran Canaria: From Royal Jurisdictions to Municipal Constitutionalism (18th-20th Centuries),” authored by Pablo Rivero Pérez of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. This work analyzes the evolution of the island's political and territorial map from the conquest to the establishment of the contemporary municipal model, emphasizing the role of the Island Council (Cabildo-Isla) as the sole jurisdictional body and the gradual emergence of autonomous population centers.
Pablo Rivero Pérez and José Concepción Rodríguez, from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, are the co-authors of “Art and patronage in the chapel of San Nicolás de Bari: the canon Manuel Alvárez de Castro in the 18th century”, an article focused on this place of worship located in the town of Arucas (Gran Canaria), within a rural context marked by economic problems and natural difficulties.
Sacred art continues to be featured in this issue of the journal with the article “On the niche of the Virgin of the Rosary of La Orotava: Historical data and hypotheses about its authorship,” by Jesús Rodríguez Bravo, a researcher at the Institute of Canarian Studies. The article analyzes the historical, devotional, and artistic context of this work, reconstructs its material and symbolic history, and explains the mechanisms of heritage reuse that allowed for its preservation.
The final article in the volume addresses the digital and physical reconstruction of the trachyte cross in the Traslarena cemetery (Tenerife), a piece of great historical value linked to the 1893 cholera epidemic. Its severe deterioration has necessitated the preservation of the original inside the chapel and its replacement with a high-fidelity replica outside. The authors are Dácil Ventura González and Alejandro Hernández Pérez (University of La Laguna); Adolfo R. Padrón Rodríguez (Diocesan Delegation of Cultural Heritage); and Eduardo Cruz Delgado (Iscan Note SL).
Spanish 
English 
French