By Ines Keane
Wikipedia’s Spanish article gives the square a reason for its colour. The reddish tone of the Plaza Mayor, it says, reflects the local clay, called almagre. The town turns out to be about three things: a knightly order, a playhouse and a very patient kind of lace.
Where it is and why it mattered
Almagro is a municipality in the province of Ciudad Real, in Castilla-La Mancha. Spanish Wikipedia says that in the thirteenth century the masters of the Order of Calatrava chose it as their residence and seat of government, and that the Order’s general chapters met there. The Spanish national tourism site spain.info adds that King Ferdinand II of Aragon merged the Order’s assets into the Crown of Castile, which began the knights’ decline “but not the city’s”.
The square
According to Spanish Wikipedia, the Plaza Mayor began as a parade ground and later became a centre for a trade fair. It describes an irregular rectangle of two floors, inspired by Flemish models. Spain.info describes stone arcades and two-storey wooden balconies, and says the square holds the Corral de Comedias, the National Theatre Museum and the town hall.
The corral
A corral de comedias was an open-air playhouse built in a courtyard. The Almagro corral stands at number 18 on the square. Spanish Wikipedia’s article on the building says it was built in 1628 by enlarging an existing inn, the Mesón del Toro, and that a priest named Leonardo de Oviedo paid for it. Its original area was about 622 square metres, more than twice what remains. The corral’s own website, as shown in a search excerpt, also gives 1628. Spain.info says the theatre dates to the sixteenth century. We show both and do not choose.
What happened next is the odd part. The article says that in 1950 the innkeeper found a hand-painted playing card of the early eighteenth century during renovations, and that the mayor and the civil governor concluded a corral might once have stood there. Work then revealed a stage area almost intact. After expropriation and restoration it reopened in 1952, and it was declared a Monumento Nacional on 4 March 1955. The article on the town gives the patio as about 300 square metres, ringed by 54 wooden pillars, with a capacity of about 300 people. Both Spanish Wikipedia pages say it is the only corral of its era preserved in its entirety.
How a performance ran
Spanish Wikipedia’s account of seventeenth-century practice is specific. The season ran from Resurrection Sunday to Ash Wednesday. Smoking was banned because of fire risk. Shows lasted four to six hours and ended before sunset. Men stood in the patio and women sat in the cazuela, a gallery facing the stage. Spain.info calls the corral a classic venue of the Spanish Golden Age.
The festival
Spanish Wikipedia says the International Classical Theatre Festival has been held every July since 1978 and concentrates on the Baroque and the Golden Age. Spain.info says only that it runs yearly for “approximately one month”.
The lace
The municipal tourism site for Almagro says bobbin lace arrived in the sixteenth century under the influence of the Fúcares, bankers from Augsburg who ran the Almadén mines from the town. It says the origin is uncertain, with popular tradition pointing to Flanders, Italy or Spain. It says the trade was organised in 1766, and that in 1796 a newcomer introduced blondas with floral motifs for mantillas. Spanish Wikipedia also dates the organising to the eighteenth century. The tourism page estimates that more than 9,000 women worked lace in the town and its surroundings. That is an estimate on a promotional page, not a count.
The tools are described closely. The pillow, or mundillo, is a cylinder traditionally stuffed with straw and 60 to 70 centimetres long. The bobbins are wooden, usually boxwood. Pins hold the crossings, set into a design pricked on card. It says lace is now made in the area as a luxury craft for cuffs, collars, handkerchiefs and fans, and that the town’s lace museum opened in 2006. The Day of the Encajera falls on 14 June.
Aubergines and designations
Spanish Wikipedia calls the town’s best-known product an aubergine with a traditional seasoning of Arab origin, and calls its protected status both an IGP and a denominación de origen in different places. Check a label before relying on either term. The town’s historic-artistic ensemble was designated in 1972, and it has belonged to the Most Beautiful Villages of Spain network since 2015, according to Spanish Wikipedia. The same article says Almagro has put forward a World Heritage candidacy as a city of culture and theatre, and does not report it as granted.
Questions a buyer would ask
Is the lace worked on a pillow with bobbins, or made by machine? The tourism page describes pillow and bobbin work, so that is the term to look for. Which thread is it? The page lists four. What is it for? Cuffs, collars, handkerchiefs and fans are the modern items the page names.
Our reading
An order that left, a playhouse that was forgotten and then found, and a trade done in family workshops: that is our summary, not a finding of any source.
What we left out
Prices, admission and opening hours, because they change. The names of living craftspeople. A claim on the tourism page that the lace appears in Don Quixote, which we could not check against the novel.
Quick answers
When was the Almagro Corral de Comedias built? Spanish Wikipedia says 1628, on the site of an inn. Spain.info says the sixteenth century. The sources differ.
Is Almagro’s corral the only one of its kind? Spanish Wikipedia says it is the only corral of its era preserved in its entirety.
What is Almagro bobbin lace used for today? According to the municipal tourism page, cuffs, collars, handkerchiefs and fans.
Roam first. Shop later.
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