Monestir de Miramar
Miramar is an estate-possessió that was home to a monastery in the 13th century. It is located in the municipality of Valldemossa in the Serra de Tramuntana. It was founded…
According to Wikipedia: “A possessió is a kind of dispersed rural habitat in Mallorca. It comprises housing areas and other facilities used for farming an extensive area of land.“ Although the definition is conceptually accurate, it falls short of conveying the true significance and importance of the possessions in the island’s history. The possessions have defined Mallorca’s rural areas since the Middle Ages up to the present day. However, they should not be exclusively considered as an architectural ensemble nor as a mere production unit for farming land. The possessions are a symbol of something that goes deep below the surface. They are a way of seeing the island, structuring society, perceiving time and of understanding life.
The building architecture of each possessió, as well as the organisation that went into the farming of its land, reflects the social structure at the time they were erected and used. The landlords lived in the main dwelling areas of the houses, while the estate workers lived in the more humble buildings. The layout of the land that formed a possessió was based on the unitary conception of all of its areas, which were connected through a network of paths and tracks created to maximise the agricultural and livestock yield of the estate.
The buildings and facilities that made up the nerve centre of a possessió, consisted of the landlords’ dwellings, the house of the amo (farm manager), the workers’ lodgings, the tafona (olive press) and the celler (wine cellar), as well as other auxiliary areas. The agricultural areas encompassed vegetable patches and orchards, farmland, and palm and garrigue areas. The possessions also included areas in which forestry tasks were undertaken, such as the collecting of firewood, charcoal and limestone, without forgetting the water sources and storage points, which included fonts (fountains) and aljubs (wells), etc.
The work undertaken on a possessió was dictated by the cycles of nature and the passing of the seasons, each one corresponding to a set of particular activities. Such activities ranged from the sowing of grain to the harvesting of crops, from the gathering of olives to the collecting of almonds and carob kernels, and from the rearing of sheep to the shearing of their wool. During the harvest, hundreds of workers would sometimes converge on the same possessió, which led to the emergence of the customs and traditions (folklore) that characterise us as a rural society. The roots of Mallorca’s gastronomy also lie in such dependency on the yearly rhythm of the seasons, as those on the island usually ate what they harvested. Furthermore, each trade also led to the creation of different types of gastronomy, which became the sources of distinctly diverse recipes, such as those from the possessions of Serra de Tramuntana, Raiguer, Pla de Mallorca and Llevant.
The 1785 map of Mallorca of Cardinal Despuig is the historical document on which the Cultural Route of the possessions of Mallorca is based, as it is the element that brings our story together. Have you seen it?
According to the majority of experts, the map of Mallorca, which was promoted by Cardinal Antoni Despuig i Dameto in 1784 and was produced by Josep Muntaner i Moner in 1785, is one of the most important pieces of Mallorcan cartography, and probably one of Spain’s most important, created during the Age of Enlightenment. It is a masterpiece that was dedicated to Maria Luisa de Borbón, the Princess of Asturias, and has since been described as “the stellar piece of Mallorcan cartography and the one that collectors most wish to have”.
Cardinal Antoni Despuig i Dameto (1745-1813)
The map of Cardinal Despuig is more a work of art than the result of a scientific undertaking. The map displays over 2,500 place names in astonishing detail, of which over 1,250 are possessions that were around at the time. The map also includes other information, such as the topography, hydrography and the littoral, as well as other aspects relating to the settlements, oratories, path network, toponymy and land use, etc. Finally, the outer adornments, comprising symbols of the towns drawn in the sketch, are worthy of mention, as they give us an insight into the authors’ interest as regards the ethnographic and artistic aspects of the work.
Miramar is an estate-possessió that was home to a monastery in the 13th century. It is located in the municipality of Valldemossa in the Serra de Tramuntana. It was founded…
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