Introduction.
A double and compatible call of the Salesians
The Jesuit Francisco de Rávago was a true minister of religious and cultural affairs of the Monarchy of Ferdinand VI since he began to spiritually direct the king in 17471. The latter had entrusted him with a mission: to obtain permission for a group of Salesian nuns to travel to the Court. They had lived, until then, in the first monastery of the Order of the Visitation in Annecy, founded in the days of the bishop of Geneva Francisco de Sales and the former baroness Juana Francisca Frémyot de Chantal. The Marquis de la Ensenada announced this desire to the governor of Savoy, Commander Manuel de Sada.
It was necessary, from Chambery, to send a lieutenant colonel to present this project to the then prelate of Geneva, José Nicolás de Chaumont. The bishop, in turn, passed it on to the superior of the Visitation, Mother Maria Micaela Gabriela de Sales. The nuns were quick to form a founding group, of which Anna Sofia de la Rochebardoul was to be superior. The Visitandines were to be accompanied by two ecclesiastics who had been appointed by Manuel Quintano Bonifaz, archbishop of Farsalia and elected governor of Toledo. He was then serving in Savoy as confessor to the infant Felipe de Borbón, the king’s half-brother. These were days when Spanish troops were in these territories as part of the attempts by the first Bourbons to recover their decision-making capacity in northern Italy.
Officers seemed to be common among the Salesians of Annecy. Hence other accounts of the establishment of this religion in Spain – the one developed by the first superior 1. Lacome, 1907. Alcaraz Gómez, 1995. 2.
This founding group that traveled to Madrid was composed of the aforementioned Ana Sofía Rocherbardoul, sixty years old; her assistant, Sister Ana Victoria de Oncieu (forty-eight years old); Sister María Próspera Truchet (nineteen) and the pretender Margarita Josefa de la Cruz, whose taking of the habit was godmother, Queen Barbara herself.
The queen and the Salesians: An Escorial at Court.
Barbara of Braganza, the foundation of the Monastery of the Visitation and its establishment in the Monarchy of Spain in her Circular sent to other monasteries– pointed out that it was the nuns who suggested to these officials the foundation of the Order within the peninsular territories of the Catholic monarch. Some nobles could also appreciate the educational abilities of the Salesians and wanted to bring them to Spain. It could have been the Marquis of the Real Goodness who made the first arrangements with the kings Fernando and Barbara; he connected this concern with the plans of the sovereign and set the mechanism in motion with Rávago. Both stories are fully compatible, although we can ask ourselves which of the two happened first. It is also worth asking whether there had previously been any attraction in Spain to the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, canonized by Alexander VII in 1665, a bishop who was in exile from the diocese of Geneva. For all this, from this article, we have the Archive of the First Monastery of the Visitation of Madrid, saved from the vicissitudes of its transfers, dispossession and civil war, little known as those of all the cloisters of this female religious order have been.
Portrait of a sovereign for «beauty»
Queen Maria Barbara Xaviera of Braganza took on this monastery as a private work. Although the royal couple had no descendants, in her will of 1756 she did not fail to refer to her husband’s niece, the «Lady Princess of Parma» Isabel Maria Luisa –daughter of Infante Felipe de Borbón–: «I have had her in my company for a longer time, since her most tender years» The marriage policy of the dynasty would make her the wife of Emperor Joseph II of Austria. Doña Barbara thought that she should have a place to retire to in a convenient manner in the event of her husband’s death before then and choose a suitable place for his burial, since she had not been the mother of a crown prince5. This first Spanish monastery of the Visitation took on the two functions of the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, a place that this Portuguese queen detested: a palace and royal pantheon, with the custody and prayer of a religious order. The kings had imposed a change of direction on the Court. In the last monographs dedicated to Queen Barbara we find the portrait of a cultured woman, well-trained in the arts, friendly, and fond of the festive splendor where the celebrations took place.
From there we can understand her status as a patron, especially musical. His mother-in-law Isabel de Farnesio –then removed from the Court– critically described this environment as a space of “Portuguese and musicians”. The successful Farinelli, from the previous reign, and Doña Barbara’s keyboard teacher, Domenico Scarlatti, were men she trusted. The former presented himself as a great cultural manager but also possessed of a notable political influence –becoming a “favorite” of the monarchs–. Thus the Court of Versailles expressed its intention to buy him secretly and as a spy.
Farinelli’s closeness to the new monarchs allowed Isabel de Farnesio to spread rumors about the relationship between the sovereign and the artist. Barbara of Braganza liked to demonstrate her musical qualities in the solemnity of the palace. And so, while Ferdinand VI went out hunting, the queen had the company of diplomats, ministers and ladies –not forgetting her head maid, the Countess of Lemos–, in addition to the aforementioned musicians. These qualities, among which composition was not uncommon, were not unusual in the European princes of her time. Thanks to the writer Norberto Caimo, on his visit to Madrid in 1755, we know that the queen had a small collection of harpsichords, as well as an organ, located in her rooms. She also referred to all this in her will. While Keene defined her by her “enormous mouth, her fat lips, her chubby cheeks and her tiny eyes”, she was fond of her collection of machines and automata; Father Benito Jerónimo Feijoo dedicated the fourth volume of his Cartas Eruditas to her. In those pages he wrote that the queen’s “native goodness” came from her study, love and devotion to the “holy School of the divine Sales”. Feijoo maintained that the reading that the queen could have made of the works of this saint shaped her character, especially when she took into account what he indicated in the fourth Instruction: “be careful to be gentle and affable to everyone; especially with those in your house” Did all this cultural environment contribute to the choice of the Salesians, nuns who were going to develop the educational dimension for the daughters of well-off families and the nobility of Madrid through a boarding school?
Reception of a pillar of spirituality In Francis de Sales, trained by the Jesuits at the College of Clermont in France, the Spanish authors of the 16th century acquired considerable weight, above all, Teresa of Jesus and Fray Luis de Granada, as well as other successful writers, from the Society of Jesus, whose works were taken to the France of Louis XIII by Queen Anne of Austria, born in Valladolid.
All this should not make us forget the reverse path: the impact that the works of Francis de Sales had in Spain. A man of reference in this diffusion was the priest and lawyer of the Royal Councils Francisco Cubillas Donyague. It was this priest who added to some of his translations –in the Treatise of the Love of God– an Epitome or summary of the Life that was written in Latin and French by Charles Augustus de Sales, bishop of Geneva and nephew of the founder.
In reality, in Cubillas the identity of the Jesuit of the province of Toledo Bartolomé de Alcázar (1648-1721)15 was hidden under a pseudonym. He was one of the founders of the Royal Spanish Academy of the Language in 1713 together with the also father of the Company José Cassani, collaborator of the Dictionary of Authorities, and author of the encyclopedic Chrono-History of the Province of Toledo. He intended to continue what Juan Eusebio Nieremberg and Alonso de Andrade had begun on the Illustrious Men of the Society of Jesus, but his poor health prevented him from doing so, and the task was completed by the aforementioned Cassani. Cubillas –actually Bartolomé Alcázar– points out that the Introduction to the Devout Life had been translated for the first time into Spanish by Francisco de Quevedo, turning those pages into a “golden book”.
Later, the Jesuit –with the new pseudonym of Francisco de la Cruz– had offered the Directory of Religious from Italian. They were pages that were completely unknown in Spain. The intermediary for obtaining them was the Marquis of Aytona, who brought them from France in the complete works of Francis de Sales. The copy became a mine for new translations for this hidden Jesuit. This is what he said in his aforementioned Epitome: “I hope to bring out more treasures with which to enrich my Nation”.
We cannot forget the translation of the Spiritual Letters, also carried out by Father Alcázar under a pseudonym. A spiritual and literary journey that contributed to a later monastic foundation: getting to know the founder to develop the work of his daughters, although not everything had begun with this knowledge in 1748. After the fourth centenary of the death of Francis Sales, in December 2022, different conclusions can be drawn. In it we portray the Tridentine bishop that the Church of modernity needed after the application of the Council of Trent. We could refer to the dialogue, attitudes and relationships with other Christians who were then considered heretics and not “separated brothers.”
What new things did Bishop Francis de Sales bring in this regard? We must not forget the means that the prelate had in the process of recatholicization in territories where the Reformation had taken hold, with communication techniques that have led to linking him centuries later with journalistic activity.
His contributions to feminine spirituality endured in the Order of the Visitation, in the company of the widowed baroness Joan Frances Frémyot de Chantal. In the latter, the prelate found women to develop certain plans. Without being able to delve into new forms of female religious life – which included dedication to teaching – Trent also reinforced the cloistered life. But, with this aristocrat he achieved the establishment of a new way of being a nun and achieved an expansion of the women who could have access to it.
Francis de Sales offered a path of “obedience in freedom,” very much in keeping with the spirit of the prelate: prayer leading to action within a program of Christian perfection, formulated in his successful works. A first field of work was through the help that the baroness, accompanied by her servants, provided to the sick in the parish on Sundays and holidays, “a first outline of what the Order of the Visitation will be.”
Between 1604 and June 6, 1610, the date of the new foundation, there were three meetings – not interviews – between the two. And although the baroness was attracted by the Discalced Carmelites established in France, Francis de Sales proposed an intermediate path between the most rigorous reform and relaxation. We cannot go into the vicissitudes of the beginnings – there were already thirteen sisters in the summer of 1612, including an external sister. These were the initial steps for the construction of the monastery of the Visitation of Annecy, from which, more than a century later, the first Salesians would arrive in Madrid. The portrait of the charism of the Visitandines was defined by humility, charity, gentleness and love within the Christian life. The bishop of Geneva was their teacher through talks that gave rise to the Spiritual Conferences facilitated and communicated later by the nuns to the press. At that time he wrote – between 1609 and 1616 – a book for the spiritual formation of these women. We are referring to the Treatise on the Love of God, the fruit of the spiritual direction that he gave them, with the spiritual foundation of the Spanish authors that the founder had known.
The Salesians at the Court of Ferdinand VI
The journey of those first Salesians of Annecy took place between September 8 and October 14, 1748. While the new building was being built, they were welcomed in the beguinage of San José. The prepositum of the Congregation of the Savior, Nicolás Antonio Gallo,He tried to convince the ladies who made up that community to “embrace” the Institute of St. Francis de Sales. The nuns understood that that place was not suitable for carrying out the definitive foundation: “the house is small, it has no garden and the most essential thing is that a part of the Community was accustomed to a holy life but very different from ours, they saw our obligations as a game and the vows as a heavy burden”. Archbishop Quintano Bonifaz exposed these problems to the monarchs, acting as spiritual father of the first Visitandine community in Spain. At the same time, the aristocrats understood that, if the Salesians were to Queen Barbara’s liking for the foundation, they should also protect them.
Ferdinand VI ordered a new provisional establishment, until the monastery they were building was handed over to him: they were the houses of Juan Brancacho, adapted by two hundred men in the space of two months. The Palace made sure that the first Visitandines had everything they needed. The queen arranged for the liturgical ornaments to be made from her own house; she prepared at her own expense the kitchenware according to the measures of the Book of Customs of the Order, as well as the provisions for the Lent that was beginning.
The nuns entered this new home on February 18, 1749. The founding group was joined by three ladies from the San José beguinage: Mariana Teresa de Palacios and Ángela Ignacia Vázquez, as choir sisters, and María Francisca Martín as a legate. They arrived in the carriages of the Marchioness of Bonad Real. It was a temporary location, where the spaces with their functions already were . The profession of faith of the superior with the nuns could be heard by the principals of that Court of Madrid, from the room that served as a church. The lunch and dinner that they were able to taste in the refectory had been sent by the Marquis of Ensenada and the principal ladies of the nobility had lunch that day with the nuns.
Barbara of Braganza had asked that the cloister remain open for a few days, “because she said that in order for us to be loved we had to make ourselves known,” until on the sixth day Archbishop Quintano Bonifaz forced the departure of all the laywomen. Soon, the sovereign did not want to be absent, at a special time for the constitution of the new community: “A greatness, a goodness and an affability that are the effect of the virtues with which this august Queen is adorned, since she alone possesses all those that are separately They find it in other people. His Majesty wanted to see our cells and with his own hands he placed on our three beds three beautiful silver reliquaries, magnificently worked, one of them enriched with rubies […] His Majesty favored us a few days later with his presence, adding to this favor that of attending the taking of the habit of the pretender we had brought and of putting the veil on her, a favor with which His Majesty has honored until now all the sisters who have taken the habit and have professed, in addition to sending a magnificent gift and the wax necessary for the altar and the rest of the ceremony».
The visits of Barbara of Braganza followed later, accompanied by Ferdinand VI. In this way the condition of both as founders of the monastery was ratified. The extension of the protection was the designation of an income sufficient to receive eighteen or twenty nuns without dowry. During Holy Week in 1749, the queen sent a silver urn to guard the Blessed Sacrament on Holy Thursday, together with a large canopy of silver glaze with gold and silk flowers trimmed with magnificent fringes to be used in the procession that took place on the mentioned Thursday of the Supper and the Friday of the Cross around the church, not forgetting that the nuns also had to have a tabernacle for the placement of the Blessed Sacrament. The royal generosity was translated, in June 1749, into the queen’s donation of fifty thousand reals of annual income, enjoying by decision of King Ferdinand all the franchises and exemptions that the religious houses of the Madrid Court had. This connection with the Visitandines turned them into habitual prayer-givers, “to obtain from God the precious preservation of such great and pious Monarchs”
A monastery that looked like a palace
The final step was to build a monastery for the Salesians, a costly process, although not excessively long. The nuns confirmed in the Annals that the plans of the houses that had been built until then were requested – the Order’s Custom also had something to say in all this. It was not easy to find these documents, until they were provided by the first monastery in Paris, through Mother Catalina Angélica Tillet.
Ferdinand VI chose the location and solemnly, on the day of June 26, 1750, the first stone was laid, with the assistance of the Marquis of the Balbases, Carlos Ambrosio Gaetano Spínola de la Cerda, the Queen’s chief groom, who had been ambassador in Portugal. Doña Bárbara’s attention to the works was constant, precisely when her health began to deteriorate. A completion period of three years was planned, but this turned out to be too short a forecast. The liturgical ornaments were increased to achieve a magnificence of the temple, although pretending to maintain the “true spirit” of the holy founders.
From this last point of view we understand the carrying out of translations and printings of the books of the Institute of the Visitation, to which we have turned in our sources. A task that was carried out by Father Nicolás Gallo, who belonged to the Congregation of the Savior, without forgetting the contribution of the confessor of Barbara of Braganza – Father González – with the participation of the preacher of the monarchs, Father Guerra, both Jesuits.
The first superior, Anna Sophie de la Rochebardoul, liked to clarify after a first count of the community – fourteen professed including the two domestics (later called externals), two novices, two candidates for the choir and twelve students in the boarding school – that the presence of the queen was never an interruption of religious life, to the “detriment of our exercises”, except for the alteration of the prayer of vespers and compline: “the words of this great Queen encourage and animate us to the most perfect observance of our Rule as Her Majesty wants it to be perpetuated in this Monastery”.
Sister Luisa Isabel de Baudignan y Monreal – and she was the first of the community – died in this first residence of the Salesians in Madrid on October 10, 1754, at the age of sixty-five. She was a widow, had children and was encouraged to religious life by the aforementioned Nicholas Gallo. In the Annals compiled with the usual circulars, the superior reported on the efforts of the monarchs, especially the queen, to build the new monastery: “It will be an eternal monument that demonstrates this truth [royal protection]. The marbles of all colors that have been ordered to be brought, the perfection with which they are being crafted, the beauty of the building and the church have not satisfied the royal heart of our great Queen, but she has also wanted to add to such magnificence rich jewels, of which the number and grandeur of candlesticks, vases and bouquets, solid silver, lamps and sacred vessels and the perfection with which they are made are admired, using the most skilled artists of the kingdom in this work and the same can be said of the weaving of the magnificent fabrics that will serve for the ornaments”.
Those nuns who played an essential role stood out. This was the case with the first assistant of the monastery, Sister Anna Victoria d’Oncieu, considered a “true portrait of the virtues of our Father Saint Francis de Sales.” For this reason, the first superior, the aforementioned Anna Sofia de la Rochebardoul, confessed that without the help of the sovereign she would have succumbed in the government of the community at an essential time. In addition, she had counted on the support of Archbishop Quintano Bonifaz, in the office of confessor of Ferdinand VI.
The nuns who were installed there could not accommodate more than twenty-seven nuns. The conclusion came after seven years of their arrival, with the transfer of the Salesians in September . The perceptions of the nuns themselves regarding the constructed building and how they transmitted it to the entire Order of the Visitation in their circulars are very interesting: “its magnificence in this foundation seems that it cannot reach more. The plan of the Monastery is the largest and most beautiful that there is in our Order, regarding its structure and the most comfortable due to the abundance of water and fountains […] the magnificence of the church, the quantity and richness of the ornaments and altars, the preciousness and number of the sacred vessels all of gold and silver, richer still for the perfect and finished work of their work than for the diamonds, emeralds and other precious stones with which they are encrusted. Of all this we can say no more than that they are monuments worthy of the piety of our kings and that surpass all praise; when we see them we always experience a new admiration and we feel filled with new feelings of gratitude”
. The corresponding circular goes on to relate that, a few days before the transfer took place, the nuns had sent the furniture they had accumulated to the new building. In these preparations they were already accompanied by the new archbishop of Toledo – Luis Fernández de Córdoba, Count of Tavera, as well as a cardinal. In each cell, the queen had placed a painting, a written sentence placed within a black frame, a chair and a table with an ivory crucifix. The Community and Chapter room was specially arranged. The sovereign formally handed over the magnificent jewels and ornaments prepared. Doña Bárbara read the inventory of the endowment herself and her patronage was reflected in the Deed of Foundation of the Royal Monastery of the Religious of the Visitation of Our Lady, Order and Institute of Saint Francis of Sales, granted and signed by the queen on August 22 of that same year , with the corresponding acceptance of the Salesian nuns and the consecration, on the 26th, of the five altars of the church. This was an act that Archbishop Quintano Bonifaz carried out “with all the solemnities that this function requires.” Four days later the Holy Sacrament was transferred, in the company of the nuns who set foot in the new monastery for the first time. The decoration was also of the route that the Salesians were going to travel from their provisional residence to the definitive one: “for which purpose they prepared themselves by their Royal Highness.”
The procession was described in detail in the chronicles of La Gaceta de Madrid, the circulars of the nuns or in the Brief news of the foundation, guarded in the Royal Monastery of the Visitation: «at four in the afternoon they did us the honor of going to look for us at the Monastery where Their Majesties were, accompanied by HRH the Infante D. Luis and the entire Court»; «When passing through that door, it seemed more like entering a Palace than a Religious House, such was its magnificence, despite the great efforts of the respected Mother Foundress who wanted to make a simple Monastery according to our Custom».
It had been indicated that its structure should be built solidly although with simple lines, without ornaments on the ceilings, to avoid it being a secular house or a palace of the nobility. Observations that were not always understood by those closest to Ferdinand VI, although they were respected by the monarch himself: «the signs of the spirit of poverty, which must reign among the servants of God, must be recognized; this will also be observed by many considerations in the walls of the gardens and orchards, whose space must be moderate». Each office and cell of the house had to be dedicated to a saint, whose name was to be written in large letters above the door. In the cloister, dormitory, refectory, parlor, infirmary, cells, chapter, novitiate, assembly or meeting room sayings from the Holy Scripture were posted: «Then the order was given to form the procession and set off. In the large square in front of that Monastery all the crosses and banners of the Brotherhoods of this Capital had gathered and they were the ones that successively led the march. Next came the crosses of all the parishes and of the regular Communities and following each cross marched its respective Community, then came the secular clergy with great music. Two honorary chaplains, who were dressed in vestments, carried the relics of our Holy Founders within their busts made of silver.
We had brought the bust of our Holy Father from our first Monastery of Annecy, where we have the honor of having professed, and we had had the bust of our Holy Mother made here. Each of these busts rested on a silver pedestal as well. On the bust of our Holy Father, the Queen had placed by her own hand a rich pectoral, that is, a cross with magnificent diamonds. The Preachers of HM followed the Royal Chapel. Then we went before the Blessed Sacrament, accompanied by the Archbishop of Farsalia, General Inquisitor; Bishop of Cartagena, president of the Council of Castile; Bishop of Urgel and two auxiliaries of this diocese. We, according to our custom, wore a Domestic Sister with our wooden cross or crucifix, which was adorned with a beautiful band that our august sovereign had placed on it by her own hand. Two white-veiled Sisters each carried a wooden candlestick..
Our students, who are the flower of the greatness of Spain, followed the Cross. The modesty and composure of these girls, who went with their veils and half-habit, mainly attracted the attention of the spectators, who believed they saw angels in human form: despite the fact that the race was long and full of objects capable of exciting their curiosity, not one of them even raised her eyes, a spectacle that made a tender impression. The Community followed, escorted by the Company of Halberdiers who formed a row on each side. Eight chaplains of honor carried the canopy, beneath which another four carried the litter of the Throne in which the Most Holy Sacrament was placed within that golden mantle covered with diamonds and emeralds […] His Holiness’s Nuncio followed the canopy covered with the Pontifical and a little further behind Their Majesties. accompanied by the Most Serene Lord Infante D. Luis.
The Queen was followed by the Ladies of Honor, then by the General Officers, the Lords of the Court, the Grands of Spain, the Officers of the Guards of the Spanish and Flemish Infantry Corps. Few or no spectacles could be seen more brilliant. Everyone, even our youngest students, carried a large wax axe in their hands. A large detachment of Guards of the Corps escorted the canopy on both sides. Finally, Their Majesties and the entire Court were those who closed the procession»»39. «Their Majesties led the Nuns to the Regal Door of the Monastery, where in order to perform the ceremony of taking possession of this magnificent sumptuous building, there were some golden Keys prepared, which the Queen presented to the King, and taking His Majesty the one from the Regal Door, he performed the ceremony of opening it, and returning it to the Queen, His Majesty handed over the Keys and Convent to the Superior […] From this place His Majesties and Highness, with their Court, went to the Royal Room, which has been built in the same Monastery, from where that same night they were able to see the inventions of Fireworks, which were prepared for the celebration of this Function […] His Majesties were filled with joy, to see their wishes fulfilled in such a useful Religious Foundation, and all their Court satisfied with the magnificence, and grandeur with which everything was done. executed»
In the three following days, the kings attended the sermons from the tribune that had been built in the temple of the Salesians, designed by Francisco Moradillo and Francisco Carlier. They listened to famous preachers such as the Jesuit José Guerra, with the presidency of the nuncio Girolamo Spínola, the bishop of Cartagena Diego de Rojas or the general inquisitor. A solemnity that recalled the royal presence in the previous house and, in 1752, on the occasion of the beatification of the founder of the Visitation, whose pontifical ceremony had taken place in San Pedro on November 21, 1751. By then, Fernando VI had ordered the suits to be made.
In addition to the liturgical aspect, the protection had also been reflected in the devotional propaganda of the edition of the Life of the new blessed. The Gaceta de Madrid had made a chronicle of all this at the time. The closeness between the monarchs and the Salesians that the Annals described could not last much longer. The illness and death of the queen first and then of her husband Fernando VI were soon to come. Nevertheless, as the second of the superiors indicates in the Circular that she wrote on the occasion of the death of Doña Bárbara, the sovereign still visited them before her last departure to the Royal Siege of Aranjuez.
She then gave them the relic of the body of Saint Theodore the Martyr, which she had brought from Rome, together with six other relics in beautiful reliquaries and six heads of martyrs. All of this was placed in the chapel that the nuns themselves called the Reliquary. The sentiments of gratitude for the affection received from the royal persons were constantly repeated in these documents: “our beloved Sisters of all the Monasteries will unite their prayers with ours and will manifest in this way, the only way we can use, their eternal gratitude to our august Founders”
. The circulars that were sent to the other monasteries insisted that “we have no knowledge of another foundation similar to this one in our Holy Order”. According to the nuns themselves, the first superior of the monastery, Mother Anna Sophie de la Rochebardoul, contributed very especially to this close relationship. Born in Brittany into a family allied to the Royal House of Lorraine and linked to the Parliament of that land, she entered the monastery of the Visitation of Angers, capital of Anjou, where she took the habit after having passed family opposition, when she was nineteen years old, on August 16, 1708.
It will be necessary to study and analyze the formative and spiritual trajectories of the Salesians of that first community in Madrid. Today we only emphasize that their obituaries, those of the nuns of the 18th century, continued to be copied and communicated to the foundations that were made in the following century, to be read in daily settings in the refectory, formation and recreation of those cloisters. The duties of a monastery: the boarding school and vocations The documents that define the ideal life of a Salesian nun are the Constitutions drawn up by Saint Francis de Sales, the Rules –adapting to those of Saint Augustine51– and the Custom book, in addition to the founder’s own and mentioned writings. All this was to turn the monastery into a “school of mortification of the senses and of one’s own will”. The aforementioned Book of Customs was printed at the Court of Madrid, at the time of its foundation, like many other texts referring to the Order. These were pages read once a week so that, as the last chapter of the Rules said, “you can look at yourselves often in this little book as in a mirror, and that you do not neglect anything through forgetfulness”.
The nuns had to be “careful and fond of reading the Rules, the Sermons and spiritual entertainments, so that they understand their meaning and take their spirit.” The prestigious preacher Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet wrote that he admired the practical sense, wisdom and prudence of the founding bishop. A Custom that described the places, the people, the behaviors that made up a monastery of the Visitation: «The Sisters will not wear a case, nor a watch on the habit, nor bracelets, rings, ribbons or silk cords, nor any turn on the small sleeve, but a very small edge of the shirt that looks like a thick tuck and only the Rosary on the habit. The clothing will be of fairly thick fabric, according to the comfort of the places where the Monasteries are established, observing that the summer one is lighter than the winter one, that the shoes are without openings, and very ordinary. The Sisters will take great care to preserve their habits and will lift their skirts, when they sit on the ground, and when they work in some difficult exercise, such as sweeping, working in the garden and other similar things; Outside of these cases, they will be brought lying down to observe the seriousness and religious decency”
The community of thirty-three nuns could be increased with the King’s permission, although providing a dowry of three thousand ducats of vellón. Of course, provision was made for apartments and rooms for the queen in case she became a widow. In addition, the Salesians assumed this educational dimension for the Christian formation of the daughters of the aristocracy, through the so-called boarding school that also facilitated the birth of new vocations. Whenever reference was made to this foundation, it was identified with a “public benefit and common education of Noble Girls.”
Gloria Franco has studied this dimension of the Madrid monastery in detail. The awareness of the education of the daughters of well-off families was helped by the development of religious orders dedicated to the education of women. There were Salesian nuns who were previously students of their boarding schools, especially in the early days. Mother Rochebardoul defined what this boarding school meant: «The education of our girls is more of a pleasure than a task. They follow their little rules and attend our services like angels. During the recreations, because of the way they give their lessons, the youngest ones read a chapter of the Catechism and Christian doctrine, and every day we are amazed to see a four-year-old who wants to surpass her companions in memory and judgment. These young ladies do not enter here without the Queen’s order and they are all from the first houses in Spain».
After describing the Custom Book, in its edition by Joaquín de Ibarra, how the dress of these students should be, it requested that the girls be «instructed and taught in spiritual things with gentleness, according to their genius and capacity by very discreet Sisters». Nuns who were to specialize in the boarding school, had to be attentive to find suitable vocations. When this happened, the student of fifteen years of age – the age limit for a girl who did not want to persevere in religion, except those who were orphans – could go to the novitiate with the consent of her parents or relatives: «the girls being educated will observe their small Rule with pleasure and joy to become capable in time of observing the great ones, if God calls them to be his wives, or to give edification with their good upbringing in the world».
The first author of the Annals indicated that in Spain it was «very easy to form religious women, because the natural piety of the nation, the sweetness of the character and how susceptible they are to what is good makes them very suitable for our way of life. We experience this every day with edification and consolation». The way of life in this boarding school affected their entire behaviour. They were not allowed to lie, nor to eat anything without the appropriate permission. They were not to be lazy, but to get out of bed when the hour of prime came, offering themselves to God. They were present In the choir of the community, they listened to mass, ate in the refectory, had recreation with the nuns; they received teachings from the sisters who took care of them, especially in the chores; they attended vespers and compline, prayed the rosary without forgetting the examination of conscience, before going to bed at nine o’clock at night: “those who are very inclined to the Religious Life, may, if the superior allows it, attend from time to time the novitiate, or instruction of the novices, to hear the explanation of the Rule, Constitutions and Directory”.
Nevertheless, there stood out future women of the Spanish Enlightenment such as the future Countess of Montijo, baptized precisely Maria Francisca de Sales Guzmán Portocarrero y López de Zúñiga. Some cases also turned out to be complicated. It happened in 1776, already in the reign of Charles III. The admission or permanence of a student was the concern of the Secretariat of Grace and Justice –headed at that time by Manuel de Roda–, the archbishop of Toledo and the superior of the monastery. Then the memorial of Isabel de los Ríos, widowed Marchioness of Villar y Rivas was received. She had entrusted the education of her daughter Rafaela de Saavedra to the Salesians since she was four years old with the condition that she could leave the monastery under any circumstances. For her food, in addition to the three hundred ducats assigned, this aristocrat had added one hundred more. Since then, six years had passed. After the death of her husband Martín de Saavedra, she considered that at ten years of age the time had come to «be able to raise, educate and teach her with the efficiency and desires corresponding to a jealous mother». She had requested this from the superior, but the latter had responded with “frivolous pretexts,” according to the aristocrat. For this reason, she asked Charles III to issue a Royal Order so that her daughter could move into her house and company, as her mother, guardian and curator. The superior Juana Francisca Campbell responded to this situation in a letter to the archbishop of Toledo. She confessed to being surprised, since the marchioness had recently told her that, due to her lack of resources, she wanted to take her daughter out of the boarding school. The Salesian replied that, if that was the reason, she could support her with half of what she paid, or even “for free, in consideration of what we owe to her family” and to avoid any harm to the girl. The nun had not received any further response. Through the letter of the new Marquis of Rivas, the superior had learned of the appeal filed by the mother of the student. The relationship was really complicated according to her words: “to remove from the school the charge of Your Excellency my sister, Mrs. María Rafaela Pérez de Saavedra, your daughter and Mr. Martín Pérez de Saavedra, Marquis of Rivas, my uncle and father-in-law.” It seems that he was the nephew of the deceased on one hand and that he had contracted marriage with a sister of the student.
And the matter was even more complex when the marquis himself explained to the superior that María Isabel Gutiérrez de los Ríos had secretly married a second time with one of his servants four years before, although the documentation to which he had not had access was in the parish of San Ginés in Madrid. The new marquis considered that these hidden circumstances made the consideration of the aforementioned aristocrat “despicable.” Given this family complication and the support of the Marquis of Rivas de Saavedra to the superior of the Salesians, she asked the archbishop of Toledo for an indication to know which decision to follow. Once the pertinent information was gathered together with the current circumstances of the widowed marchioness, all this was “sufficient to not expose the girl, who is still young.”
In a separate note, it was indicated that Manuel de Roda ordered that this file be kept on May 24, 1776, and on June 16, 1776, it was decreed that N.h.l. (“no place”) and thus the reason for the memorials was answered. The hasty end of a new era: from a testament to satire
The other side of the coin to so much solemnity and magnificence was that of satire. It was not unusual to hear in Madrid that little song that said: “Barbarian queen, barbarian taste, barbarian work, barbarian expense”. Despite the generosity shown to the Salesians, the sovereign’s provisions in her will were highly criticized, and one can read in the satires what was said about her burial in the monastery of the Visitation: “They arrived at the Salesians / where the body was placed, / and immediately / the refreshment of abbesses was arranged, / / the nuns at the bottles, / prepared as they were, / immediately took hold / to receive early / the sun whose stars they are”.
The root of these criticisms was to be found in the provisions that had made her brother, the Infante Pedro of Portugal, her “sole and universal heir”, of all that remained after applying the provisions, of the movable property, roots, rights and shares. In the future he would be Pedro III, married to his niece Maria I, daughter of his brother Joseph I. Barbara of Braganza, a queen who had managed to become popular, earned the discredit of part of her people, to the point of becoming an active subject of satire. In the travel observations of Antonio Ponz –published in the following reign of Charles III– he made a contrast between the sumptuousness of the new monastery and the “very little frequented area where no main street leads” that surrounds it. A space that was known as Altos del Barquillo, perpendicular to the Paseo de Recoletos. Next to it was the convent of the Franciscan Poor Clares of San Pascual Bailón, previously protected by the Admiral of Castile and Duke of Medina de Rioseco, since very Nearby was her palace, which was in splendour until its failed political positioning in the War of Succession. The Antonians of the Order of Saint Anthony the Abbot were also nearby, later replaced by the Piarists. The convent of Santa Teresa of Discalced Carmelites was not far away, as was the convent of the Discalced Mercedarians of Santa Barbara.
In addition to these religious buildings, near the Salesians was the so-called “Saladero”, intended to supply bacon to the Villa and Court, as well as the first Tapestry Factory that existed in Madrid, entrusted to Jacobo Vandergoten, an artist required by Philip V to take charge of the production of these products. Barbara of Braganza was not able to experience the situation she had imagined. Her illness was going to take her to the grave before the king. The disappearance of the founder definitely altered the weak mental health of Don Fernando, who lived the little time he had left in his life locked up. Farinelli had witnessed the worst drama he could imagine, with the last illness of Doña Bárbara, characterized by a pathological obesity, very well concealed by paintbrushes; that widowed king who was terrified of being assassinated; that crown who wandered day and night in a nightgown, without washing, without saying a word, and going out into the gardens with a deplorable appearance in the castle of Villaviciosa de Odón.
Nevertheless, at the time of the death of the queen, the Salesian nuns assured in their circulars that the king had emphasized that he would continue to provide them with “his protection”. The queen, in her will – granted in Buen Retiro on March 24, 1756 before Alonso Muñiz, Marquis of Campo del Villar and opened on the same morning of her death – had ordered that her body not be embalmed, nor be handled except as necessary to wash her face, although she was to be shrouded in the habit of Saint Francis of Assisi as she was a tertiary. She placed the course of action in the hands of her executors. They were to follow the appropriate “Christian moderation.” She ordered that she be buried in the “convent of the nuns of the Visitation.” SHe stipulated that the place of her burial was on the right side of her choir, “looking from the inside at the high altar, in a niche reserved for a plaque with the inscription of her name and person: so that when the said nuns attend Communion, masses, choir office and their common and particular prayers they remember me and, because of how much I loved them, they commend me to God.”
The will had been made before the Salesians moved into their new monastery and, therefore, it established that in this case she would be provisionally deposited in a “decent and appropriate place in the house they inhabit” until her remains were taken to their final location – not counting, of course, the subsequent disentailments and revolutions, whose changes Queen Barbara could not foresee. In the aforementioned will she provided how her burial place should be presented and established a model, “all in the Bust and likeness of the Tombstone that is on the grave of a daughter of Philippe Quarto,in the Choir of the Religious of the Incarnation of Madrid». SHe was referring to the Infanta Ana Margarita of Austria, the monarch’s natural daughter, an Augustinian nun of that monastery. The monarchs used to visit the churches and convents of the Madrid Court and in this one of the Incarnation, the funeral of his father, the King of Portugal John V, was celebrated. He established for «a tombstone of black marble and that on it my name be engraved and inlaid with letters of gilded bronze» the amount of two thousand doubloons that should be given to the Visitandine superior.
As was natural and usual, she established that all those masses that fit in their respective hours should be said in the churches, chapels and oratories of Madrid while her body had not received burial, with an alms of six reales de vellón for each one of them. Apart from this were the twenty thousand masses said, with distribution, so that everyone would receive the benefits of such suffrages, among parishes, churches and oratories of Madrid, secular and regular clergy with some favorite convents, distributed in other localities. She requested that at least forty-eight hours be allowed to bury her body, without her being moved from her deathbed in the first twenty-four. She left a signed memorandum, which began “Saint Barbara and Saint Xavier” – which were her baptismal names – where various bequests and legacies were arranged and ordered – “that everything contained in said memorandum be executed and fulfilled” – without it being possible to make all this known until the very moment of her death when it would be done with all solemnity. The king could take from the goods and jewels those he wished, although he especially highlighted some that were destined for him – «the diamond pin that has a very large almond», as well as the image of the Immaculate Conception that «is always next to my bed, as a sign of the great love that I have always had for her and of the effective truths with which I incessantly wish and have desired and prayed for her very long health and temporal and eternal happiness»
–. SHe underlined different Marian devotions of her preference such as that of the Capuchin nuns of Xábregas, outside the walls of Lisbon. For all of them there was a dedication. SHe clarified that the monastery of the Visitation had been «erected entirely from its foundations at my expense and with the copious support of my very beloved husband and lord, with the income and charges that appear in the founding deed». SHe had already arranged for the Salesians all the paintings and images of devotion and relics that she had not left for any other purpose, in addition to the devotional books in her library, the pieces of gold or silver cloth, of linen or lace that had no other use, all this to achieve the increase of the ornaments of divine worship. In the end she had been able to see the inauguration of the convent and even listen to its sermons. Nevertheless, she entrusted her dispositions for the Salesians to the direction of “Don Carlos Farinello
She seemed to carry in her name Javiera the enthusiasm for missions in that expanding world – “for the ardent desire that assists me for the greatest expansion of the faith of my lord Jesus Christ” –. The Navarrese saint and Jesuit had been very close to the Portuguese monarchy, which had especially promoted her canonization in the 17th century. She, despite the fall of Father Rávago in the royal confessional, maintained her own, also a Jesuit, Father Gaspar Varona, and valued the care and work that the Company of Jesus had dedicated to the missions in far-off lands – “I have always esteemed them highly,” she said in 1756 – “I order that the Fathers superiors and procurators of these missions of China and Maduré be given to each mission fifty thousand escudos so that they may place them on the best and safest farms”.
And that, despite the fact that she had been the queen at the time of the Treaty of Limits between the Portuguese and Spanish territories in the Indies, a matter so complicated to resolve as was demonstrated by the prolongation of its conclusion. And Barbara of Braganza died in the early hours of Sunday, August 27, 1758, at four hours less five minutes. After the first twenty-four hours required in her bed, her remains were transferred to the intermediate room between the monarchs’ quarters. A description of the room and the people who were in charge of their custody was provided. Her chief steward, the Marquis of Montealegre, was appointed to carry the queen’s body to the “new royal convent of the nuns of Our Lady of the Visitation,” where the architect Giovanni Battista Sachetti had designed the tomb: “And beginning to walk to this Court, with the lighting and accompaniment regular to the functions of this Class, the royal corpse arrived at the said Convent of our Lady of the Visitation at eight fifteen in the morning of Tuesday the twenty-ninth of the current, at whose main door the horsemen of Campo Don Gaspar de Montoya and Don Manuel de Fuentes took it down from the hearse and several gentlemen received it, then continuing with the coffin the same Marquis of Montealegre, Duke of Medinasidonia […] they carried the coffin to the tomb that with notice The anti-gravity tomb was preserved in the main chapel of the royal tomb itself: this tomb was of considerable height and was covered with a silver-embroidered cloth, on which the same tissue cloth that served in Aranjuez […] in the seven altars that had six candles burning on each one and with this funeral pomp the Office of the Dead sung by the Royal Chapel began, the High Mass was celebrated by the Bishop of Tricomi [Navarrese Agustín González Pisador], auxiliary of this Archbishopric of Toledo and Parish Priest of San Sebastian of Madrid, until everything was concluded and the burial service, the coffin was lowered and by the same steward and nobles it was conducted before my eyes to the choir of the convent itself where it was reopened and recognized by all that the body it guarded was that of Our Lady the Queen, it was handed over and left in that place in the care of Sister Ana Victoria Deonzieu, superior and Sister Ana Sophia de la Rochebardoul, assistant (which is the rank of vicar) to place it in the The niche in the wall that Her Majesty has pointed out. With which the personal assistance of the Grand Masters, Weekly Stewards, Gentlemen, Chaplains of honor and other servants of the royal houses was ceased in the function that took part in».
«After the royal chapel had sung the office –we now have the gaze and perception of the nuns–, we went in procession with the cross and a candle each to the door of the cloister. One can understand the depth of our pain and the abundance of our tears when receiving the body of this august founder who during her life was pleased to strip herself of her greatness to shower us with proofs of her goodness […] For nine consecutive days the Royal Chapel came to our church morning and afternoon, to officiate in it. The secular and regular clergy also performed this duty with great piety and magnificence from five in the morning until one in the morning”. The place designated for the tomb was the choir of the monastery. María Luisa Tárraga documents that after having made an inventory and begun the distribution of the sovereign’s assets, the Salesian nuns had granted power to Domingo Marcoleta, knight of the Order of Santiago, to receive in their name the legacy that Bárbara de Braganza had arranged for them: the books selected by the Jesuit preacher José Guerra, in addition to the china, paintings, devotional sculptures, relics and reliquaries; from the treasurer of the queen’s secret pocket the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand reales de vellón in current gold currency, corresponding to the two thousand doubloons that the queen wanted to allocate for her burial, together with other goods dedicated to the community.
The Salesians soon commissioned the design of the mausoleum. They had to work with white marble from Carrara or Genoa. The contract was made with professors Juan de León and Manuel Mateo, to be completed within six months from January 1759, excluding the time of possible illnesses and for the amount of twenty-two thousand silver coins. The tomb of the queen was not commissioned by Charles III, nor designed by Sabatini as happened with that of Fernando VI, both of whom were outside Madrid at the time. Tárraga thinks that that of Doña Bárbara was designed by Giovanni Battista Sachetti, author of the tomb of the Portuguese king and father of the sovereign. The work was completed by the aforementioned sculptor Juan de León at the end of July 1759, although there would be no lack of subsequent claims. The reason for not having completed the payment is that at the time the marbles and jaspers had been transferred to the monastery for assembly, the death of Don Fernando occurred in the aforementioned castle of Villaviciosa. The work on the tomb was suspended by order of a superior until the arrival of the new monarch from Naples. Then, the execution of the tomb of Ferdinand VI was ordered to be carried out with greater “hurry” under the direction of the Marquis of Esquilache. The transfer of both royal bodies was carried out from the crypt to their new location, in a solemn manner, on April 19, 1765.
The funerary complex of great scenery was attached to both sides of the same wall, outside and inside the cloister. Antonio Ponz described it all, once it had been finished. The Salesians, beyond Barbara and Ferdinand Charles III continued to grant provisions and protective measures on this monastery that had been the initiative of his half-brother and sister-in-law: “since I am patron of the Monastery of the Religious of the Visitation of Our Lady of the Institute of Saint Francis de Sales […] I have come to increase, as by this my Royal Decree [May 10, 1774] increase, for the greater decency of Divine Worship and spiritual assistance of the Religious, four Chaplains and some servants, in the terms and with the qualities and obligations following”.
The Annals and circulars for 1757 had already reported how the monarchs Ferdinand and Barbara had bought several houses to house chaplains, confessors, sacristans and other priests who could serve the monastery. Now, Charles III had a prison chaplain, who would replace the ordinary confessor and spiritually care for the nuns and students of the boarding school, confess them, administer the Holy Sacraments and help them die well –called to be a “learned subject, of virtue, prudence and experience, graduated as a Doctor or Licentiate in Theology, Canons or Laws by one of the Universities approved in these my Kingdoms”–. In addition, there had to be another three chaplains, responsible for saying the ten o’clock mass every day and the eleven o’clock mass on holidays. Four chaplaincies of royal provision as patrons who were the monarchs of this monastery, with the intervention of the superior, the archbishop of Toledo
Charles III arranged these measures as an addition to what was established by the aforementioned Foundation Deed of 1757. A copy of this documentation was transferred to the secretariat of his Royal Patronage, but also to the Archive of Simancas, “so that they are attached to the other papers belonging to the Foundation and Endowment of this Monastery of my Royal Patronage.” In this way, a review of the suitability of worship in this space was carried out, including the music and the organist. The aim was to avoid any controversy or dispute over preferences of seats or seniority; it also dealt with the possible absences of these chaplains and that, in the event that these occurred, they were conveniently justified. Likewise, by the same procedure in which these aforementioned chaplaincies were provided, the request for admission of choir nuns or domestic nuns within the monastery was also resolved in a short period of time, taking into account their distinguished origin and noble family, as well as their good customs and proven vocation.
In this way, the first Spanish superior of this Royal Monastery, Sister María Luisa Narváez, addressed King Carlos to request permission to admit Gabriela Martínez de Baños, in order to increase the number of those nuns who “incessantly pray to the Almighty to preserve the important life of VM for many years for the good of this Monarchy”. The request was resolved in a little more than fifteen days and sometimes in less time.
Conclusion: the new foundations of the Salesians in Spain
With this foundation, Barbara of Braganza continued a line of protection towards monasteries and convents that had already been developed by her predecessors, some with great intensity as happened with Margaret of Austria in the days of Philip III. In this case, they turned to a new religious order, absent until then in the Catholic Monarchy. However, its founder Francis de Sales had awakened interest in different Spanish authors and his works had already been offered in successive editions together with the Compendium of his life. If in the formation of the “holy bishop of Geneva”, the Jesuits had played a notable role, in the dissemination of his books, some of the fathers of the Company in Spain will be essential. The work of Bartholomew of Alcazar was hidden, under a pseudonym, and we have to go even deeper into the channels used. However, the career of the spiritual master of these nuns contributed to the later materialization of their founding legacy in the cloister. The arrival of the Salesians to the Monarchy of Ferdinand VI is much more than a desire of the sovereigns, although there was a defined motivation due to the ecclesiastical, political and even family and personal circumstances, above all, of Queen Barbara of Braganza.
The Salesians were not a product of the Enlightenment, nor did they by definition become drivers of the role of women in the Enlightenment. However, according to Gloria Franco, among their students we find very relevant women in the new horizons of ideas. It was an order that developed a new way of being a nun and facilitated the access of new candidates to cloistered life, perhaps not accepted until then by the various reforms developed in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The queen showed enthusiasm for providing effectively, solemnly and quickly all the resources for the completion of this work. She had the real feeling that her time was running out and that she had to act quickly, in the most mundane but important things; in the large, external and monumental. We cannot turn this foundation into a cultural enterprise, only into a desire to make visible a new agent of feminine spirituality with disconnection from the business of soul salvation that concerned everyone, even kings.
On the other hand, the founding process was explicit, detailed and well explained, not only by the official documents but by the rich and unpublished Annals that we have handled, made up of the circular letters that the nuns wrote and sent to the entire order with a communicative, resounding and manifest vocation. Our analysis has not wanted to take away the voice of those who had one then, because with their own words, we open a later horizon of perceptions that teach.
We cannot end without this epilogue. Due to the large number of professed nuns living in this monastery and in order to facilitate the entry of new novices, the second foundation of the Visitandines in Madrid was completed during the reign of Charles IV. These nuns were to be known as the “New Salesians”, located on San Bernardo Street, opposite the Benedictine convent of Montserrat. With eighteenth-century construction, it was started by María Luisa Centurión y Velasco, the 8th widowed Marchioness of Estepa, after the death of her only daughter. Curiously, the founding sisters did not come from the monastery of Barbara de Braganza, but, being professed nuns from Annecy, they had previously travelled to Lisbon. The aristocratic founder had met them when they passed through Madrid on their way to the Portuguese Court in November 1783.
It was necessary to wait until the departure of the seven founders from Lisbon on February 6, 1798 to open the one popularly known as the “Second of Madrid”, built until 1801, without forgetting the later existence of a Third in the same Court. The first royal foundation suffered the political vicissitudes of the 19th century. Its exclaustration came in October 1870, in the middle of the Revolutionary Sexennium, with only fifteen days’ notice. The community was made up of fifty nuns. They lived in the Descalzas Reales, so closely linked to the generosity of the Austrian Monarchy. The Visitation church was transformed into a Palace of Justice and the temple into a parish given to the newly created diocese of Madrid in 1891, under the patronage of Santa Bárbara. In the old orchard a public square was created where today two beautiful statues of the founding kings can be admired. It was not until 1883 that the church was inaugurated.establishment on Santa Engracia Street. However, until that time the foundations of the Salesian nuns of Tarazona were attempted and those of Calatayud, Orihuela and Valladolid were completed, with the more or less explicit support of Charles IV, Ferdinand VII and Isabel II, a Monarchy to which the daughters of Saint Francis de Sales felt linked.
Source: Revista-de-Historia-Moderna_41_09.pdf