The director of Turismo de Galicia, Nava Castro, presented the series of conferences that will be held at the headquarters of the Way of St James and Pilgrimages Chair, located in the new International Pilgrim Welcome Centre. This Chair is the most important academic project launched under the auspices of the Way of St James Master Plan and is a milestone in the study of the Jacobean phenomenon.
Accompanying Nava Castro were representatives from the two institutions that sponsor the Chair with the Board of Galicia: Almudena Hospido, Assistant Dean of Internationalisation at the Universidad de Santiago, and Segundo Pérez, Dean of the Cathedral of Santiago. Also appearing with them were Domingo González Lopo, Director of the Chair and its co-director, Adeline Rucquoi.
The purpose of the Chair is to promote and disseminate knowledge on Jacobean topics, encouraging reflection and cultural debate and boosting its presence in academia. To this end, numerous initiatives will be carried out, in addition to the conferences, some of which are already underway, like courses, seminars, publications and the creation and maintenance of a documentary and bibliographic fund. The Chair also incentivises training and research scholarships and contracts, awards and competitions on senior-year projects involving the Way.
The talks start this very Monday at 8 pm with a presentation by Fernando Villaseñor, from the Universidad de Santander, on the topic of Iconography of Santiago in Illustrated Books from the Late Middle Ages. A new presentation will be given each month through the year, as shown in the calendar below:
– 6 October: Raquel Alonso Álvarez, Universidad de Oviedo, with a talk on The Holy Chamber in the Cathedral of Oviedo. From ‘thesaurus’ to a sanctuary for pilgrimage.
– 7 November: Attilio Antonelli, Sopraintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti y Paesaggio per il Commune di Napoli (Italia), with A Royal and Pontifical Basilica of St James in Naples.
– 12 December: Marco Piccat, Universidad de Trieste (Italy), with a presentation on The Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in the Lives of Medieval Saints.