With
mountains at the rear and a wonderful blue sea in front. This was the land to
which the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans came. Leaving splendid
traces of their glory in their wake. Today mosaics and columns mutely gaze over
the wonderful blue horizon. The same sea in which they launched their vessels
for either warring or commercial purposes, whether allied or rivals of the Byzantium,
Genoa or Pisa. The Catalan vessels bore their gold and blood red colours over
distant lands, from Sardinia to North Africa, from Sicily to Greece. The Catalan
language still being spoken in the Alghero part of Sardinia.These sea routes
enhanced by wonderfully serene bays, rocky cliffs and bustling ports, are still
fragranced with the bouquet left by the Spice Routes.
Three
cultures have merged here, and for centuries gave rise to a fertile exchange.
The Christian culture with its heritage of classical antiquity, the Jewish culture
and the Muslim. The Medieval Catalans, having absorbed these three cultural
matrixes, produced a whole series of exceptional characters such as Ramon Lull,
alchemist, philosopher and inventor of that Ars Magna, which is a veritable
synthesis of the human capacity for knowledge. He was also a mystic and a poet
(some consider him as being the true father of Catalan literature). Or Arnau
de Vilanova, who was also an alchemist and talented doctor (he was also the
doctor of popes). As well as the clever rabies, who elaborated the Cabala in
Gerona, a synthesis of Jewish knowledge and mystic thought, which spread throughout
Europe.Catalonia has proved the meeting point of ancient knowledge. Here, amongst
the mysterious alembics and manuscripts, a tradition emerged through which a
knowledge of the Divine is conveyed through the knowledge of Man.
"If
the other romance languages are cousins, Provençal and Catalan are twins",
wrote Joan Coromines.Born at the same time, and brought together by the literary
production of the Troubadours, which extended from the Limousine district to
Provenza, from Catalonia to Sicily. However these twins were divided by history.
The fracture emerged as the result of the Crusade against the Albigensians:
and was sealed by the battle of Muret, in Toulouse, where the king Peter of
Aragon who had come to the defence of the Provençal peoples was defeated
and killed by the crusaders coming from the North.Provençal was gradually
replaced by French, and Catalan continued its struggle for survival in relation
to Castilian. The last enemy being French centralism. Today Catalonia has succeeded
in re-gaining its political and cultural dignity, and its language today proudly
propels an ancient literary tradition towards the future.
