From the chronicle to journalism, sources for the construction of the illustrated holy week

Abstract

In the present study we intend to offer a general understanding about the Holy Week (Easter) in Valladolid and its famous processional ensembles with different sources. We are not offering a simple historic view on this celebration in the 18th century, but showing what the people in those days thought about the celebration (and its cultural, artistic and anthropological importance) as is reflected in their writing. The Holy Week in Valladolid was an important theme in historiography on a national level, hence we gather here both local and national sources from a time in which people went from a late Baroque mentality to a fully Enlightened (Age of Enlightenment) one. This change was sometimes traumatic, and these conflicting thoughts can be appreciated in the different ways of narrating, from pre-scientific history to journalistic chronicle. Specifically, three sources of information have been analyzed and compared to the time, one of them the first newspaper published in Valladolid. The sources used are the following: El Diario de Valladolid was written by Ventura Pérez between 1720 and 1784; the Secular and Ecclesiastical History of the very Ancient, Augusta, Coronada, very Illustrious, very Noble, Rich and Very Loyal City of Valladolid, written by Manuel Canesi Acevedo (1681-1750) and the Diario Pinciano, first newspaper of Valladolid, work of José Mariano Beristáin, whose first issue was published on February 7, 1787, being the first newspaper of Valladolid. There has been a voiding of these sources, whose basis is the documentary justification of this work.