A woman in period dress, from the 19th century, guides visitors. It is seven in the afternoon on Thursday and this is the first of the shifts that will visit part of the Montjuïc Cemetery In the darkness of the night. Or rather, by the light of the candles placed on the paths and those carried by visitors, who have paid 12 euros for an hour and a quarter of the tour.
The woman who tells the living the story of the dead is Elisenda Ribesa graduate in History who in fact approaches her mortuary didactic work as a kind of extra or hobby, because this, organized by Cementiris of Barcelonait only happens twice a year: at Easter and when All Saints’ Day approaches, either in the Poblenou Cemetery or in this one.
Leandre Albareda
Ribes explains how Leandre Albareda, the municipal architect of the time who was in charge of the construction of the Montjuïc Cemetery, inaugurated in 1883 in what was an area of agricultural fields, was inspired by European cemeteries. Next, the woman, in her role, stops in front of a lavish pantheon, because the pantheons of the deceased who were rich are the majority objective of the tour stops.
The first one you see is Agustín Goytisolo, ancestor of the three writing brothers of the same surname, of whom one, José Agustín, is also buried there. The man, from India, like so many of those who rest in the most luxurious graves of Montjuïc, went to Cuba young, made a fortune and returned to the peninsula. He died in Barcelona, and before that he invested in what would become Eixample and built a house in Plaza de Catalunya. Where is the Hard Rock Café, Ribes specifies.
The float
Goytisolo died in 1886, and was buried in the Poblenou Cemetery. But like many prominent men of the time, he made one last trip already dead: the family moved him to Montjuïc, inaugurated in 1883 and becoming a favorite place for wealthy families as their last resting place.
As the group continues on its way, a mortuary carriage passes by, one of those in a nearby space, at the entrance to the cemetery, where they can be seen on display. The next pantheon, with Egyptian airs and the work of Josep Vilaseca, is that of the Batlló family. The initiator of the saga was Pere Batllo. She multiplied it quickly: she had 15 children.
So many people had to end up arguing, so a group of relatives became associated with the first Batlló factory, in the current Escola Industrial, on Urgell street, and another with the second one that was opened, in Sants. Those buried in the pantheon are those of Urgell, the historian specifies.
The patron of the Sagrada Família
In the Bonaplata pantheon, Ribes explains that the family’s factory, located on Tallers Street, was the first to operate in Spain thanks to steam, a progress that brought problems when it was burned by people convinced that the new system would generate personnel cuts, which would take away their jobs. Like the rejection of the internet by some but in a much more forceful format.
Suddenly, another lady dressed in period clothing who emerges from the night takes the floor. It’s her, she relates, Isabel Bolet i Vidiella, daughter of Vilanova i la Geltrú, an early orphan married by the family to a cousin who enriched her. She was a widow, and when she died she made an anonymous and decisive donation to the Sagrada Família: half a million pesetas.
“Let him rest”
It took a lot to discover who had left that money, and she regrets it with a smile: “I didn’t want to be famous.” The benefactor is buried in Piera, but she appears before visitors next to a pantheon of her husband’s family, the Marquis. The revived Bolet says goodbye to the group and one of the death tourists says goodbye to her in a way that is timely: “May he rest.”
Another sudden appearance, another character on the route, identifies himself as Salvador Andreu, Dr. Andreu. He explains that her life already started with a star, that she was born in a family with possibilities, and adds with her pills, “which may seem silly but they are very effective”, she made a fortune. Money that he invested in various parts of the city, such as Eixample and access to Tibidabo.
Sinatra
Located along the route, barely visible until they are very close, several musicians provide the soundtrack of the visit. On this route everyone plays songs that he performed Frank Sinatra as a tribute: it is 25 years since his death.
The next stop is in front of one of the most impressive graves in Montjuïc, that of Nicolau Juncosa. Manager of his wife’s family business, Juncosa must have understood that life is sometimes a considerable nuisance. He must have understood it because he himself commissioned the sculpture of his tomb, the work of Antoni Pujol: a figure representing death and hugging him while he sits with the company book with a relief of the factory behind. An inscription indicates the name of the complex: “The solution…?”.
Amatller’s ‘stomp’
Another pantheon that stands out is that of the Amatller family. Chocolatiers, the business grew in a big way in the third generation, thanks to Antoni Amatller, traveler, photographer, and loving father of his daughter Teresa, who adored him, according to testimonies of the time. She took him, already dead, from the Poblenou Cemetery to the Montjuïc Cemetery, where she had him build a pantheon of more than 100 square meters. Teresa sold the company and died single and without children. And there the saga ended.
Ribes makes an exception and stops before a less noble tomb: a niche. The name: Magriñá Family. In reality, behind her is the great soprano Victoria de los Ángeles, an international star from Barcelona, who lived her childhood at the headquarters of the University of Barcelona, in the house occupied by her parents, employees of the center.
She was probably happier with them than with her husband, Enrique Magriñá, according to the chronicles of the time: some suggest that she took his fortune while she was alive. At her death, her surname was imposed on the tombstone.
Ildefons Cerdà and ‘his’ little daughter
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The last character on the route is Ildefons Cerdà, who in front of his peculiar tomb – which recreates the Eixample blocks as he wanted them, open on one side – tells those present about the hardships of his life, such as that his fourth daughter was not his, so he disinherited her. He also admits that despite this, the creature had a good life: she was Clotilde Cerdà, an internationally renowned harpist with the stage name Esmeralda Cervantes.
Cerdà also remembers how Puig i Cadafalch He hated him so much that he had his books burned, and how his remains were forgotten in Cantabria until Fabián Estapé rescued them and, after keeping them for two years in his office, he had them buried in Montjuïc. Cerdà says goodbye showing his anger with the housing speculators. And then Ribes says goodbye, Sinatra’s music fades away and the dead bourgeois return to their luxurious tombs.