La Merce 08
Fri 19 - Wed 24 Sep 2008
Virgin of Merce, the patron of Barcelona. According to the legend, on the night of the 24th of September in 1218, the Virgin of Merce appeared simultaneously to King Jaume I, Saint Pere Nolasc and Saint Ramon de Penyafort. She asked them to set up an order of monks dedicated to save the Christians held prisoners by the Sarracens. It was a time of religious wars.
Centuries later, in 1687, Barcelona suffered a plague of locusts, and the people prayed to the Virgen of Merce. When the plague was over, the City Council named her the patron of Barcelona. After Pope Pius IX declared the Virgen of Merce the patron of the city, Barcelona started to celebrate the festival in September.
Actually “La Merce” is a Festival which concentrates in a few days hundreds of activities such as music, street art, human towers, capgrossos (dwarves with big heads), giants and an entire menagerie of festive animals, acrobatic gathering including jets, balloons and gliders, pyrotechnical music show and more than 500 activities which gives something to appeal to everyone.
More info at La Merce 2008
Barcelona Musical Action programme
(Taken from http://w3.bcn.es; http://www.bcn.cat/merce/
zero comments so far
Please won't you leave a comment, below? It'll put some text here!
Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post or for TrackBack URI
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.