archaeography

Melón (Galicia). Ruins of a medieval and early modern monastery.

That modernity is founded on ruins is hardly more obvious than in the remains of the Desamortización. By this name is known the sale of Church and communal lands and properties during the mid-19th century in Spain. The idea was to give a boost to the Spanish economy and increase public funds by undermining the backward economy of the Ancien Regime. Between 1836 and 1855 hundreds of thousands of religious and municipal properties were auctioned. The new owners were interested in land, not in buildings, which were left to decay. The overgrown ruins of monasteries and churches still dot the Spanish countryside.

This, too, is a landscape of modernity.