This
Brotherhood was born as a consequence of the great impulse given to our
Processions in the last decades of the 19th century. Its constitution date has
come down to us, curiously, through a local publication dated May 15, 1892 that
reads as follows: "At the General Preparatory Meeting held on the twelfth
day, the Statutes of the new Brotherhood created in this Villa were approved,
to the Matron of Jerusalem, Saint Veronica. The first steps taken have been to
commission said Image to one of the sculptors who share the glories of this art
with Benlliure, so recognized and admired in the artistic world".
The
Image appears in Cieza two years later, in 1894, as the chronicle of El Orden
on March 11 of that year includes under the title "The new
Brotherhood": "On Sunday afternoon it was taken in procession from
the house of D. Juan Marín to the Convent of Santa Clara, and later to the
Parish Church, the Image of Santa Verónica. The Waitress of this beautiful
Image is the distinguished Mrs. Visitación Aguado de Marín, who received very
just congratulations for the exquisite taste and the wealth with which Saint
Veronica was dressed. An immense crowd, at whose head was the most
distinguished of Cieza, followed the Throne where the new Image was placed. The
music of Master León, with its chords, the rockets and the hangings with which
the balconies of the race were decorated, they gave the act all the aspect of
the great solemnities. With the greatest solemnity last Tuesday the Brotherhood
of Santa Verónica celebrated its first religious function canonically erected
in the Church P arroquial. The sacred chair was occupied by our most zealous
and much loved Mr. Cura Párroco, Dr. D. Francisco Vigueras, who delivered an
eloquent sermon like all his, about the obligation that the new Confraternities
voluntarily accepted to imitate, in a very special way, the act of that noble
matron, cleaning the face of the Lord with the stains with which the modern
Jews try to make him ugly, that is, the blasphemers, the sacrilegious, heretics
and free thinkers of our time. The musical part was in charge of the Orchestra
directed by Maestro León, which interpreted a beautiful motet composed
expressly for said act by the aforementioned maestro, lyrics by our respectable
friend and dear Mr. Ramón Capdevila. The Image of Veronica recently acquired by
the new Brotherhood is a finished work by the famous Murcian sculptor, Mr.
Sánchez Araciel. The canvas that represents the Holy Face is one of the best
productions due to the inspired brush of Mr. Ruiz de Sardes, a generous gift
made to the Brotherhood by Mr. D. Antonio Cánovas y Vallejo, former deputy to
Cortes for this district and to whom the nine Brotherhood owes deep
gratitude...".
To
the Image of Sánchez Araciel we must add the throne, possibly carved by José
Izquierdo and gilded by Ignacio Amoraga, both from Ciez.
Since
its first incorporation into our Parades, on Holy Thursday in the General
Procession and on Good Friday morning in the Penitent Procession, the
Brotherhood was linked to the Buitrago family (D. Manuel Buitrago,
Elder-Brother in 1915 was one of the constituents of the Board of Passionate
Brotherhoods of Cieza), to which the Camarería of the Brotherhood passed on the
death of Mrs. Visitación Aguado in 1917. In the Parades of those years at the
head of the Brotherhood, next to the script, a long trumpet was placed mounted on
a small car that played to warn the people who were preparing to see the
Procession go by; hence, the fact that, in the General Procession of 1920,
regardless of the place assigned to the Image, its Brotherhood parades at the
head of the entire procession can be justified. That same year, it was approved
that its Titular Paso return to parade in the Procession of the Holy Burial in
which it had appeared sporadically years ago -in it it will continue parading
until the Brotherhood replaces it in 2009 with the Paso Nuestra Señora de la
Amargura- and Around the same time, he also began to participate in the
Procession of the Risen One, in which he would not stop doing so until 2005
when he was replaced by The Ascension.
The
general strikes of the twenties endangered the continuity of the Brotherhood,
and so in 1929 its General Meeting determined that the Image be delivered with
all its belongings to the parish priest of the Church of Nuestra Señora de la
Asunción so that it can be in turn make it available to the Brotherhood that is
established in the future. However, the Big Brother, Mr. Buitrago Villa,
expressed his intention to renew and reorganize the Brotherhood in a short
time, leaving in procession that year, thus annulling the previous agreement
and leaving the election of the Board of Directors, Waitress for after Easter.
and place and custody of the Image, throne and its belongings. That same year,
as recounted in an article in the newspaper "Cieza", the Brotherhood
changed the colors of its tunics, in which it combined white and green, as well
as the workmanship of the same, taking as a model those that the Brotherhood
had previously introduced. of the Holy Christ of Agony in the style of Seville;
and in 2008 he will incorporate a medallion with his emblem into his wardrobe.
After
the Civil War, which the Image had survived in the house of D. Manuel Buitrago,
it paraded again in 1942 thanks to a commission formed for the purpose that
reformed the throne and the Image, and which also proposed to acquire lamps for
lighting electric, the arrangement of the script and the decoration of the Paso
with natural flower. However, the enthusiasm shown by the members of the
commission could not avoid a certain failure a year later, this situation once
again leading to the reorganization of the Brotherhood in 1945, being President
D. José Molina Rodríguez.
That
same year, 1945, the Brotherhood contacted the sculptor Francisco Palma Burgos
and commissioned him for eight thousand pesetas to restore the image and
throne, as well as its complete gilding. A year later, the Paso de la Santa
Verónica paraded again, which it had not done in the previous three years, and
Mrs. Josefina Pérez de Tarazona was appointed Waitress. On those dates, the
cloth with the Holy Face due to Ruiz de Sardes, who disappeared, is replaced by
another work by Benedito, and this in turn alternated since 1992 with another
gift from the Marín Oliver family, the work of the painter María Jesús
Castañeda from Ciez.
The
banner embroidered in gold and precious stones by Concha Escámez from Cartagena
is from the 1970s. In the years that followed, Mr. Adriano Cano Gómez, Mr.
Isidro Herrero Camacho and Mr. Pedro Marín Ordóñez succeeded each other at the
head of the Brotherhood. From 1989 to 1995, under the Presidency of D.
Francisco Martínez Camacho, the brotherhood concluded in 1992 the task of
recovering its traditional costumes and replaced the old staffs of the Nazarene
Third with new ones made by the Ciezano goldsmith Diego Penalva in 1994.
In
1997, when D. Antonio Villa Aroca was president, Javier Bernal Casanova
restored the Image and Diego Penalva restored the Tercio lanterns; and in 1999
the throne was gilded again, this time in fine gold, whose finery will be
replaced by new ones made in velvet by Sisters of the Brotherhood in 2008, and
the cloth and painting of the Holy Face of Benedito are restored; both
performances are carried out by Javier Bernal Casanova.
Since
2005, the Brotherhood, under the Presidency of Mr. Matías Ríos Saorín, parades
in the Procession of the Risen Jesus with the La Ascensión Pass, replacing the
holder, provisionally and until 2008 on his throne. It is a set made up of the
Image of Our Lord in his Ascension, carved in wood by the Sevillian sculptor
Miguel Bejarano, for which gold powers were made in 2006 in the Orovio
goldsmith workshops in the Torre de Ciudad Real, and for a throne, carved in
wood and gilded in silver to the korla, the work of local artisan Bonifacio
Pérez Ballesteros, which was finished for Easter 2008 along with the
corresponding set of rod tips, also carved in wood and gilded; The throne is
completed by some velvet finery embroidered in gold in 2008 by Sisters of the
Brotherhood and a bell holder also made in 2008 by Bonifacio Pérez Ballesteros
-the wood carving- and by Antonio Jesús Yuste Navarro -the Image of the angel
that holds the bell- .
In
2009, already under the presidency of Dª Josefa García Guardiola, the Cordovan
sculptor Francisco Romero Zafra carved in wood, for the processional departure
of the Brotherhood in the Procession of the Holy Burial, the Image of Our Lady
of Bitterness, a polychrome sculpture of the Virgin with a lace mantilla in her
hands and seated next to the cross, from which the shroud hangs, for which the
sculptor himself designs a silver halo. The throne on which it parades, begun
in 2009, is a work carved in wood with silver details in the Cordovan workshops
of the Higuera González brothers, and is completed with the corresponding set
of velvet finery made by the Sisters of the Brotherhood.