Towards
the last quarter of the last century, Mrs. Adela Marín Blázquez y Marín
Barnuevo, daughter of the Mayorazgo de Ascoy, was the first Waitress of the
Image, which already existed in the years of the regency of María Cristina and
possibly dates from 1880, although the Brotherhood was not instituted as such
until 1891. Since its inception the white tunic, with red vertical bands
before, without them now, has always been its hallmark.
The
spirit of the Brotherhood has run parallel to that of its orchestra, which
could well have been organized in 1892 under the direction of the unforgettable
Maestro D. Antonio León Piñera, as seems to be deduced from some press releases
that appeared in the weekly magazine "El Enredo" at the time. with
dates of April 17 and 24, 1892; In the first one, the columnist, M. Dulce, in
addition to highlighting the contribution to the brilliance of the parades of
the aforementioned Orchestra, allows himself to advise the Brotherhood that for
the future, and in imitation of others, buy tunics, pay cards and thus increase
the number of Brothers. In the second, the writer praises the "new
Orchestra that under the direction of Maestro León Piñera enlivened the Holy
Thursday and Good Friday Processions in the Brotherhood of S. Juan
Evangelista", also referring to the "gallant behavior that with said
orchestra have had the Major Brothers of said Brotherhood, Mr. José Peña y
Marín and Mr. Juan Pérez López, who presented said Orchestra with a soft drink
at the house of D. Ignacio Amoraga". Precisely one of its first solo
violinists was Mr. José Marín Blázquez and Marín Barnuevo, brother of Mrs.
Adela, previously mentioned, and among others were its first members Miguel
Ruis Peña, Gerónimo Salmerón Gómez, José Marín Fernández and José Gálvez.
It
is evident that the orchestra was created to interpret the two marches that
Maestro León composed for San Juan and that his pasodoble San Juan soon became
famous, as evidenced by the numerous anecdotes collected about it. Early on the
children and the town in general began to hum the well-known verses "San
Juan, San Juan is going to fall \ San Rafael is going to catch him". This
refrain is only due to the fact that the Image of San Juan was venerated in the
Hermitage of the Santísimo Cristo del Consuelo in front of the Image of San
Rafael that, due to the position of his arms, seemed to expect that San Juan
would fall into them. Later Don Juan Pérez Templado would collect these verses
to write the complete lyrics of the pasodoble.
Around
1915 the orchestra lived its golden age directed by Don José Gálvez who played
up to forty violins as one. After a few years of hesitation and when Don
Antonio Pérez was mayor, D. Manuel Pérez Pérez, a notable violinist disciple of
D. José Gálvez, was in charge of forming a complete orchestra. Precisely after
his death, the disappearances and reappearances of it were constant. Its last
splendor was experienced from 1975 under the baton of Maestro Germán Galindo,
with whom, among others, D. Francisco Lucas Navarro, former mayor of Cieza,
played. After the death of both, given the advanced age of some of its
components and despite the fact that it was considerably renewed, the San Juan
orchestra stopped parading in 1989.
As
far as the San Juan Pass is concerned, provisionally and between Holy Week of
1890 and 1891, Mrs. Ana Pérez Martínez, mother of D. Federico de Arce and
closely linked to the lords of the Mayorazgo de Ascoy, took charge of the
Image. . D. Juan Pérez López takes over, who will remain in the Presidency of
the Brotherhood until his death in 1919. From 1893 it is an article signed by
E.B. in which it was said, in the description of the General Procession, then
Holy Thursday, “in sixth place marched San Juan preceded by a large gathering
of white Nazarenes. This Paso sported different bouquets of nuanced artificial
flowers, made in Paris by order of the daughters of D. Juan Pérez López, to
whose exquisite taste the arrangement of the Paso is entrusted".
Mr.
Juan Pérez is succeeded by his son, Mr. Julián Pérez Cano, the waitress being
his wife at that time, Mrs. Visitación Templado Martínez. D. Julián Pérez and
his brother D. Antonio commissioned the neo-Gothic altarpiece of San Juan for
the Hermitage of the Santísimo Cristo del Consuelo, where the Image was always
kept. It was traditional to see it go down in the popular "Traída de los
Santos" along with the other Images that had their place there to
participate in the Processional Parades. San Juan was getting ready in a garage
that was at the back of said hermitage next to the chaplain's house; the tunics
were distributed at D. Julián's house, on the road to Murcia, and from there
they left for the Transfer; Arriving at the Camino de Madrid, next to the
"Pilar de los burros" the Brotherhood went ahead to take it on a
litter while the orchestra awaited the arrival of the Paso.
When
the "Bring of the Saints" from the hermitage of the Santísimo Cristo
del Consuelo stopped being carried out in 1957, the Image with its altarpiece
was installed in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Assumption. However, the
Brotherhood still maintains its popular Transfer of Holy Wednesday that is
verified from different points of the town and to which the Children's Third of
the same is added with its own Step.
As
it happened with so many others, the barbarism of the Civil War destroyed the
old Image of San Juan sculpted by Sánchez Araciel. It was burned in the
hermitage on August 28, 1936, saving only the head that was collected and
delivered to D. Julián Pérez Cano who kept it in his house throughout the war.
The Image was reconstructed in 1940 by the sculptor José Planes, who carved the
body, and by the sculptor Manuel Juan Carrillo Marco from Ciez, who did the
same with the hands and feet. El Paso, however, offered some differences with
the primitive: this one represented a San Juan in which the body did not keep
the proportions with the head; he likewise held a palm in his right hand while
pointing forward with his left. The current one, one size smaller, picks up the
tunic with his right hand while pretending to hold the palm, which always wears
a garland of small flowers following the tradition started by Mrs. Visitación
Templado. Maestro Carrillo himself took over the cleaning and restoration of
the Image in 1987, which was restored in 2009 by the Valencian restoration
company Gaia, under the supervision of the General Directorate of Fine Arts of
the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia.
We
know about the throne that it was gilded, according to a note attached to its
interior, in 1894 by Miguel Amoraga, and it is known that it passed through the
workshop of the master cabinetmaker José Izquierdo, a Catalan artist who by the
last years of the last century had established in Cieza. It was definitively
remodeled between 1956 and 1957 by Manuel Juan Carrillo Marco, who completed it
with various carvings, renewed the grove of lights and added some vases and
four silver eagles. Later, in the Lorente Brothers Workshops, the upper base
was restored and a new one was made in the lower part in order to increase the
number of rods from three to four. Finally, in 2010 it was once again restored
and gilded in the workshop of the tronista Bonifacio Pérez Ballesteros from
Ciez, under the presidency of Mr. Antonio Lucas García, who succeeded his
father, Mr. Antonio Lucas Lajara in 2004.
After
the end of the Civil War and with the reinstatement of the processions, San
Juan returned to parade through the streets of Cieza, dressing up for some
years in the chapel of San Pascual in the Convent of San Joaquín and San
Pascual. D. Julián and D. Antonio Pérez Cano processed the legalization of the
Brotherhood, which was refounded in 1948, after having introduced into the
Brotherhood in Holy Week of 1944 the electric light staffs, staffs that were
replaced in 1997 by others of new design made by the ciezano goldsmith
Francisco Penalva, and luxury tunics.
In
1962 Mr. Julián Pérez Cano, first Commissioner of Honor of the Board of Passion
Brotherhoods and Honorary President of the Brotherhood of San Juan, died and
Mr. Juan María Buitrago Iniesta replaced him, who commissioned an embroidered
banner for Holy Week 1971 in gold on both sides with great luxury of precious
stones to the cartagena Dña. Consuelo Escámez. He is also responsible for the
acquisition of a new Step for the Arrest Procession: Ecce Homo, sculpted by
Juan González Moreno in 1972, which has been on display for worship since 1989
in the Church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción and which had been parading on a
throne, acquired in Murcia, made of wood and gilded in the Lorente Brothers
Workshops in 1970, until 2004, the year in which the Brotherhood inaugurates a
new throne, with a Sevillian air, made and finished in wood, the work of
Albatera artist Domingo García Chauán, to which were added in 2006 silver
cartouches made in the Ciezano workshop of Francisco Penalva. The Image was
restored in 2009 by the Valencian restoration company Gaia, under the
supervision of the General Directorate of Fine Arts of the Autonomous Community
of the Region of Murcia. That same year was the last year that the Paso paraded
in the Arrest Procession, since by virtue of the procession restructuring
agreement adopted in 2004 by the Junta de Hermandades Pasionarias it is located
in the General Procession, in which it parades already in 2011, which motivates
the Holder of the Brotherhood to stop participating in it.
After
the death of Mr. Juan María Buitrago, the Brotherhood was directed successively
by Mr. Agustín Gómez Pastor and Mr. Antonio Lucas Lajara. Under the presidency
of the latter, in 1984 the goldsmith Francisco Penalva was commissioned two
lanterns for the Tercio de Nazarenes, Bienvenida Semitiel embroiders a new set
of finery for the thrones of the Brotherhood and in 1993 the Brotherhood
inaugurated the Paso "El Lavatorio of Pilato” –which has paraded since
2011 under the name of the Judgment- with Images made of wood and canvassed by
the Jumillano sculptor Mariano Spiteri (he himself will reform his polychrome
in 2001) and a throne carved in wood and gilded by Manuel Lorente Sánchez that
same year. For some years the Brotherhood opted to participate in the Processional
Parade on Good Friday morning with the new Paso in addition to the Main Paso,
until in 2006 it decided that the latter stopped doing so in that Procession.
In this way, the Paso San Juan, which had been participating in the General
Procession, the Penitent Procession, the Holy Burial Procession and the Risen
Jesus Procession, finally sees its outings reduced to these last two
Processions.
Finally,
in 1997 the Brotherhood recovers the traditional "muco" cap for its
Tercio de anderos and in 2011, to accompany the Ecce Homo Pass, establishes the
executioner's cap for its Tercios de anderos and Nazarenes.