The
titular Image arrives in Cieza in 1881; This is how it is stated in the order
book of its author, the Murcian image maker Joaquín Eusebio Baglietto:
"For the construction of the image of María Magdalena de Altura from the
natural to dress said Ymagen is for the town of Cieza placed in the Hermitage
of the Holy Christ within the walls in front of the Station commanded by D.
Pedro Martínez, chaplain of the Claras Nuns of said town, has received 1,200
reales for it, delivered on March 10, 1881.”
The
Image was commissioned by the ciezano priest D. Pedro Marín Martínez, D. Pedro
"Macharro" -as he was popularly known- chaplain who was of the
Monastery of the Immaculate Conception, "Las Claras", to occupy the
side altarpieces of the Hermitage of the Santísimo Cristo del Consuelo, whose
works had finished in 1879.
It
was his first Waitress, Mrs. Visitación Aguado, who was in charge of paying for
the throne, as well as the dress, cloak, handkerchief and turban of the Image;
The embroideries and workmanship of these garments were made in 1892 by the
ladies María Solera and Carmen Pérez Marín, taking advantage of the wedding
dress of Mrs. Pascuala Marín, mother-in-law of Mrs. Visitación. The wig, which
was always blonde, was made with natural hair from his own Waitress. On her
death in 1917, Mrs. Carmen Camacho took charge of the Image, which was replaced
by her niece, Mrs. Pilar Gómez, until 1940, the year in which Mr. Mariano
Camacho took over the Paso and went on to run it. the camaraderie his wife Mrs.
Clara García who continued to do so until her death in 1993.
The
primitive throne, somewhat smaller than the current one, was made in 1893 by
Maestro Cañamón, a carver from Ciez who, due to the small dimensions of his
workshop, had to assemble it in the middle of the street, and it was gilded by
"Perico the painter". The one that is now in procession is a work
carved in wood and gilded by the sculptor from Malaga based in Cieza Juan
Solano García, to whom it was commissioned in 1953 by the Brotherhood, opening
the following year; It was restored in the year 2000 by Bonifacio Pérez
Ballesteros, with the exception of the light arms that were restored in 2003 in
the Domingo García Chauán workshop in Albatera and the rod tips that were
carved in wood and gilded in Seville by Antonio Ibáñez Valles in 2006, and
completed with a new set of finery embroidered in gold on velvet by the Sisters
themselves in 1999.
During
Holy Week, the throne and Image were arranged in the garage of Los Aguados,
located in Ejíos de Marín. From there and together with the Paso de La Oración
del Huerto, he participated in the "Traída de los Santos", waiting at
the Esquina de la Villa for the arrival of the Pasos that descended from the
Hermitage of the Santísimo Cristo del Consuelo, then preceding the group to the
Church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción to participate in the General,
Penitent, Holy Burial and Risen Processions that he also led; hence the saying
so common in Cieza, "Walk with God and may the Magdalena guide you".
Initially,
the Santa María Magdalena Pass did not have its own Brotherhood; in fact, in
the first decades of the 20th century, due to the tightening of the ties that
linked the Pasos that did not have their own Brotherhood with certain trades,
possibly to ensure their departure in procession, the Paso de Santa María
Magdalena was assigned to the esparto makers.
After
the lapse caused by the Civil War and until 1945, the Image will be kept in the
Convent of San Joaquín and San Pascual to be later located for a long period of
time in the Hermitage of the Holy Christ of Consuelo from where it will once
again participate in the popular “Traída de los Santos” while it was in force,
having recovered its traditional Transfer of the afternoon of Holy Wednesday a
few years ago.
Meanwhile,
in 1941 and being Mr. Mariano Camacho Blaya's Big Brother of the Paso, the
Brotherhood was founded, whose presence will become evident, as before, in the
Processions of Holy Wednesday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Currently, the
Paso maintains the departures in the General Procession of Holy Wednesday, in
that of the Penitent on the morning of Good Friday -from which it was absent
between 1994 and 1999, due to parading its Brotherhood with another Paso in its
place- and in that of the Resurrected on Easter Sunday, having stopped doing so
on the Holy Burial on Good Friday night in 2005, coinciding with the
acquisition of the new throne for the sculptural group of the Most Holy
Reclining Christ, whose Stewardship is linked to the Brotherhood of Santa Maria
Magdalena.
Precisely
to replace the Image of Nuestra Señora del Dolor, which is part of the
sculptural group of the Most Holy Reclining Christ, due to its precarious state
of conservation, and at the same time with an eye on having it placed in
procession next to the Paso del Stmo. Cristo de la Sangre, property of the
Brotherhood, this acquired in 2005 from the Sevillian sculptor Luis Álvarez
Duarte an Image of the Virgin of her property and baptized it with the
invocation of Our Lady of Greater Pain; That same year the Sisters of the
Brotherhood made a brocaded dress and cloak for said Image, and a year later a
silver halo made in the Sevillian goldsmith's shop of the Delgado López
Brothers was acquired.
The
proceeds from the various activities organized by the Brotherhood made it
possible for the new tunics of blue cloth to be designed in 1942 –in
substitution of the original red ones- with the traditional gold
"moco" cap for the anderos, and blue corduroy with golden satin cape
and hood for the Nazarenes, and the first instruments of the Band of drums and
bugles are acquired, also commissioning the project for a new Step, The Descent
of Christ, which ultimately will not come to fruition.
In
1970 and to take over from Mr. Mariano Camacho, Mr. Manuel Martínez was
appointed President, who undertook the work of making a new cloak for the Image
as well as the banner of the Brotherhood, both embroidered by Concha Escámez
from Cartagena in 1971, to which will be added in 2001 a new suit embroidered
in velvet by the women of the Brotherhood themselves.
After
a few hesitant years, in 1977 a group of friends headed by D. José Gómez Rubio
took charge of the Brotherhood who, starting from nothing and being forced the
first year of his mandate to procession with civilian clothes and without Band
of music, manages to get the Brotherhood out of the crisis in which it is
plunged. A year later, the anderos return to parade with their characteristic
tunics and the Band of bugles and drums, directed by D. Manuel Piñera Marín,
the “Pistolas”, reappears with new vigor. D. José Gómez, elected President of
the Board of Pasionaria Brotherhoods of Cieza in 1988, was succeeded by D.
Francisco Martínez Camacho, under whose mandate the old chalice-shaped staffs
of the Tercio de Nazarenes were replaced by new ones with identical motif made
by the Ciezano goldsmith Diego Penalva, D. José Sánchez Ramos and D. Manuel
Ruiz Marín, tragically deceased shortly after his mandate began.
The
presidency then assumes D. Antonio Ruiz Lucas, under whose government the
Brotherhood acquires in 1994 its own House and its second Step, La Exaltación
de la Cruz, which consists of seven Images made in polyester resin, three of
which will be modified a a year later, by the sculptor Antonio Martínez Villa
from Ciez, who is also the author of the throne, carved in wood decorated in
blue and gold, and on whose vertices are the Images of the four Evangelists;
The Paso parades between 1994 and 1999 in the Procession of the Penitent on
Good Friday morning, replacing its owner, being replaced again by him in the year
2000. During his tenure, what is now the last restoration of the Image will
also take place. of Santa María Magdalena, which was carried out in 1996 by
Javier Bernal Casanova, and which in turn had been the first intervention of
this type that the Image had suffered since in the last decade of the 30s the
ciezano sculptor Manuel Carrillo García I will retouch the gesture of the mouth
to adapt it to the taste of the ciezanos.
Again
under the presidency of D. José Gómez Rubio, and in order to recover the invocation
of the "Christ of the Blood", whose trace is lost in the 19th century
and which could have been the invocation of the head of the Brotherhood of the
Blood of Christ , disappeared in the middle of the s. XVIII, as well as the Via
Crucis with which since time immemorial the Holy Week of Cieza had counted, the
Brotherhood acquires the Paso del Santísimo Cristo de la Sangre, of Andalusian
bearing, composed of an Image of Christ Crucified to which another accompanies
at his feet of an Angel holding a chalice, both works carved in wood and
polychrome by the Sevillian image maker Luis Álvarez Duarte, and by a throne in
varnished wood, the work of the Sevillian tronista Antonio Ibáñez Valles, with
cartouches alluding to the Passion chiselled in silver bas-relief by Goldsmith
Maestrante, also from Seville.
With
this new Step, the Brotherhood of Santa María Magdalena, whose brothers are
going to incorporate the traditional "executioner's" hat into their
wardrobe for the occasion and a new medallion-scapular the following year, will
parade from the year 2001 on the Via Crucis Processional Holy Monday night, in
a procession that in 2004 will be completed with a guide cross, made of wood in
the Seville workshops of Antonio Ibáñez Valles, candlesticks, purchased at the
Moreno Art Workshops in Granada, and a censer, made in Seville in the sixes.