Berceo is a biannual journal published by the Instituto de Estudios Riojanos. It publishes scholarly studies in the fields of Social Sciences, Philology, History, and Regional Heritage, with the aim of contributing relevant knowledge to research and to the cultural development of La Rioja. The journal is intended for the scholarly community, as well as for other readers interested in these subject areas at the regional, national, and international levels.
Los autores que publican en Berceo conservan los derechos de autor de sus trabajos y autorizan a la revista la primera publicación de los mismos. Los artículos se publican bajo la licencia Creative Commons Atribución–No Comercial–Compartir Igual (CC BY-NC-SA), que permite su uso, distribución y reproducción en cualquier medio, siempre que se cite adecuadamente la autoría original, no se realice un uso comercial y se mantenga la misma licencia.
Ready, aim...draw! Propaganda and caricatures against Baldomero Espartero as the regent of the Spanish Monarchy, 1842-1843
This article is an approach to satiric press during Espartero’s regency through the analysis of satiric pictures of realm regent and his environment, mainly the conservative newspaper La Posdata in 1842 and 1843.They show how the moderate party in particular launched a propaganda campaign against the regent and his supporters, who were animalised and ridiculed in political caricatures. One of the most recurrent points is the depiction of Espartero as a tyrant and a traitor to the people.
Copyright (c) 2024 Daniel Aquillué Domínguez (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Otra visión de los políticos “riojanos” contemporáneos. Caricatura, prensa e imagen pública
Berceo nº 187 is a monographic volume coordinated by Jesús Movellán Haro focused on political caricature, satirical press, and visual culture related to contemporary Riojan politicians of the 19th and 20th centuries. The publication examines how images and caricatures helped shape political discourse, collective identities, and social imaginaries through different media such as newspapers, photographs, illustrated prints, and matchbox labels. The volume includes seven scholarly studies devoted to political figures linked to La Rioja, including Espartero, Sagasta, Olózaga, Amós Salvador, and Eduardo Barriobero, approached from the perspectives of cultural history, political iconography, and visual analysis.
Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Portraits of a forgotten federalist republican and a workers’ attorney: Eduardo Barriobero
The Spanish federalist republican Eduardo Barriobero Herrán (1875-1939) was one of the most relevant political figures between the republicanism that he represented and his social commitment to anarcho-syndicalism during the first decades of the XXth Century. As a writer, translator, republican politician and workers’ attorney, the relevance of Barriobero along this period of Spanish History remains without doubts. Thus, caricatures and references concerning his social and political activism were frequent, considering that Barriobero was a never one of the ‘main characters’ we could recognize from the last years of the monarchy of Alfonso the XIIIth or from the Spanish Second Republic. However, we will focus this paper on the analysis of the images that contributed to build a visual memory of this ‘jabalí’ from La Rioja.
Copyright (c) 2024 Jesús Movellán Haro (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Cyrano, caricature in half act. The cartoonist Ramón López Montenegro, a visual chronicler
Ramón López Montenegro constitutes a reference among the humor of the first third of the 20th century. He is part of a group of cartoonists who starred in one of the most brilliant moments of political satire in times of accelerated change. Noted for his theatrical works or his social chronicle, his graphic world has been somewhat overlooked, when the visual permeates all his productions. From a Rioja family, he was born and raised in Zaragoza and always showed off his aragones origin, although he spent the summer and died in Alfaro. His relationship with the Sáenz de Heredia family would lead him to enter politics. Romantic, conservative, highly educated, he integrated into high society under his alias Cyrano to tell and star in cultural and social activity and showed us the society of the moment from its prism of order and correctness. A “Rioja” illustrator who combined caricature, press and public image and who reflected society through satire, constituting himself from caricature, graphic or not, into a visual chronicler.
Copyright (c) 2024 Francisco Marcos Burgos Esteban (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Amós Salvador Rodrigáñez or the most famous mustaches of Spain between the centuries
Brief biography of the politician from Logroño Amós Salvador Rodrigáñez (1845-1922), a fundamental figure of Riojan liberalism in the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century and who, despite his importance – more than three uninterrupted decades as a parliamentarian and five times minister - and the numerous legacy left in his city has fallen into oblivion. The following pages analyze the main milestones of his professional, political and intellectual career, as well as the use that the satirical press made of his image and, especially, his long mustaches, the physical feature that best represented him.
Copyright (c) 2024 Pablo Sáez Miguel (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Logroño Cómico Fortnightly Magazine and Riojan Politicians
The fortnightly magazine Logroño Cómico was published from May to September 1888, with Facundo Martínez Zaporta as its founder. Its aim was to engage readers and make them smile through political caricature, as shown on its covers featuring images of several Riojan politicians, while its interior pages portrayed the reality of everyday life in La Rioja. Advertisements on the final page helped finance the publication. The magazine was published during the Restoration period, which saw the emergence of many similar publications throughout the final decades of the nineteenth century bearing the adjective “comic.”
Copyright (c) 2024 José Miguel Delgado Idarreta (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Political cartoon and matchboxes: a Sagasta unknown visual biography that lighted Spanish households
Satirical press and visual language offer us an enormously valuable source of information for studying political cultures and their most prominent representatives. Through the caricatures shown in the newspapers, a certain public could access humorous, critical and distortingreadings of political life, finding symbology and ideological attributionslinked to the profile of the publications. What we bring here is the consideration of a new and unknown support of these cartoons: the labels that decorated the matchboxes. They also reproduced the same representations and scenes that simultaneously occupied the pages of the newspapers.Using a series of these labels, we undertake an unprecedented biographical reconstruction of PráxedesMateo- Sagasta, from a new look and the cartoons.
Copyright (c) 2024 Gonzalo Capellán de Miguel, José Luis Ollero Vallés (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Salustiano de Olózaga Almandoz (8 June 1805-26 September 1873), “The sheep of the Toisón”
Many biographies and studies have been made on the life and political career of the controversial and prominent politician, Mr. Salustiano Olózaga. However, most of them are focused on the first part of his political career or on his speeches in Cortes that reflected his talents as a speaker. On the contrary, in this studyit is intended to focus the research on the image of the politician that was disseminated through the cartoons included in the pages of the satirical press.Due to the development of this type of press, the cartoons we will study focus on the last period of his political career during the Democratic Six-year period until his death in 1873. Therefore, the aim is to analyze what vision of Olózaga, biting and deformed, was transmitted to the Spanish people through this medium of great social reach.
Copyright (c) 2024 Raquel Irisarri Gutiérrez, Rebeca Viguera Ruiz (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Ángela Herrero Vidal lived through the great desires for change of the 19th century. The contradictions of the 19th-century liberal bourgeoisie also marked the lives of the protagonists. Women’s lives, in particular, experienced the cruelty of these contradictions. Literature reflected these contradictions in Spain as well. Leopoldo Alas Clarin portrayed them in La Regenta. Zamora, Ángela, Ana Ozores, and Vetusta all suffered from these contradictions.
Copyright (c) 2026 Berceo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Political engagement and economic possibilities
The Mateo-Sagasta family’s liberal affiliation is recognized. The connection with liberal ideas on the maternal side, the Escolar family, is more obscure. The information gathered here proves that the path taken by this Torrecillan family from the Constitutional Triennium to the years following the 1868 revolution was one of firm adherence to liberal politics. First, his grandfather, Nicolás María Escolar, and then his children and sons-in-law, beginning with the Progressive Biennium, left the town a legacy of a majority favorable to liberalism, which Práxedes himself would sublimate in his own political action. What he had received in his childhood, he gave to the new society of his dreams.
The aim of this paper is based on an iconographic and symbolic analysis the commemorative image of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta (1825-1903). This task will be developed by taking into account the historical and symbolic value of one of the main leaders of the XIXth Century Spain, particularly during the Sexenio Democrático and the Bourbonic Restoration. From the last caricatures dedicated to Sagasta before and immediately after his death, we will focus on the main lieux de mémoire in which Práxedes Mateo Sagasta has been the protagonist. Likewise, a brief exercise of hermeneutics will be engaged, in order to comprehend the commemorative events of the first centenary of his death in 2003 and, finally, the bicentenary of his birth in 2025.
Domingo Peña Villarejo, el desconocido comerciante y político riojano que fue uno de los prohombres del partido liberal de Sagasta
After many years of neglect, in recent decades there has been a revival of interest in the figure of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta among historians. This has led to greater awareness of his personal and political career, as well as that of other progressive figures who accompanied him throughout his life. This article seeks to vindicate one of those people, the Riojan merchant Domingo Peña Villarejo, whose existence had gone unnoticed until now and who played an important role in Sagasta’s party, coming to be considered by his contemporaries as one of the leading figures of that party, He also held various political positions, including provincial deputy for Madrid, vice-president of the Provincial Commission, member of the municipal council of the capital and senator, for which he was awarded the Grand Cross of Isabel la Católica.
After the end of the Second Carlist War (1872-1876), Carlism faced two major challenges: the consolidation of the Canovist Restoration, which sought to attract its followers through the political projects of Alejandro Pidal, and the internal conflict that arose after the military defeat, when disagreements over participation in the new political system pitted the staunch supporters of Cándido Nocedal and El Siglo Futuro (1875-1936) against the rebels or feístas of Antonio Juan de Vildósola and La Fe (1875-1891). Despite the negative view conveyed by historiography regarding the crisis experienced by Carlism in those years, the Communion experienced a certain recovery, especially in the field of journalism and in the political use of centenaries and Catholic pilgrimages, the last vestiges of the full identification between Carlism and Catholicism. The journalistic revival promoted by the Nocedals reached its peak during the drafting of the Press Law by the liberal-fusionist Pío Gullón (1883), giving rise to an intense media battle reflected in satirical weeklies such as El Cabecilla, Rigoleto and El Papelito, which ridiculed both internal adversaries and the politicians of the Restoration, especially Práxedes Mateo Sagasta.
The voice of the party outside parliament
This paper presents an initial quantitative and qualitative analysis of the role played by the party press in the evolution of the progressive liberal opposition, as represented by the Constitutional Party, during the first period of the Borbonic Restoration in Spain. It identifies the functions this press performed in the organization and internal life of that political force, the specific newspapers and magazines which represented it in each province, and the party’s deputies and senators who were involved in any kind of journalistic activity within these publications, providing a set of provisional conclusions regarding its significance,
From the Abolitionist Society to the National League. The shift of the Sagasta party regarding slavery during the Democratic Sexennium, 1868-1873
The Glorious Revolution of 1868 opened the debate on slavery in the Antilles. While the proponents of its abolition seemed to have more social, parliamentary, and editorial support, and especially among the parties that formed the revolutionary governments, it was only five years later that antiabolitionist political forces were able to halt the reforms and build a strong opposition to the revolutionary process. Sagasta and his supporters played an essential, even paradigmatic, role in this shift. In this text, I analyze their evolution throughout the Democratic Sexennium (1868-1874). I begin by briefly considering the positions of historical progressivism on slavery, and then examine the trajectory of Sagasta’s party, from its membership in the Abolitionist Society, through the radicalization resulting from the revolutionary outbreak, its moderation in the Provisional Government, the constitutional
La Iberia and La Nueva Iberia as expressions of progressivism during the institutional decline of the Isabelino regime
This study analyses the role played by La Iberia (1854–1866) and La Nueva Iberia (1868) as discursive platforms for liberal progressivism during the decline of the Isabelino regime. The main objective is to demonstrate that both newspapers did not merely reflect the institutional crisis, but acted as active agents in shaping a political and cultural alternative. Through a methodology based on the analysis of newspaper sources, editorials and contextual documents, the study examines how the press articulated a civic pedagogy aimed at an enlightened and committed citizenry. The interest of the work lies in highlighting the structural function of the press as a political actor, capable of influencing the legitimisation of power and the gestation of reformist horizons. Sagasta’s career as a journalist and political leader
MARTÍN GARCÍA, Juan José. Historia de Hormilleja: Tres mil años de historia riojana. La Rioja: Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 2024, 670 pp.
Copyright (c) 2025 Berceo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
LLORENTE, Juan Antonio, Retrato político de los papas. Edición con estudio preliminar de Gérard Dufour. Instituto de Estudios Riojanos (IER), Logroño, 2025, 358 pp.
PÉREZ ESCOHOTADO, Javier. Redes rivales en el Logroño de 1500. Los Cazalla Vivero, los Cabredo y los Medrano, Logroño, Instituto de Estudios Riojanos (colección Ciencias Históricas, nº 50), 2023, 166 pp.
Memories and news about the Ercilla-Zuñiga family andits links with the Valvanera monastery
This journal has previously dealt with the relationship between the family of Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga and the Valvanera Monastery. This article revisits this subject providing some new documentation. Special attention is paid to the generation before the poet, especially to the figure of his father, as well as to the generation immediately after him. Finally, some unsuccessful attempts to find the family remains in the monastery are reviewed.
The economic repression in La Rioja Alta
The town of Treviana, located in La Rioja, was one of the most heavily punished by repression during the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist regime. This article aims to analyze the causes of such intense repression through an examination of economic repression, both during the Civil War and the post-war period. Associationism, social conflict, and the implementation of Agrarian Reform in a traditionally leftist municipality are arguments presented throughout the following pages to provide an explanation for the severe repression that occurred in Treviana.
L’hebdomadaire Imperio de La Rioja (1936-1937)
L’hebdomadaire Imperio est né en octubre 1936, au debut de la guerre civile espagnole. A l’heure actuelle, nous ne connaissons que quatre numéros correspondant aux mois de novembre et décembre 1936 et janvier 1937. Il est né comme voix de la Phalange española et des JONS comme ils l’ont eux-mêmes écrit. Dans ses pages, ils tentent de montrer la nouvelle réalité, née après l’eclatement de la guerre, en présentant non seulment la nouvelle idéologie, mais aussi la chute et le changement qui doit avoir lieu dans la nouvelle Espagne sous le joug et les flèches et une grande Espagne libre et national-syndicaliste.
Antonio Alesanco Hervías, the merchant, businessman and politician who inspired the re-founding of the Centro Riojano in Madrid in 1930.
The history of the Centro Riojano de Madrid has hardly been documented, despite the fact that it was one of the first regional centres to open its doors in the capital and the importance it has acquired over time for the projection of our land. This history has two main phases: the first one runs from its foundation in 1901 until 1903, the year in which it ceased its activity, and the second one begins in 1930, when the centre was refounded, and extends to the present day. This article will try to explain the circumstances in which this refoundation took place, unknown until now, highlighting the figure of one of its main inspirers, the Riojan merchant, businessman and politician Antonio Alesanco Hervías, whose life’s work has also gone unnoticed so far.
Fluctuating from rural hygienism to paternalistic regenerationism
In 1909, the hygienist Hipólito López Bernal published Nociones diversas adecuadas a los habitantes de Belorado (Diverse Notions Appropriate for the Inhabitants of Belorado). In the context of Rioja Burgalesa –a region culturally and socially embedded in the Riojan context– this kind of “social catechism,” influenced by the regenerationist movement, offered a wealth of advice that not only focused on purely hygienic aspects but also delved deeply into social, economic, and, ultimately, political issues. The initial hygienist publications, primarily technical in nature, which fortunately found an excellent breeding ground in the region from approximately the last third of the 19th century, had definitively led to the adoption of sociopolitical positions by medical professionals, characterized, with few variations, by a mixture of social Catholicism and paternalistic regenerationism.
Hermenegildo Sáenz, natural from Cabezón de Cameros and the relevant owners, José Sáenz Medrano and José Sáenz Azcárate in the village of Moguer
To date, Riojans have been located in the Huelva towns of Ayamonte, Gibraleón, Moguer, Trigueros and Huelva. On this occasion, the study aims to learn about the figure of Cabezón de Cameros native Hermenegildo Sáenz Rodríguez and his wine business deals with London and New York. Like several of his relatives, he knew how to connect his Rioja lands of origin not only with Moguer, but also with Cádiz, England and America. Over the years, his son José Sáenz Medrano and his grandson José Sáenz Azcárate will progress, they will be relevant subjects in the public and social life of Moguer and they will contract advantageous marriages.
Navarrete, a key rearguard huh during the siege of Logroño (1521)
After recovering the Kingdom of Navarre for the Albret dynasty, a Franco-Navarrese army led by André de Foix, Lord of Asparros, began the invasion of Castile in June 1521, laying siege to the city of Logroño. Although the focus was on this town, many surrounding villages suffered the consequences of the attack. This study examines the role of one of the closest: Navarrete. This feudal village belonged to the Duke of Nájera, who was, at that time, the Viceroy of Navarre. Using valuable documentation preserved in its municipal archive, as well as numerous references from other Spanish and foreign archives, we will reconstruct its role during these events.
Regarding Michelangelo's Calvary sent to Vittoria Colonna
By investigating the sources of the poem ‘Pandémica and Celeste’ by Jaime Gil de Biedma, the hypothetical relationship between these sources and the Mary Magdalene of the Gospel story is established. This figure appears in Michelangelo’s Calvary on display in Santa María de la Redonda (Logroño, La Rioja) and is also the central character in the sermon preached by the Archbishop of Toledo, Bartolomé Carranza, known as the ‘sermon of tolerance’ (1558). Applying two levels of reading, catechetical and theological, the meaning and scope of this sermon, on a first reading, gives an initial message of contrition and penitence for the sins committed; but from a theological key, it alludes to the Lutheran principle of justification by faith. The archbishop seems to be trying to argue for the tolerant treatment that the Inquisition should apply in the trials against Lutherans that would culminate in the “autos de fe” of Valladolid in 1559.
This article analyses the inquisitorial trials of Antonio de Medrano and the printer Miguel de Eguía, denounceds by Francisca Hernández, a Salamancan woman who tried to reduce her sentence in this way. Diego Ortiz de Angulo, the clergyman from Maqueda, the protagonist of the well–known treatise Lazarillo de Tormes, acted as inquisitorial prosecutor in both cases. We analyse the way he proceeded, the accusations made, the persecution to which he subjected the ‘alumbrados’ of the kingdom of Toledo and his relationship with the inquisitor Alonso Manrique de Lara, half–brother of the poet Jorge Manrique. The relationship of the canon of Calahorrra Sancho Carranza de Miranda and his nephew Bartolomé Carranza with Erasmism, its various alternatives and the persecution they suffered are also studied for their ideas.
Study on the Perception of YOung People in La Rioja Regarding the Fair Distribution of Household Tasks
Despite the incorporation of coeducation in schools, gender roles continue to influence the distribution of domestic and caregiving responsibilities. This study examines the perception of university students in La Rioja regarding fairness in co-responsibility. A total of 691 students participated in a survey using an ad hoc questionnaire, covering household and external tasks as well as childcare. Results show that 84% of respondents believe that mothers assume most household tasks, while 90% consider that fathers are more involved in external activities. Additionally, 96.5% attribute childcare responsibilities to mothers. However, university students in La Rioja do not perceive this situation as highly unjust. Furthermore, a gender gap is observed in the perception of co-responsibility, with male students overestimating their contribution. The study highlights the need to strengthen education on gender equality and promote structural changes in educational systems.