subject: Menorca Island [print this page] At the far end of c/Roser, turn left past the palatial, seventeenth century mansion of Can Saura, which is distinguished by its elegant stonework and overhanging eaves, and then left again for Seminary and the Museu Diocesa de Menorca (Diocesan Museum). Housed in an old and dignified convent and its church the Esglesia dels Socors the museum is a delight. Before you go in, take a look at the elongated perimeter wall, a sober affair cheered by the delicate flutings of a neoclassical portal that once served as the main entrance to the church. On top of the doorway, a bizarre sculpted cameo is the town's most unusual sight, depicting the Virgin Mary, armed with a cudgel, standing menacingly over a cringing, catlike dragon devil.
Inside, the consensual buildings surround an immaculately preserved Baroque cloister, whose vaulted aisles sport coats of arms and religious motifs.
The museum's collection is distributed chronologically among the tiny rooms edging the cloister; the labeling where it exists is in Spanish. The first three rooms hold a hotchpotch of Talayotic and early classical archeological finds, notably a superbly crafted, miniature bull and a similarly exquisite little mermaid (sirena), almost certainly Greek bronzes dating from the fifth century Be. Room 4 is devoted to the workaday paintings of a local artist, Pere Daura, and Room 5 has scale models of old Menorcan buildings made by one of the priests. Rooms 68 occupy parts of the old refectory and display some dreadful religious paintings, as well as all sorts of ecclesiastical tackle. There are elaborate monstrances, collusion cups, reliquaries, croziers and such like, but it's the general glitter that impresses, rather than any individual piece.
The adjoining church is often used for temporary exhibitions featuring local or at least Catalan artists.Immediately north of the museum along Seminari, turn right down Socors to make the quick detour east to the market (l1'Iercat), which rambles over two miniature squares, Plac;:a Francesc Netto and Placea Llibertat. This is another delightful corner of the old town, where fresh fruit, vegetable, meat and fish stalls mingle with lively and inexpensive cafes selling the freshest of ensail11adas. The fish stalls occupy a dinky little structure of 1895, the rest fill out a slender arcaded gallery that was constructed thirty years before as part of a municipal drive to clean up the town's food supply.
Doubling back to c/Seminari along Socors, turn right to pass the savings bank which occupies the Palau Saura, built in grand style by the British for a Menorcan aristocrat, one Joan Miquel Saura, in return for his help in planning their successful invasion of 1708. Just north along the street is the flamboyant facade of the Capella del Sant Crist, a Baroque extravaganza with garlands of fruit and a pair of gargoyle like faces. Inside, the intimate, candlelit nave supports an octagonal stone dome and is also home to an unattributed medieval panel painting depicting three saints of local significance. The skeletal crucified Christ above the high altar is supposed to have dripped with sweat in 1661 and remains a popular object of devotion.
From the chapel, it's a few metres north to the narrow, pedestrianzed main street that runs through the old town here . M. Quadrado. Look to the left and you'll spy a perky bronze lamb the Estatua des Be stuck on a column. The lamb, symbolizing the Lamb of God and carrying a flag bearing the cross of St John the Baptist, is a reminder of Ciutadella's biggest shindig, the Festa de Sant Joan, held from June 23 to 25.Directly opposite the top of c/Seminari, a long, straight street clSanta Clara shoots off north, hennaed in by the walls of old aristocratic palaces. At the top is the convent of Santa Clara, a mundanely modern incarnation of a centuries old foundation. In 1749, this was the site of a scandal that had tongues clacking from Ciutadella to Mao. During the night, three young women hopped over the convent wall and placed themselves under the protection of their British boyfriends. Even worse, as far as the local clergy were concerned, they wanted to turn Protestant and marry their men.
In this delicate situation, Governor Blakeney had the room where the women were staying sealed up by a priest every night. But he refused to send them back to the convent and allowed the weddings to go ahead, thereby compounding a religious animosity Catholic subject against Protestant master which had begun in the days of Richard Kane.
