Last modified: 2016-07-02 by ivan sache
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![[Flag]](../images/e/es-co-mc.gif)
Flag of Montalbán de Córdoba - Image from the Símbolos de Córdoba website, 20 September 2015
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The municipality of Montalbán de Córdoba (4,475 inhabitants in 2013; 3,366 ha; municipal website) is located 40 km south of Córdoba. Nearly 80% of the municipal territory is grown with garlic; these fields yield 37% of the total production of garlic in the European Union.
Montalbán has been identified by the historians Sánchez de Feria and José Montañés Lama with the Roman town of Segovia, without firm historical evidence, though. Involved in the war between the Romans and the Carthaginians and during the Roman Civil War, Segovia was mentioned for the last time when the local bishop, Crispinus, attended the 4th Council of Toledo. Anyway, remains excavated in Tentecarreta (coins bearing the effigy of Emperor Honorius and of the Christ, paleochristian catacombs used in the 3rd-4th centuries) prove that Montalbán was the site of a significant settlement in the late Roman period. The exact location and name of the settlement, however, are still conjectural.
Montalbán was purchased on 7 April 1503 by Pedro Fernández de Córdoba, lord of Aguilar, for 3,000,000 maravedies. Philip III erected on 19 May 1603 the Marquisate of Montalbán for Pedro Fernández de Córdoba-Figueroa, 4th Marquis of Priego.
Montalbán is the birth town of the writer and politician Eloy Vaquero Cantillo (1888-1960). Member of the Radical Republican Party, Vaquero was director of the Córdoba Workers' School, which he transformed in 1925 into an Outdoors School. He attempted in 1913 to establish in Montalbán a rural community based on the physiocratic ideals.
Founder in 1915 of the Córdoba Andalusian Center, Vaquero organized with Blas Infante the 1st Andalusian Regional Assembly, held in Ronda in 1918. The Manifesto of Andalusian Nationality was adopted by the assembly, as well as Andalusian symbols that are the remote forerunners of the today's symbols of Andalusia.
Back to politics with the advent of the 2nd Republic, Vaquero was elected Mayor of Córdoba in April 1931; he resigned two months later when elected Representative at the Cortes (1931-1936); he served as Minister of the Government (1934-1935) and Minister of Work, Health and Social Planning (1935). Defeated in the 1936 general elections, Vaquero exiled, being eventually appointed Professor at the Columbia University (New York).
Ivan Sache, 20 September 2015
The flag of Montalbán de Córdoba is horizontally divided white-red with the municipal coat of arms in the center.
The coat of arms of Montalbán de Córdoba is "Quarterly, 1. Gules a castle or masoned sable port and windows azure, 2. and 3. Argent three fleurs-de-lis azure 1 and 2, 4. Argent a lion gules. The shield placed over a double-headed eagle sable and surmounted by a Ducal coronet."
The base of the shield is pointed, in French style, as opposed to the rounded-off base used in Spanish style.
The first quarter represents Castile and the castle of Montalbán. the second and third quarters are proper to Montalbán. The fourth quarter features the lion of the Kingdom of Córdoba (part of Castile) and not the lion of León. The whole shield reads as a rebus: "The castle of Montalbán is Montalbán de Córdoba". The arms might also be related to the arms of the Dukes of Medinaceli, Marquis of Montalbán.
The eagle (aguilar) represents the lords of Aguilar.
[Símbolos de Córdoba website]
Ivan Sache, 20 September 2015