The thousand-year-old splendour of Toledo has its paradigm in the fortified palace that stands on the outskirts of the city, upstream, in the so-called Huerta del Rey. Linked to the many stories and legends of this monument, there is always a beautiful woman confined to it as a lover and beloved of kings, emperors, or warriors who do not hesitate to fight to the death for their elusive favors. And it also happens that such mysterious ladies, instead of perpetuating their name, pass into the tradition as the “Galianas”, because their palace is in the idyllic places adjacent to the Via Galiana, a Roman road so called because it reached the Galias.
The successive ladies of the castle, instead of adding their name to it, go on to enrich with their stories the tradition of the legendary “Galiana” that personifies all of them, and that the vulgo has come to call so because the palace is next to the old Roman road that united Toledo with the Galias, the Galliana road or via Galiana that lasted as a glen of the Mesta. And not only is the vulgo mistaken, that at the end of the centuries until the learned Covarrubias continues saying that “Galiana is the name of Mora, (…) to which his father built some palaces (…) to the bank of the Tagus, that until today remains the name to the ruins of them…”. Although the patience and tenacity of historians have already rescued reliable names: Galiana Halia, Galiana Zaida, Galiana Raquel,… are still evoked as a single woman, rather poetic and unreal creature, synthesis of all of them.
Author: CONTRERAS MESA, JULY
Language : CASTELLANO
Issue No. :1ª
Year of release: 2003
Plaza edición : Toledo, toledospain.info
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Palace of Galiana, Toledo. By Toledospain
