Havana, Cuba
Tradition tells about Doña Isabel del Bobadilla, wife to Hernando de Soto, who took possession of his post as General Captain in Cuba and then, without hesitation, left her as the Governess herself and decided to strengthen the Spanish power in the Florida peninsula. For long hours and entire years, she waited for her husband in the watch tower of the Royal Force Castle, back then the house of the country’s governor. Such a long waiting converted Isabel into e legendary figure, as she looked far over the horizon trying to discover, beyond what her sight could catch, the vessels that would bring his husband back home.
The Havana Giralda
History rumor has it that, some years after her death, Gerónimo Martín Pinzón (1607-1649), an artist born in Havana and with Canary ascendance, was inspired by that women as a symbol of wedlock fidelity and hope; he therefore sculpted a figure in her remembrance. The city governor back then, Juan Bitrián Viamonte, ordered that the sculpture be shaped in bronze and placed, as a weathervane, on top of the tower added to the castle short after. Governor Bitrián baptized the weathervane with the name of Giraldilla, as a remembrance of The Giralda from his birth city, Sevilla.
Thus, La Giraldilla became a symbol, for its shades of legend and love story. The figure is that of a beautiful maiden standing with a Calatrava cross in one of her hands. She reveals features that reminds the physical traits of the Spanish woman, with coincidences that make her a genuine representation of a city like Havana. It is worth adding that the sculpture, one-hundred-and-ten–centimeters (3.6 ft) high, shows on her chest a medallion with the sculptor’s name and a crown on her head. Her silhouette is shaped on top of the fortress with a blue sky background and its bronze shines with golden flashes, almost the color of the Sun, under the light of which it stands out. Nowadays, it is not the original one, but a copy made with great aesthetic accuracy, since the original one is preserved in the City Museum because it is considered on the wonders of the city. The small bronze female figure defies time from the heights and is the most ancient symbol of the Cuban capital, founded five hundred and two years ago. It looks like it is looking far beyond the horizon, with no fatigue due to the centuries passed on, waiting while it continues to mark the winds direction.
Source: Símbolo y leyenda: La Giraldilla, San Cristóbal de La Habana 08/12/2020 available in http://www.sancristobal.cult.cu/simbolo-y-leyenda-la-giraldilla/
