FUNDACIÓN XAVIER DE SALAS, Trujillo (Spain)
The Fundación Xavier de Salas is a private cultural foundation established in 1981 by Xavier de Salas and his wife Carmen Ortueta de Salas. Xavier, a respected art historian, was Director of the Spanish Institute in London (1947-62), and later Director of the Prado Museum in Madrid (1970-78). Carmen de Salas was active in the heritage conservation movement, being a co-founder of Hispania Nostra (in 1976), an association for the protection of the historic and natural heritage of Spain, which in turn forms part of the Europa Nostra federation, and she occupied prominent roles in both for over twenty years.
The founders purchased the ruins of the 15th century convent of San Francisco el Real, popularly known as La Coria, and after Xavier’s death Doña Carmen undertook the restoration of the premises to serve as headquarters of the cultural foundation they had created. Important assistance with rebuilding and restoration was received from institutions such as the Kress Foundation and World Monuments Fund (of the U.S.A.) and, subsequently, from the European Union and Fundación CajaMadrid, a foundation created by a major Madrid-based savings bank.
One of the central aims of the Foundation is to promote the study and dissemination of the historical ties between the Extremadura region, in which Trujillo is situated, and the continent of America. Prominent roles were played by men and women from this area during the encounter of European and American cultures in the 16th and 17th centuries. Trujillo was the birthplace of Francisco Pizarro (1477-1541), founder of Lima and Trujillo in Peru; of Francisco de Orellana (1511-46), first European to navigate along the River Amazon from the Andes to the Atlantic; and of Fray Jerónimo de Loaysa, first Bishop and later Archbishop of Lima, the capital city of Peru founded by Francisco Pizarro in 1535.
Since the early 1980’s the Fundación Xavier de Salas has been active in such fields as anthropology, music, philosophy and the natural environment. It is cooperating with the Royal Botanical Garden (Madrid) to study the flora of the Park of La Coria, a property outside the city walls owned by the Foundation. Its efforts in the field of business studies and entrepreneurship are focussed at enterprises in Extremadura and neighbouring Portugal, and it maintains a Didactic Museum for the benefit of local people and visitors to the historic town of Trujillo, with a collection of Ibero-American popular arts and crafts. A recent initiative is to make this mediaeval building as fully accessible as possible to all visitors.
The Foundation possesses a Library, and offers good facilities for courses of academic study in a congenial and peaceful historic atmosphere. For 25 years it hosted study abroad programs of U.S. academic institutions, and it pursues projects of cultural collaboration with other academic bodies in Spain, Germany and Portugal.
The President of the Foundation is Jaime de Salas Ortueta, son of the founders, himself a former Professor of Philosophy at the Universidad Complutense, Madrid.
e-mail: fxdsalas@fundacionxavierdesalas.org
web-site: htttp://www.fundacionxavierdesalas.org
Fundación Xavier de Salas
Convento de la Coria
10200 TRUJILLO (Cáceres)
Spain
Bibliography
Pilar MOGOLLÓN CANO-CORTÉS: Franciasco Xavier de Salas Bosch (1907-1982). Comité Español de Historia del Arte, Granada, 2020.
Mervyn SAMUEL: Carmen Ortueta de Salas y el Patrimonio Histórico Español. Badajoz, Fundación C.B., 2022.