Old Royal Rescue House. Today National Library of Honduras . At the time of independence it was known as “Casa de la Moneda ” or “Cuño” and it is the oldest civil structure in Tegucigalpa .
Summary
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- 1 Story
- 2 The most important civil construction
- 3 Start of work
- 4 Building design
- 5 Historical rescue
- 6 Source
History
Until recently this building was known as the National Typography , The building was the work of the bricklayer Miguel Quiñones Borjas , the work began in 1780 at a cost calculatedly of 3,500 pesos, it is known that in the central years of the 19th century it functioned as a barracks and which in 1896 became the National Typography.
In 1780 , the Audiencia of Guatemala authorized the construction of a special house for the rescue of silver, on a site purchased from the Borjas family . As Tegucigalpa’s mining boom lasted a few years, the king ordered the extinction of the Royal Rescue House of Tegucigalpa in 1792 , however, by 1978 there were specific instructions from the prosecutor of the Audiencia of Guatemala in relation to the administration of the Royal House of Rescue of Tegucigalpa.
With the independence of 1812, Dr. Mario Martínez Castillo tells that the total bankruptcy of the house occurred due to the abuses of the residents of Tegucigalpa, including members of the City Council, some of whom had been accused of embezzlement since 1814 . After independence and for stated reasons, the Tegucigalpa Rescue House became a forced loan bank , since members of the council sold silver bars to cover the salaries of the troops stationed in the Villa. from San Miguel de Heredia de Tegucigalpa .
It has been discovered that, after that date, the suppression of the Casa de Rescates was requested on two occasions, one in 1823 by the Tegucigalpa council and the other in 1824 by the same head of state , Don Dionisio de Herrera . There is no exact date of the year in which the Belize Stamp that Don Francisco Morazán brought in worked , since there are many contradictions. However, it is known that in the central years of the 19th century it functioned as a barracks and in 1896 , due to an inscription engraved on the wall of one wing of the building, it is known that it became the National Typography, a name that it has kept until ourdays .
The most important civil construction
According to Dr. Castillo the building of Real Casa de Rescues is considered the building most important held in the town of San Miguel de Heredia in Tegucigalpa , competing with it only the primitive council and real cáceles built when the Real becomes Villa, and almost, at the end of the colonial period, the construction of the Mallol Bridge with its nine arches over the Choluteca River . In the religious aspect the churches of the Conception, Los Dolores and the Cathedral surpassed it , originallyParish of San Miguel Arcángel ( 1765 – 1785 ).
Start of work
During those years , the mayor of Tegucigalpa , Mr. Idelfonso Ignacio de Domezain and the ordinary mayor of the City Council, Mr. Rosendo Agüero , presented all the help to the administrator of the work, Joaquín Joseph de Posadas , who replaced the former tester José de la Peña and Flores in the construction of the Real Casa de Rescates. Mr. Posadas was in charge of making all contracts with bricklayers, carpenters , weavers, brickmakers, stonecutters, transporters, owners of carts to transport the stone , and in the summer of1780 the work began, calculating a cost of about 3,500 pesos.
Building design
The building in question was the work of the bricklayer Miguel Quiñónez , reveals Mario Martínez Castillo who, in an apple recently bought from Don Francisco Borjas for the purpose, designed a building in two large sections, the western half, with a large cloister inside. Four corridors with 20 ochabated wooden columns that rest on magnificent pink stone vases , finely carved, and finish off with wooden bases, forming lobed arches of Mudejar tradition. These corridors are accessed from the main street side , through a large archRoman that ends the entrance gate. Everything is paved with fine quarry slabs, this gate, which was the main entrance, has on the outside a large flat door, there was carved in quarry the royal coat of arms of Spain which disappeared when the entire house was remodeled .
The entire building of the Real Casa de Rescates de Tegucigalpa, due to the unevenness of the land on which it was built, particularly in the south western corner, two different levels and a basement . The doors , windows and plinth were carved out of pink quarry: unfortunately, by a disposition of General Tiburcio Carías ( 1933 – 1949 ), to eliminate all the balconies of the windows that faced the street, because they inconvenienced and endangered the passage of pedestrians, all the windows in the front of the house were removed, thus losing part of its baroque stylefor the contrasts of light and shadow that gave the main facade.
Historical rescue
Currently it has been restored and the National Library has been installed, with which the center of Tegucigalpa has recovered one of its best buildings, which was the pride of past generations and which for more than two hundred years was a symbol of the former Villa de San Miguel. Heredia de Tegucigalpa , today the capital of the Republic of Honduras , with the simple indigenous name of Tegucigalpa.
