San Bernabé reigns in the streets of Marbella 541 years later

José Carlos García

Marbella

On the fourth day of the Fair, the Old Town of Marbella was once again filled with colors to welcome San Bernabé. The city remembered why June 11 is its grand day with the civic-religious procession celebrating the reconquest of the city in 1485. We do not know if June 11, 1485, was a cloudy day like it was in the twenty-sixth year of the 21st century, but it was indeed a Thursday, the same day of the week on which—541 years later, or 28,228 weeks later—it has been commemorated in 2026.

As always, the route ended at the Cruz del Humilladero, the same place where the alcaide Mohammad Abuneza handed over the keys of Marbella to Ferdinand II of Aragon, and where the Catholic King humbled himself before the Almighty in gratitude for a victory that did not require bloodshed in the face of the unstoppable advance of the Castilian troops, who just 22 days earlier (on May 20) had taken Ronda. Ferdinand was not accompanied by Isabel because the Queen was in Córdoba taking care of logistics in the fight against the Nazari Kingdom of Granada and her pregnancy with Catherine of Aragon, who exactly 24 years later (on Saint Barnabas Day 1509) would become the wife of Henry VIII, and a few days later (on June 24) the Queen of England.

Isabella the Catholic was not present at the taking of Marbella because she was pregnant with who on Saint Barnabas Day 1509 would become the Queen Consort of England.

The procession ended where it had to, but this time it did not start where it usually does, because the starting point of this procession was not the town hall that the corregidor Juan de Pisa had ordered to be built almost a century after the reconquest of Marbella (in 1568) due to the construction work that will keep the building closed at least until August, but on Salinas Street, the headquarters of the Festivities delegation.

Modernization closed the doors of the historic municipal building on the day of San Bernabé 2026, but not to the rest of the traditions. The procession included the Banner of Marbella, a replica made during the reign of Philip V of the emblem granted by the Catholic Monarchs in 1493, and was carried by Alejandro González (PP) as the youngest councilor. Regardless of what happens in the 2027 elections and who is on the electoral lists, it will be at least the penultimate time he does so, considering that by San Bernabé 2027 the next Corporation will not have been constituted. Alongside the councilman were the rest of the authorities, with the mayor of Marbella, Ángeles Muñoz, at the forefront.

The orthopedic surgeon and athlete Ana María Cerván de la Haba received the title of Honorary Marbellera in her neighborhood.

The procession, led by the Municipal Band of Music of Marbella and with members of the Brotherhood of Pilgrims of San Bernabé, moved to the church of La Encarnación, the place that probably occupied a mosque and was sanctified and placed under the advocacy of this Mystery especially venerated by the Catholic Monarchs. Canonically erected in 1505, 20 years after the taking of Marbella, the current parish priest, José Antonio Sánchez Herrera, joined the procession at the church.

"A wonderful place"

The route continued through the streets Caridad and Misericordia to reach Plaza Altamirano, heading to Puente Málaga, where the Cavalry Squadron of the Local Police awaited in their gala uniform, to take the road to Calle Málaga until reaching the Cruz del Humilladero. At this historic site, someone who began to grow up in these streets almost 500 years after the taking of Marbella, Ana María Cerván de la Haba, an orthopedic surgeon and three-time winner of the 101 Kilometers of La Legión in Ronda, received the title of Marbella de Honor, awarded by the Huerto Porral Neighborhood Association. "It is something very special to receive it on Calle Málaga, my neighborhood, with the people who are part of my life, of my memories," Cerván assured, who shared the recognition with her "family, neighbors, and patients, who make this neighborhood a wonderful place."

After the event of the Huerto Porral Neighborhood Association, the procession returned to the church of the Incarnation, where the solemn mass in honor of San Bernabé was celebrated and the subsequent procession of the Patron and Perpetual Mayor of Marbella with which a intense and emotional morning culminated, in which, 28,228 weeks later, Marbella remembered again the day when it became part of what is today Spain.

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