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On his trip to Jaén, Federico García Lorca stayed at the house of Don Manuel Montero Sola on Carrera de Jesús Street. The building consists of three floors with a lateral façade of exposed stone, while on the main façade there are two central balconies flanked by two viewpoints with bars and a noble coat of arms on one side. The Aqueduct of Carmen was in its back gardens.
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On November 2, 1925, García Lorca dated a postcard with the image of the Aqueduct of Carmen and the Senda de los Huertos, very close to the address he uses as his residence, on Carrera de Jesús Street. In this postcard, addressed to his friend Melchor Fernández Almagro, who lived in Madrid, he recommends his visit to Jaén: “I’m sure you would find the character of this landscape magnificent.”
Senda de los Huertos was one of the city’s scenic heritages until it was urbanized, in the years sixties of the 20th century. This area, steeped in history (Roman and Muslim remains have been found), constituted a landscape of orchards distributed in terraces and terraced gardens of the courtyards of the houses upon which the towers of the Cathedral magnificently stood out, and conferred to the Path its hallmark. Next to these orchards was the ancient Aqueduct of Carmen, of Roman origin, with sixteen semicircular arches built in stone and brick that supported the canal. The Aqueduct was eliminated by demolition in 1976 and nothing of it is preserved today.
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The above is not the only postcard in which Lorca refers to Jaén. In a postcard dated in Granada on November 7, 1925, once he had returned from his trip to Jaén and also addressed to his friend Melchor Fernández Almagro, the poet makes reference to various places and icons from Granada. Lorca exchanges the texts on the postcard with his friends and in it he reviews such identifying landmarks of Jaén as the Cathedral, the Plaza de Santa María or the relics of the Holy Face. Below is part of the text of the aforementioned postcard:
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“Mac Donald continues his downhill slope of Grenadian disappointments. On the other hand, he has discovered the beauty of Jaén in pleasant company, with its graceful cathedral, open by hundreds of balconies to the streets and the square, crowned with apostles and prophets and guardian of the Holy Face, which we adore most solemnly. You can make the trip to kiss the glass where the Byzantine face of Christ emerges, oily and full of sweet intimacy among the old emeralds and rubies of the old Catholic frame. Wrapped, moreover, in the silky anointing of the liturgy. Granada no longer exists. Granada is possession, Jaén is unity.
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On November 24, 1925, Federico García Lorca dated another collective postcard, from a second trip of the poet after the one that occurred at the beginning of November and showing his interest in the city, which left him a pleasant memory. In this new visit, where Lorca acted as Guide, he was accompanied by José Segura Soriano, Alfonso García Valdecasas, Miguel Pizarro Zambrano and Adelina Bello.
From this brave city where I came by car, your friends hug you and greet you. I look forward to your letter. Tell me what you think of the gentleman Paquito. Goodbye. Frederick. This new postcard has the image of the old Arab minaret of the Church of the Magdalena (a primitive mosque in the city, converted to church after the Christian conquest), located in the neighborhood of the same name.